When we arrived on July 4th it seemed like we had all the time in the world to accomplish what we'd planned. And then, all of a sudden, it was Friday!
Our intended work had been to construct a stairway. Instead, we had painted classrooms, hallways and the school front; we had sanded lots of tables and conducted an energetic vacation Bible school. Imagine our delight when we entered the school on Friday morning to find an iron stairway headed up to the roof! Juan and Julian had taken delivery of the stairway Thursday afternoon - following our departure. They had worked the rest of the afternoon and evening to put it in place as a surprise. And surprised we were!! Access to the roof will allow maintenance on the water cistern and drains. Some day we might help fence in the roof to make a play area for the school.
While some of the team finished the last of the painting details, others headed to the upstairs room in the church and assembled goodie bags. We had about 240 bags, all hand decorated, to fill with pencils, erasers, stickers (thanks, Sheila!), toys, pipe cleaner bumble bees, candies and cookies. Each was folded shut and stapled, ready for distribution at the end of our VBS session.
More than 200 children arrived for our final VBS session.
We sang favorite songs; we reviewed.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
He made the sun and the moon and the stars.
He made the oceans and the rivers and the dry land.
On that dry land, we created a garden with water cans and shovels.
We planted corn and watermelon, flowers and fruit and trees.
We considered the birds and insects, especially butterflies.
We gave our garden love and care as God loves and cares for us.
We colored baskets to carry the harvest.
And then, we said goodbye to the VBS class of 2015.
It seems so appropriate that the Spanish word for goodbye is adios.
A - Dios…To God
And with the grace of God, we'll see you next year!
1 comment:
Photo credits for this post go to Clifton!
Post a Comment