Day I dont know anymore

This morning we got to sleep in for a bit. We all rejoiced. Well all the boys did apparently the girls stayed up even later than usual and didn’t get to sleep in but got less sleep than normal. Silly girls. After a quick breakfast we got right to work assembling our materials to fun our festival games for the children. They do not call them carnivals here because in Latin culture it represents Carnival (the big festival in Rio) also its because the word Carne is meat and so both of those carry a negative connotation. So it was a festival. We had some problems but overall it was a fun time. The cross bow we made for Blaine’s game broke but they found him some squirt guns that worked. Kendra was a trooper and took sponge after sponge in the face as all these children should apparently be on professional baseball teams. The last thing that was tough about the festival was that Lisa’s game kept blowing away on her. The wind would blow and grab her balloons from the piece of Styrofoam that they were attached to and blow all over the church property.

Over all it was a lot of fun even with the couple of games that needed tweaking and replacement parts. Lisa did a dart throw at balloons, Kendra hid behind plywood with her face sticking out for a sponge target, My game made them swing a tennis ball from their head to knock over cups, John had a putting game, Jacob had a ball balloon pop, Taya had a coloring station and every child basically gave her their picture when it was done. Shannon painted faces, Jocelyne had them bounce a ball into cups with points on them, Blaine aka Hulio had his cross bow and targets, Christine had a Frisbee golf station set up, Anneliese did ring toss and Alexis was a floater that helped in every station as we needed her. The children loved all the games and we had more the enough prizes for everyone which was awesome because I didn’t think we would. I ordered one hundred prizes for each station and we had over one hundred children every day at VBS. But somehow God provided and every child left happy with prizes.

After the festival we went inside and the children sang songs and recited memory verses to their parents. Then we signed shirts and had the children sign ours. It was a fun time and while we were glad that the children’s club was done because we needed some sleep and rest, we were still sad that all the children we had come to know and love even through a language barrier had to go and we wouldn't see them again. Those children definitely wormed their way into our hearts. Which is appropriate considering the theme of the club was Mucho de Bichos which means big bugs.

After cleaning up club we went to visit the Virgin of Guadalupe. There was steps up the side of the mountain. I was expecting to see a statue but it isn’t a statue at all it is a painting on the side of the mountain (large hill). There were little altars on the hill with a statuette of the Virgin inside. There were hollows carved into the hill where people had made shrines. People had left plaques all over thanking the Virgin for different things like healing a broken arm of a safe delivery for a baby. At the top in front of the painting there are kneeling benches for people to pray. It was interesting and eye opening. The reason we learned that they pray to the Virgin is because she is nice and caring as the mother of God but God himself is the big mean king and so they do not talk to him directly but ask the Virgin to intercede for them. We were respectful as we walked up took some pictures and walked down.

After the Virgin we got dropped off downtown and split into three groups for the great race. We had to get certain photos, find out certain things about the culture and city and buy certain items for the Children’s home that we visited earlier in the week.  Our Spanish speakers were only allowed to make sure we didn’t die. We had to find English speakers and locate the stores on our own. We got to take in quite a bit of the culture and enjoyed the market. Something funny that happened while we were in a store like pharmasave. My group consisting of Annelise, Jacob and Rene were asking a store employee to translate our page of photos for us. As we were waiting we looked around and saw other groups in the store as well. Then the employee’s walkie talkie went off and in Spanish it said. “We have a bunch of Canadians that don’t speak any Spanish in the store.” The little group of employees helping us all burst out laughing and once Rene translated for us, we also though it was pretty funny. We thanked him and then continued. After all our shopping we had to catch the Mexican bus system back to our rendezvous point for the church van to pick us up. It was a lot of fun. The Mexican driver had mad skill. He could fit his bus between something with an inch on each side of the bus.

When we arrived back at the church we had a Mexican fiesta night. We had flautas, and something that I forget the name of but was like a giant Mexican perogie. They were delicious we also had salsa verde, hot sauce, and a cactus salsa which was soooooo good. Then we shopped at a Mexican market they set up for us and lastly they sung worship songs in Spanish to us. They build in intensity and by the end we were all dancing. It was a huge party and so much fun. Then we went to sleep.

Good Night World.