Thursday Update

Today was sadly our last day with the kids at VBS. When we arrived at the church, the kids were doing the usual singing and dancing and smiling to music playing out loud. It doesn’t take long for a child to walk up to you and grab your hand for you to sit with them, and once you sit there are 5 more children fighting for some of your attention. If they see your phone, they will start saying “photo”. They love to get pictures of themselves or take pictures of others. It’s fun until they take your phone and you have to fight to get it back. My favorite part of VBS is when we worship. Four days into the VBS, the kids have the motions and even some English lyrics to the songs memorized. They are so much fun to dance and sing with, and all it takes to put a huge smile on their face during the song is eye contact and giving them a smile. There is a girl at the VBS who is pretty much blind and she sadly gets pushed around a lot by the others, so we all made sure we made her feel special during the songs and throughout the day. I could tell that holding her hand during the songs and dancing with her definitely made her happy. Since today was the last VBS day, we focused on presenting the gospel. The craft was a wordless book that represented the gospel using black to represent sin, red to represent Jesus’s blood on the cross, white to represent how he makes us pure, yellow to represent heaven, and green to represent our growth as Christians. The children also received bracelets that had a bead with each of those colors as a reminder of what they have learned. Today, I had the sweetest boy with me all day that was too young to participate in the VBS. He has been coming with his older brother every day and he is just adorable. I haven’t seen him smile all week until today. I was so excited when I saw him give a little smirk for the first time ever for a picture with me. As the last song for the week played, we invited all the kids to come up to the front to dance.  It was fun as always but sad because I knew it would be the last time. After we fed the kids Haitian spaghetti (noodles with ketchup and meat), it was time to leave. I of course had a hard time leaving since I get attached to kids very easily. But I hope and pray that we made a difference for some of those kids this week. Later in the day we went to the grocery store and bought some special Haitian treats and presents (if you’re lucky, maybe we bought some for you). The best part about the grocery store was getting a break from the 95 degree weather to be in some air conditioning. We are about to head back to the church to talk to the parents of the kids that came to VBS this week and we are praying for a good turn out! -Cassandra