Have you ever been a part of a Vacation Bible School? If you have, you know how fun and excited the kids can get. Whether it is a crowd of 5 or 50, kids have a great time at Bible School. Being a part of a mission team Bible School is an experience that changes your life. Picture yourself surrounded by those 50 kids, none of whom speak your language, some of whom cannot read or write their names, even in their own language, and many of whom have never been fortunate enough to experience the joy of children's worship. Now change that 50 to 300. Now we are talking Mission VBS.
I think that there are folks who do not see how hard putting together a VBS is, either in our home churches or abroad. We come to Guatemala knowing that our resources here are limited: if you don't pack it and bring it along, you may as well forget trying to find it here. A tool as simple as a hole punch in unheard of. So we pack as much as we can, try to think ahead about what we may need (duct tape, masking tape, scissiors, paper, everything!) and pray for the best.
This year we were so lucky to be able to use a beautiful little church in the middle of the village. That means protection from the rain, and a safe place to store a few supplies. It also means pews for the children to sit on! Those pews work great for crafts each day, as the children kneel and use the pew as the flat writing surface. You never know how many kids are going to come, and which children can come once, twice, or all week. We usually start with just a handful of kids about an hour before start time. They just come into the church and sit quietly, waiting for the action to begin. By start time, we have around 50, and they just keep on coming. Sergio (one of our drivers) cruises the village in our vans for VBS shuttle service. For those of you who need to know, you can fit about 30 Guatemalan kids in a 12 passenger van! By the end of it all, we average well over 200 kids, and somedays, 300.
At this point, you should know the size of this church is tiny. I mean tiny. If you can imagine a little church, not even 1/4 the size of a small American church, then load it up with about 300 kids, 14 Mission volunteers, and about 20 Guatemala moms who either came to help us, or out of curiousity, then you are getting close to knowing and understanding how awesome this project is. One of our team helpers, a person whom had done lots of youth ministry and missions within the US is on our team. He was completely bowled over with the organized chaos of Guatelaman VBS. In all honestly, I thought he was going to ask to leave my team. He thought there were too many kids, and that we should limit our number to 100 or so. Now, if you know me at all, that is NOT an option. Who am I to turn a child away from hearing the word of God, just because it is a little crowded? Thankfully, another person on my team jumped from his chair and said, "We should be praising God for sending us 300 kids to worship with us!" Saved me from having to say the same thing.
And I guess I should factor into al of this, that I was told to prepare for between 100-150. So that's all I brought. So when 300 kids showed up, we ran out of stuff. For a little while, I felt badly about that. I wished I had planned for more, but to be honest, I would have never guessed to plan for 300. My mission leader pulled me aside and said, "Lisa, you are the only one who is upset that you ran out of stuff. They don't care. They just want to come and be with you. "
At the end of the day, the kids don't want to leave. They just sit there. Even when we all say, "Adios!" they don't quite want to leave. So they do the "stall technique." Probably 100 of them line up to tell us good-bye, and thank you, and give us each a hug. Unbelievable.
We have tried so hard to convey God's love for them, and the hope that comes through Jesus Christ to them this week.. They run up to me and say "Christ vives en me corazon." Translation: Christ lives in my heart.
And with that, my tears are preventing me from adding to this blog any further, so ... enough said.
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