Hey Brookwood!
Happy Tuesday blog!! Today we started with day 2 of Holiday Club in Capricorn! We began our day with a wonderful breakfast of omelettes (and much more) made by our sweet cook Aripa. We headed out at the just lovely hour of 7:30am to head to Capricorn for the day. With the sun still not up, none of us wanted to be either, so there were plenty of bus naps on the way there.
Once we arrived at Holiday Club, we met with Nwabisa and the teen volunteers to prepare for the day with decorating and setting up our activities. Before the kids got there, we took time to pray over our time together and the kids we would encounter today.
For our Holiday Clubs, our day looks as the following:
9:00-10:30am (3-8 year olds)
11:00am-1:00pm (9-12 year olds)
1:00-2:00pm (lunch)
2:00-4:00pm (teens club)
Despite our lack of alertness (blame is on Larry for keeping us up late (Larry's note: I was happily asleep long before they were)), we were soon met with immense joy, love, and laughter from the children of the community running to greet us with hugs and high fives.
We worked today teaching the verse of Jeremiah 29:11- “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
After singing some worship songs, a few of our own performed a wonderful skit about baby Moses. We then split in groups of music, games, and crafts in the morning. My group taught a memory verse song and dance for all 4 hours of the morning (my apple watch asked me multiple times if I was working out). I can say that after so much singing, both the kids and us leaders knew the verse a little too well (I mean we even impressed THE John and Avril Thomas). The craft group consisted of making crowns with jewels while the games group played a memory verse game and then other outside games.
After the kids left, we gave many sweet goodbye hugs as kids left with smiles and hot lunches. Once they all were gone, we got to eating highly anticipated lunch as we were only thinking about food (maybe we should invest in some snacks Larry?) We ate lunch in record time, so many took our break time to rest and chat. There is truly no nap opportunities wasted if you couldn’t tell. We also played with the teen volunteers as we have been getting to know them better.
In about an hour, teens began arriving and we watched the next video in the Alpha series followed by more discussion time. Apparently some mistook the video time for nap time… @Annie Hamm
Finally, we headed back home to the Team House where we had a a much needed dinner and some delicious chocolate pudding/mousse concoction by our wonderful Aripa.
We ended the night by playing 4 people on a couch. We have learned a few things about one another today, the highlights being: Vaughn is a literal jungle gym for children, Emily is really good at dancing and has her own posse of kids (thanks to her just dance days), and Annie is really really bad at playing 4 people on a couch.
We ended our night with some very meaningful discussion about our time with the kids so far. After 2 days down and 2 more to go, we are feeling extremely fulfilled by the joy and laughter we have shared with the children we have encountered. It has truly never been so easy to love on strangers as much as these children. We ask for your prayers that we may continue with intentionality in our role as leaders and, as Nwabisa said, “be the flesh of Jesus” that could be the only form of God a kid sees today.
We are so excited to meet our new friends tomorrow and to create more relationships with those we are surrounded with!!
-Harper
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