We had just a few hours between getting off the bus--which had taken us from the airport in Holguin to Santiago de Cuba--and the first night of the evangelistic series. Fortunately, our first drama, supporting the sermon about salvation, is one that students know well, with lots of repetitive lines. It replays the scene of Jesus sleeping in the boat during the storm three times, with Jesus asking for money and good works in exchange for their rescue, and then finally saving the disciples just because of His love and their need. We thank God that Jesus doesn´t take bribes, because we are counting on His help here, too!
Our VBS plan for Day 1 was pretty simple, as well, which was a good thing, as we only had a few minutes to meet with the local church´s children´s ministry team before the program began. We expected a couple dozen kids for the first night, but we had about 65! I had presumed that VBS would be for kids age 5-12, as it was in Holguin two years ago, but we had toddlers to 15-year-olds for the first night. We are working with the church's children's ministry folks to take care of the younger ones and encouraging the teens to attend the evangelistic series.
Dr. Ortiz introduced us to Jaciel, a 5th grade teacher/choir director this afternoon. He helped us get the meeting started with singing, with Gam and Jacob playing guitar and uke (which had been donated by PAA´s recording studio). Josh and I continued our tradition from our 2017 trip of pulling a magic trick out of his backpack that illustrated the day's lesson. Tonight we introduced the topic of God's faithful promises and the rainbow. The trick was having a child put a handful of letters and a shoelace into a bag and then pull out the letters now hanging from the shoelace and spelling out "arco iris" (rainbow). After Damaris told the Bible story, we raced downstairs to do the skit for the main church service and then down to the basement, where another church group is meeting (their building is too small to accommodate everyone), to do the skit one more time.
Then it was back to VBS, where the local leaders had just passed out the workbooks and gotten kids names on them. That took all the time we had for the lesson, so we had to collect them again and get working on the craft. Kids were clambering for glue and it was a bit chaotic, but we got our rainbows made and children left happy.
Our VBS plan for Day 1 was pretty simple, as well, which was a good thing, as we only had a few minutes to meet with the local church´s children´s ministry team before the program began. We expected a couple dozen kids for the first night, but we had about 65! I had presumed that VBS would be for kids age 5-12, as it was in Holguin two years ago, but we had toddlers to 15-year-olds for the first night. We are working with the church's children's ministry folks to take care of the younger ones and encouraging the teens to attend the evangelistic series.
Dr. Ortiz introduced us to Jaciel, a 5th grade teacher/choir director this afternoon. He helped us get the meeting started with singing, with Gam and Jacob playing guitar and uke (which had been donated by PAA´s recording studio). Josh and I continued our tradition from our 2017 trip of pulling a magic trick out of his backpack that illustrated the day's lesson. Tonight we introduced the topic of God's faithful promises and the rainbow. The trick was having a child put a handful of letters and a shoelace into a bag and then pull out the letters now hanging from the shoelace and spelling out "arco iris" (rainbow). After Damaris told the Bible story, we raced downstairs to do the skit for the main church service and then down to the basement, where another church group is meeting (their building is too small to accommodate everyone), to do the skit one more time.
Then it was back to VBS, where the local leaders had just passed out the workbooks and gotten kids names on them. That took all the time we had for the lesson, so we had to collect them again and get working on the craft. Kids were clambering for glue and it was a bit chaotic, but we got our rainbows made and children left happy.