Homeschool Coffee Break: Honduras - Morning VBS {Part Three}

One of the main jobs our team had planned for in La Esperanza was leading a Vacation Bible School. We had planned to lead a VBS Monday through Thursday morning that would be mostly in English. Southwest School, which many of the church students attend, teaches English and French, so almost all those students would understand English, making our job much easier.

We got up early on Monday morning, and had breakfast at 6:30am. It wasn't hard to get up since we'd gone to bed so early the night before! I noticed the true quiet of the area - oh there were certainly noises, but they were mostly dogs and chickens, and children walking to school. (The local school had already started, but Southwest would not open for another week) Occasionally there were trucks or buses going by one of the nearby roads, but not often, and only during the day as far as I could tell. Following breakfast, we got prepared for VBS, which included mopping one of the Sunday School rooms. While we were waiting for kids to arrive, Harrison and Eric entertained us with a little music:

They sang two of their favorites - I Saw the Light and I'll Fly Away - over and over...

The first day of VBS was a disappointment in terms of numbers, as we had only TWO children. But on the other hand, they had fun and were a delight to work with. They got lots of attention!!

We let our teens play along and do coloring sheets with the kids.

Silly boys. I told Harrison I wanted his picture to take home and hang on my fridge, but I think he gave it to our VBS director instead. LOL Here's the whole class coloring, seven American teens, and two little Honduran girls:

Here's the class coloring later in the week:

A couple of our ladies accompanied Kathy when she took the girls home, and they made some personal calls, so on Tuesday we had 22 kids, and around 28 on Wednesday and Thursday. We also discussed some further plans over lunch, and decided we would do a one-day VBS for the local school and neighborhood kids on Thursday afternoon. More about that later!

On Tuesday morning it was so good to see our numbers increase from two to twenty-two! The children were a real delight. I was working with the Grade 3 and 4 class, and leading the singing, and Harrison was leading at the sports station. When it was time to take the kids back to town after VBS, most of the "girls" from our team went along on the bus. We sang VBS songs all the way into town - they couldn't get enough of a couple of the songs we taught them, and they taught us some fun songs that we wanted to remember as well.

On Wednesday, Harrison asked for some help from Eric in doing the sports and games - Eric had been hleping out with the puppet show we used for the lesson, and then scooting out to help Harrison in between, but Harrison really wanted Eric's help the whole time. So I volunteered to take Eric's place in the puppet show, which turned out to be lots of fun. something very interesting that happened on Wednesday was that one of the youngest girls (who spoke very little English) was fascinated by our hair. She came and stroked Lauren's hair and my own and declared it "bonita" I didn't think my hair was particularly "bonita" at all - I hadn't "done" anything with it! But that was so very sweet.

Here's the Grade 3 and 4 class personalizing frisbees.

Thursday was the last day for morning VBS so we made sure to get some group pictures.

(Grade 1 and 2 class)

(Grade 3 and 4 class - and that's me in the white t-shirt)

And a couple with everyone. The banner is the name of the church - Mas Que Vencedores (More Than Conquerors) - isn't that a great name for a church? I thought so.

One of the crafts the kids did was to draw and color a friendship quilt block. Each of us that worked with VBS made one too, and Karen and I spent some time on Thursday and Friday stitching it together. We didn't have much time to get it done, because we wanted to present it to Bob and Kathy on Saturday morning. Here we all are with the finished product: