Team 1
Today was our first day of doing work as each of the teams headed out to their respective schools to work on construction and to run a VBS program for the kids. My team headed over to Apocalipso which is a preschool to grade 7 school and I had a lot more fun than I was expecting. During the van ride there, we as a team prayed for success and for God to guide us through the day. When we arrived, we placed our bags down and had a school tour where we walked into many of the classrooms and saw the surprise on the face of many of the kids and they promptly wished us a good morning and a welcome to their school. The tour really made me realize how lucky I am to have so many resources at my fingertips as many of the facilities would be deemed as dirty or lackluster by Canadian standards such as the washrooms not having running water. However, for the students, this is viewed as one of the better more high end schools as they are an independent private Christian school which really opened my eyes. After the tour it was recess for the kids and they were free to come out and play and we were told to go around and interact and form bonds with the kids. Many of the students came and swarmed me and the other team members asking us all about where we come from and how old we were. I was able to bond with quite a few kids in that short time over topics like who their favourite soccer player is or by arm wrestling many of them by their request. Once recess ended we headed over to the construction area to help plaster walls for a new classroom that will be upstairs. The job consisted of multiple parts so we divided up into groups that would sift the dirt to make new plaster, carry buckets up and down stairs, clear and clean the area, plaster the walls, and polish the plaster. Overall, I was able to learn a bit about what the daily routine of the workers look like despite them being able to plaster and polish more of the wall in 30 seconds than our entire team’s could through the day. It gave me a lot of respect for the workers as not only were they able to do such tiring work in 30 degree weather, but they were also able to do it super efficiently with practically no breaks. Afterwards was lunch break for our team where we got to eat a stew that had beef, chicken, potatoes, and plantains and many of us enjoyed it a lot. It was then the kids’ lunch break as well and we headed out to continue bonding with the kids. I was able to play basketball, jump rope, dominoes, and did more arm wrestling with the kids and got many photos with them to remember the connections I made. We then moved into our VBS portion where we were able to lead the kids in worship, games, activities, and through Bible stories and many of the kids seemed to have a lot of fun. The kids remained energetic throughout and hopefully were able to learn something new today about the Lord. On our way back we stopped by for some mangoes and soda as we all needed a snack to recharge from the long day. Overall, today taught me to be grateful for what I have and to also be thankful for the opportunities that I am given because not everyone gets the same privileges. I also learned that kids are kids no matter the place and I was really happy to see the energy and silliness that flowed from them just like kids in Canada which showed me God’s love for children spans across all borders.
Written by Jonathan Moi
Team 2
Today was a very long, but fulfilling day. To start off the day we went out and got to play basketball with some of the older kids as it was their recess. Then we got a tour of the school, and something I saw that was really cute and wholesome was that one of the preschool classes was celebrating a little girls 4th birthday. After the tour we took turns filling buckets with concrete and taking them up the stairs to help pave a floor, while the rest of us spent time in different classes speaking english with the students. After that I found a couple kids that were really into baseball, so we played stickball with a broomstick and bottle caps. I found it so cool how they were able to be so resourceful and how they were able to have fun with their limited resources. After that we ran our vbs camp and it was really cool to see how eager all these high school students were to worship, as a lot of them sung super loud and were just so engaged. For the rest of the camp we ran different games and activities for the elementary students, and all the high schoolers were really helpful at giving directions and helping run the stations. We started a bit late, so our camp ran later than school for the high schoolers, yet a lot of them were so eager to help that they phoned home to let their parents know they were staying back to help, which I thought really displayed the servant attitude we’re encouraged to live out as Christians. More and more throughout this trip I’m amazed at the strength of these people’s faiths, even with not a lot. It’s also just such a cool thing to see how powerful the love of Christ is, that even though we may not speak the same language, we are connected through Christ’s love.
Written by Brodie Tse
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