Serving with Love and Laughter

Today, Monday, right after breakfast, our team headed to La Provenier Kinder. All the children gathered outside while we told the story of Jesus falling asleep on the boat while the disciples were afraid when a sudden storm appeared.  I told the story with an interpreter while our team acted out the story. The disciples and Jesus were dressed in Biblical times, and we made the story come alive with interaction from the kids (wind blowing, hand made rain sticks for the rain, and a water bottle for water coming into the boat). The children were very attentive and engaged during the Bible time. Our main focus was, "Jesus gives us peace." There was a time for kids to share things that made them scared, sad, or afraid. We shared with them that Jesus gives us peace in any circumstances. After the story, the children broke into four groups, and we rotated with a craft, color sheet, playdough, and game time (parachute etc.) We also help serve the children lunch before they left to go home. It was a very enjoyable time. I loved working with the craft group because the children all wanted to show me their excellent work. Thankfully, I was able to tell them in Spanish what a good job they had done.

Once we finished at the kindergarten, we headed back to the ranch for lunch. As soon as lunch was over, we went straight to Tranquilidad Foundation to continue working on the beautiful tables that Stephen and Daniel had started. We only had to build one more but needed to add another coat of shellac to the finished tables.  Some of us played with the children in the home and also on the new playground complete with swings, slide set, movable wooden letters, and a tire tower. The playground looks so good, and we are truly grateful our team was able to be a part of something that the children there will enjoy as well as the children that will be coming to Tranquilidad.

Dinner was yummy as always. We have three meals a day. The ladies in the kitchen take very good care of us and are excellent cooks. We are so grateful for Gloria, Leti, and Sandra. They are amazing, kind, and so loving to all of us.

Roxanne, our missionary decided to play a card game with us after dinner. She had never played before so we decided to teach her how to play Nertz.  All I can say is that we all laughed so hard that we almost....well, you know. It's hard to explain what happened but you can catch a glimpse of a video on Facebook with all of us dying with laughter. After a while, we continued to play but started speaking with an English accent. Proverbs tells us, "A cheerful heart is good medicine." I can tell you that all of us at that table got a wonderful dose of it.

-Shanda



The mission team from CRA just before Stephen left early to return to the US and work responsibilities.



 Jesus and his disciples.





So much fun to play with these precious children!