Today was an exciting day because we it was the first day of actual face to face interaction with kids. We headed out after breakfast and drove about 20 minutes on our bus driven by the Monchy (el gordo y guapo) to a small retired donkey barn turned school and church. Since it was our first time to do our program and run our stations, it was a little rough, but really overall it went amazingly well. We talked about being different parts but one body and then had stations of crafts, games, and songs & memory verse.
One of the things that can really irritate me about missions is when it seems like people try to push their culture on other people. Through our interpreters we try very hard to share the message in language that makes sense in their world and that is useful for them in their everyday lives. Our hope is that we are sharing culture and love with each other and learning from each other. Teaching kids to use what they know about God to reach out and love their neighbors and family is really fun topic to share. I’m so thankful for our interpreters and their willingness to correct us and help us to forge our message into their world and their language.
In my picture of the day you can see the church/school in the background as well as David and Julia from our missions team. This was taken as we were running around with our props with body parts on them discussing how our body parts work together and don’t work as well with out one another. Also pictured is one of the kids that touched my heart. She’s wearing the lime green shirt. Her name is Crismalli, and I met her last year and we had our picture taken because we shared time working on crafts together. It was so exciting to see her again and show her the picture that i took last year.
All in all the day was really great and the weather was very kind to us. It was overcast most the day, but it didn’t ever rain when we were having fun with the kids. So far I’m really enjoying working with our team and loving doing magic for the kids and even more exciting at times for the parents and adults. 🙂 Tomorrow, we’re off to a school/orphanage. Last year it was a really wonderful time, looking forward to what the day will bring.
Izzy Rodriguez 
The little one in the pink shirt is the cutest!
it really touched me in my gut when you said “what irritates you the most w/ missions…” this is why you need to be there doing what you are doing and why you need to be my friend! praying for you all!
Hey Izzy. What country is that?? I’ve been wanting to go on mission trips for a long time. Maybe you could give some pointers on how to get started. : )