Dear Beloved,
It is now Monday and I realized that I had not written to you all about Children's Church. It went wonderfully! Thank you so much for all your prayers. Saturday morning we all got up and us ladies got together with Nicole to practice our "Bible Skit". Nicole wanted to share the story of Christ's birth with all the children so we decided to do it in skit form. We took it from the book of Luke chapter 2. Being the "drama mama" that I am, I put together the script and chose the characters for each part.
It appeared to me that there were 5 basic characters in the story plus Nicole as our narrator of course since she was so fluent in Espanol. The other characters included: Joseph, Mary, the Donkey, a shepherd and the angel proclaiming "news of great joy". I asked Aubrey if she could be Mary, I asked Elena if she could be Joseph, Dossie to be the angel, Me to be the shepherd and I asked Esther if she could be the donkey, to which she replied, "I'd rather not!" So Elena stepped up to the plate and said she would do it. So Esther became Joseph and Elena the donkey.
Of course, Elena did hesitate later during "dress rehearsal" once she found out she had to wear ears and a tail. She quickly recovered and got right back into it as Esther encouraged her on. There was a lot of laughing and joking as we prepared for the skit. Then we all prayed together for God to come. Then gathering up all our stuff we headed down to the big covered pavilion where all the children had gathered. We were blown away by how many children that had come. There looked to be about 60 or more and the little boys sat on one side and the little girls sat on the other side. It was so sweet!
The day before we had filled "candy bags" (60 of them) and gotten lots of colorful poster boards and ribbon so they could make a heart with the bible verse John 3:16 on it. We cut out 60 hearts and 60 pieces of ribbon and guess what…there was EXACTLY enough….there were exactly 60 children who came. Isn't God good ….all the time!!!
We began the children's church with singing the song "Cast Your Burdens Unto Jesus" in Spanish. Frank had written the words for me so I was able to teach it to the little kids who live here in the village and they then helped me teach it to the rest of the children. They loved the song and wanted to sing it over and over again. It was precious. Then Nicole prayed and after that "the drama team" ran into the kitchen to gather our props and get dressed. It is amazing what you can do with a bed sheet and head band. Instantly we became, Joseph and the shepherd. Aubrey was great as Mary riding in on Elena's back. Her "tummy" was a baby doll wrapped up in a fluffy blanket. Esther was laughing her head off at one point when I came out as the Shepherd. I chose to wear my brown skirt on my head as my head piece and in the rush to put it on I failed to notice that my skirt tag was sticking straight up on my forehead like an indian feather in the front. It looked hysterical. Dossie was a beautiful angel and read the part about "glory to God in the highest" in Spanish. She did great. We ended with us all singing the song "Allabare" with all the kids in Spanish.
I guess the kids liked it a lot. Their parents especially seemed to love it and one lady asked Nicole afterwards if we could come and perform "our play" in her village the next day around 2:00 when the town gathered together for their town meeting. Unfortunetely we were not able to do that because we already were scheduled to sing and preach at another home church service around the same time in another town. But it was still really neat to be invited there.
After the skit, Nicole asked me and Dossie if we could share with the children while she interpreted what we said. I went first and talked about how much God loved us to send His only son to the earth to live a perfect life and then take on our sins and faults so we could have eternal life. I got as "dramatic" as I could and used loud voices and lots of hand motions. The kids seemed to really listen and at one point I shared a story about something that had happened the night before with one of the young boys there. His name is Manuel and the night before he had popped a balloon right against my ear on purpose causing me to lose my hearing for a time and make my ear ring and sting inside. I was not happy and when he saw that he went to Nicole and with head bowed told her he had "gone to far" in his joking around and had hurt me. He said he felt very bad and wanted to say sorry to me. So Nicole encouraged him to do so. He came to me and repented with all his heart. His little brown eyes were so sad and he kept on checking on me the rest of the night.
I told the story at children's church because I wanted the kids to know that when Jesus comes inside of you it causes you to "know" when you have done wrong and to feel sad about it then you can say sorry for what you have done and be restored to God again. Nicole had encouraged me earlier to give the kids what ever I could about always making the choice to obey God even when they are really, really tempted to do wrong. That is why I shared the "Manuel story". Manuel was not in the room at the time I shared because he had gotten in trouble for not listening earlier and being distracting. He repented later for that too. :)
After I shared my "dramatic interlude" Dossie got up and talked about our village at Rose Creek and told the kids about our kids. She told the older kids about our older kids and how the choices they make affects the younger kids under them. She told how Aubrey and Esther and Elena all were making choices to follow God and that was affecting the younger kids in our village and causing them to want to follow God more. She went on to encourage the older kids there to choose things that were "good" to be an example to the little ones. It was really good and later I noticed the older kids taking time to read and help the little ones there.
We did the "craft" next and gathered all 60 kids around 3 tables. Each of us ladies worked with the kids to help them weave their ribbon in and out of the hole punches in the hearts and we helped those who could not write the bible verse to write it. The kids loved doing the craft and sweetly asked if they could "keep their hearts and take them home". You should have seen the thrilled look in their eyes when we said "Yes!" They danced about and gathered the heart to their heart. It will very probably be the only little thing they have hanging on their walls.
Next we passed out bowls of hot beans, soy and piping hot homemade corn tortillas. It was cold so the kids gobbled the hot food right up and were finished in no time. The mamas all ate too and it was a very cozy delightful time.
After that came my favorite part……kid's games. I placed 5 bricks on the ground evenly spaced and blew my whistle calling out, "Ben! Ben!" (Come , Come) All the kids came a running. They gathered in one huge group in the middle as their moms sat down in chairs on the side to watch "the crazy gringo lady" do her thing.
I put the kids behind each brick from littlest to biggest in 5 lines, 9 kids per line. ( the older kids did not want to play). Then taking 5 balloons that I had managed to hide from all the kids, I gave each kid at the front of the line a balloon and demonstrated the "balloon hop" game where they place a balloon between their knees and hopped across the dirt floor to the long stick about 30 feet away. Then I said, ready….uno, dos, tres…..then I blew that whistle and off they went. It was hilarious. What made it really "fun" was watching the little girls do the balloon hop in their skirts…they kept loosing the balloon in their skirts. The moms laughed and laughed and laughed. They were the most fun to watch! Next we played the "balloon race" hopping backwards. Then we took the balloons and played "over the top" handing the balloons over their heads till the first was last and the last was first. Miraculously only one of the balloons popped after all that use (another answer to prayer).
At the end the kids broke up into 2 long lines to "hit the 2 pinyatas" hanging from the roof rafters. That was a blast. After about 12 kids that pinnate looked like one big tore up mess and then with "a little help from Nicole" out came the candy all over the ground and the kids shouted with glee and trampled one another to get to it. Out they came with their treasures in their hands smiling triumphantly!
Now it was time to say good bye to the kids and their parents. As they shook our hands they expressed great thankfulness and joy over coming. We gave each of the kids the little "candy bags" and hugged and kissed them good-bye. One little boy came right up to me and gave me his very best and favorite "candy" out of his bag. It was a huge marshmallow, pink and white. I shook my head no at first indicating for him to keep it…but then recovered and said , Muchos gracious!" You see in Mexico it is very impolite to refuse anything given to you. He smiled really big and nodded "your welcome" (denada) He was so sweet. He looked to be around 11 or 12 years old.
Many moms came up and hugged us all really hard and thanked us over and over again. The whole day was simply heavenly! Thank you for all your prayers. It really could not have gone any better!
I will close for now as I need to teach Sed guitar.
I love you and miss you. Please text often as you can!
Love,
Mala
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