VBS village style

Hi friends! I really don't have much time but I really needed to get these photos on here so you could see just what a day we had! We have really found that where we live now the people are so open to try and learn more about Jesus and just be more like Christ in general. It has been wonderful! We are meeting with a family again tonight as we continue to listen to stories from His word.

Anyway, there is a church of about  I would say 25 people that we are trying to help strengthen. The people in this church are just as sweet as can be. They asked us if we would help them help another church an hour and a half away do a VBS for the first time. We said we would love to help and that is how this VBS started. Now we were told this church would be in charge of everything if we could just come and maybe tell a story or two and guide them a little. I have been here long enough to know that just isn't how it goes down. So thankfully we arrived fully prepared to do the entire VBS for three hours.

We were so impressed with this small church near us because they had five adults volunteer their time (which means they didn't work) to go and help this church an hour and a half away. How many of us can say we would go without pay for 3 days in a row and drive 3 hours round trip to help a church do VBS? Well, I am one that would jump up and down and stomp my feet and say you are crazy.... usually.  However... after going today, wild horses couldn't keep me away. It was just wonderful. We had more than a 100 children come today to hear about Jesus. They colored pictures on their knees because there was no table, they played games they had never played, they all sat squished together on benches and many of them were as happy as if it were Christmas. The smallest ones played with play-doh that they had never seen before, colored in coloring books which they never get to do with more than a few pages left in them, and they had snack. Not to mention singing songs, making crafts and laughing at us! It was so fun and we are all looking forward to going back tomorrow.

These are our marathon days as we are off to story tonight and then back to VBS tomorrow and then off to our old village to sleep in our old house and attend church there tomorrow night. Then it is back to VBS again on Saturday.  Please pray for our travels and for all of the kids who are coming. Some of these kids look like they never smile. I am not putting captions on these pictures b/c I need to pack for tomorrow and plan our lessons too! Love to you all! Missy

Enjoy the pics, Greg was with the older kids so he isn't in many of them, but he was there!!

On the way there, feeling blessed?

Jerod told the story and the man beside him translated into their indigenous language.

Alex showed pictures that went with the story.

This little boy to the right here is the last known Hornets fan! ;o)

Okay, I have to make a comment here. See these seats? Someone in the states gave this church an old church van. Which was a nice gesture however they can't keep the van up. It has flat tires and no gas, etc... so... what do you do with the van? Use it for storage and the seats for the church. ;o)

Making them laugh! 

Friends

This was Annie playing with her "friends" last week. She was making the best of her day as she was bored and had no friends to play with. It reminded me of me when I was little. 

This was the next day. We found a friend named, Katrina and she came over to play for a while. I had forgotten that every time Annie has had new friends over in the past they want to try our food. They always ask for cereal. So soon after she arrived she asked for two big bowls of different kinds of cereal. It was funny. 

That same day we went to a new friend's home for lunch and this little fella didn't know what to think of this talking doll. 

He just kept staring at her. 

Then last night we showed the Jesus film to a group of 40 people. It went well and everyone was enjoying hearing the movie in their language. However, some of the kids got antsy and wanted to play. So Annie played in the dirt with some of them. One of which was this precious girl, Haley. I asked her dad afterwards if she and her sister could come play today and he said, "Sure!" So at 9:30 am they arrived and they left at 6 pm. Annie said it was a GREAT play date!! It really was great!

Here is Annie with Haley's sister Karla. 

Here they are playing house in Annie's room. God has definitely answered our prayers for Annie! He is sooo good to us!

Remember that lunch I said we went to? Here it is. Yummy! One thing about coming to a new village is you have to get used to all of their favorite foods. In our old village everyone knew what we liked and did not like and we were pretty spoiled. We never really had to eat anything we didn't like anymore. That was just for the first year of living there. Well... I guess my year has started all over. ;o) 

Here were the fish being put in the soup.

Here is the fish on my plate. I ate it too. Did I sign up for this? ;o)

This is one of my new friends, Nancy. After lunch she gave me this tortilla holder and cross-stitched napkin as a gift for coming. I was so excited, I had admired that napkin all through my fish eating! ;o)

 This is Miguel and Alicia. We have started a Bible storying group with them and are excited to see what God is going to do in their lives. Please pray for them.

Okay, I realize you will have to click on this picture to make it bigger to actually see how funny it is. This is one of those pictures I had to take b/c to us, it is just too funny. This person obviously thinks it is really important for everyone to know that this old beat up truck is a Toyota. It would be an excellent commercial for Toyota. I mean, this guy is a die hard Toyota lover! You gotta stop and laugh sometimes, here is your opportunity! Love to all! Missy

Oh Happy Day!

Well, today has been a little better than yesterday. We are still down one TV and DVD player but things could be worse! The sun has shone all day and that always puts a smile on our faces! Greg has worked in the yard today and has almost got the yard level so the lake doesn't continue to grow in our backyard! ;o) We are planning on buying some sod next week so we can hopefully see some improvement in our backyard soon.  

We had a family over for lunch today and we are slowly making friends in this area.  We are going to their home tomorrow for lunch and we are hoping this is the beginning of a very good relationship between our families. They told us there would be 2 of them coming and then they called yesterday and warned us that there would be 2 more. So I had planned on having a meal for  9 people. Then they showed up and there were 7 of them.  Luckily I have learned to make a LOT of food and we had plenty for everyone!

Our neighbor, Elena came over this morning and wanted to know if we could come and look at the damage that had been done to her pottery. She said she didn't want to move it until we had a chance to look at it. It was really horrible,  at least half of her order that she had made for someone was destroyed. I told Greg I guess I could consider that my anniversary gift. ;o) We paid her for the damage that had been done and hopefully we can make amends soon. Please pray for her. 

The boys have started taking music classes at a church nearby. This is something that was never available to us before because of where we lived.  So now we are taking advantage of things like that and the boys are really thriving. Jerod is very serious about taking guitar and Alex is really liking the drums.  They are showing a lot of progress and we are very happy for them. God is really good to us! 

Sweet little girl at church on Sunday.

They are so beautiful!

Annie is trying to make friends. 

Typical street in our village.

I loved this cross they have at the end of this street, it looked like it had been there for many years. So much history here. 

Our new drummer in the house.

This is right up his alley!

Oh man, what have we started?

Here is our serious student. He is very motivated and very excited about learning.

Nothing like free lessons!!

These were AWESOME!!! We have been trying out new restaurants and this one will be one of our favorites,  I think. It was called Paparatzzi. We think that is a cute name because in Spanish a potato is a papa and the restaurant had baked potatoes with tons of different toppings and boy were they good!! This one came with broccoli, cheese, sour cream,  salsa, tomatoes and onions.

This one had cheese, sour cream, bits of steak, bacon, tomatoes, and onion and salsa. So.... goood!!

We saw this lady at Wal-mart and then as we all left in the rain we saw her on her moped with her kids.  

Her groceries are all in that box in front of her, and both kids had drum sticks in their hands just eating away as if they weren't bothered one bit by the cold rain.

Our neighbor's house. Oh how heartsick I am over this. 

All of the pottery that got wet on the bottom was ruined. It gets wet, then cracks. This is because she was waiting for it to be dry enough to cook in the oven. However, now she has a LOT less to cook. ;o(

I told her we were praying for her and she said, "Pray for my heart because it is very sad. All those hours of work gone." 

She wanted Greg to come over and look at each one to see which ones were destroyed b/c she didn't want us to think she was taking advantage of us.

Out of all the pottery she had made all of these were ruined. So, we bought $100 worth of unusable pottery today. They will all be thrown away b/c they just crumble when you pick them up. 

The peace offering. After we had smoothed everything over with our sweet neighbor, and tried to make peace between us, I was still a little worried she was mad at us. Then she asked if I liked this kind of pottery. So of course I told her I loved it and she quickly gave me one.  Then I felt like everything was going to be okay. I plan on making her a cake tonight and taking it to her tomorrow just to show her how much we want her friendship. Please pray she is blessed. 

Thanks for reading and keeping up with us! love to all! Missy