Saturday

This morning we headed to Dino Pan for breakfast. A great place to go close by with a variety of food! After breakfast, we took the bus to the church. One group went to the "sports" field for the morning, another group continued to work on the wall in Juvenal's office. A few stayed to practice a new skit based on the Ragman drama. We incorporated two of the boys (Johan and Jorlian) into the skit along with Alyssa and Rachel. They learned it so fast! The church has a very talented group of teenagers who perform drama and dance routines. Stephanie, Alyssa, Rachel, and Sarah all stay in the "shaded" pavillion and very amusingly taught English (slang and proper) to the teenage boys! It was SO hot and dusty and windy! Around noon, we took the long walk back to the church. The ladies prepared a great meal of carne, fried plantains, and rice. The afternoon was spent playing with the children and dancing around. It was pretty neat because our girls taught them the Chicken Dance, the Cha Cha Slide, Cotton Eyed Joe, Hokey Pokey THEN the boys of the church taught them a choreographed dance from their dance group, DRACMA. Although it was very hot for us, it was so much fun! Around 4:00pm, we all gathered outside of the church to prepare for our march through the neighborhood. Rosmery gave everyone instructions on what we were doing. Banners were carried by the children, Samuel had a banner on his car, and we were all given salvation bookmarks in Spanish as well as prayer tracts in Spanish to hand out to those we passed by. We walked about a mile or so through the neighborhood. Lots of people came out of their houses to see what we were doing. It was a great experience to see the young children feel comfortable with going to people and giving them the prayer tracts. After the march we gathered back at the church. All the music equipment and speakers were set up outside. Zoraida introduced the children that would perform outside the church and we enjoyed several performances. Then, the new skit called Ragman was performed - after Rosmery told the story of the skit in Spanish. Alejandro gave a brief message and then we prayed with EVERYONE holding hands in a circle. It was very dark by the time we were done. An interesting contrast to our culture, is that here there are no time limits to the task. There wasn't really a starting and stopping time for our activities outside. The children are just so happy to have us here and it is hard to leave every evening. One little girl had to be pried away from Stephanie crying.


We all went to Tropi Pollo, a restaurant where we had chicken, coleslaw and yucca, a food somewhat like potatoes. We then made our way back to the hotel, where there was a fantastic devotional by Kyle, Shaun, and Joseph. The boys confidently declared their planned devotion as the best one yet! Go Room 236!