Day 5 Thursday June 12, 2008

We wake up this morning excited to ride horses!!! Off we go. First we pick up the pastor because he knows where Peter’s land is at. We drive there and start picking mangos off the trees. Whoo. It was kind of scary because the mangos would fall out of nowhere and almost hit us. Then we got to ride horses. There were only two horses so we took turns. These two men just walked us around and back, then the more experienced riders, Elizabeth Anderson, Kaelin and Rachelle rode the horses by themselves. Meanwhile, swimming time!!! There was a small but big enough pool for us. They are so awesome because they cleaned he pool and put in new water just for us. It was so nice and relaxing. The water was kind of green but super nice. It was just green due to the chlorine. It was getting late so we had to leave. Peter said that we could return on Saturday and relax the whole day instead of just half the day – we still had VBS and church. Man, I have got to say that an experience I will never forget and forever miss is drying off while standing in the back of the truck with your arms open wide and screaming at the top of your lungs while the truck is going full speed. The bad part was that my bandana flew off because we were going so fast. L But it’s okay. It was only 98 cents at Wal-Mart. On the way back to the house, we stopped by a school supply store to get supplies for the carnival on Friday. That took forever. Only 4 people went so the rest of us were outside in the back of the truck waiting. Luckily Hermano Jorge parked in the shade. Meanwhile, we probably got about 20 honks in 45 minutes. They don’t honk at us because we’re super babes, mainly because we’re a whole truck full of girls and we’re foreigners. So that was a fun experience because I know I have never been honked at before. After the supplies, we hurried home and threw skirts on. We had to wear skirts every time we were doing anything with the church or just ministering. This is a religious/cultural thing. We ate lunch which was once again amazing. There was beef stew and something similar to laap. It kind of tasted like the stuff they have in the burritos at the burrito stand. It was good. Man people didn’t like it so I got some extra. I was very proud of myself because I’m usually a picky eater and I don’t finish all my food. However, here I actually liked the food and I’m eating all of it. Yay me. Now, it was off to Champas for day two of VBS. This time we were supposed to start at 2:00. We arrived at 2:05 but not many people were there and the pastor hadn’t set up the sound system either. We only waited about 5 min before they came. Since worship was kind of awkward yesterday, the ladies from the church lead worship instead. They even had a CD with songs that they sang along with. We all had a blast singing the songs because of the motions. We also sang a duck one. Quack quack quack quack quack. Next was the memory verse!!! Joshua 1:9. Then another animal story of Noah’s ark. Then we had game time. We did the over and under game with sponges and buckers of water. Instead of going under we just went over: it was simpler. Craft time. We colored arks and put some random stickers on it. We each had our own groups too. After handing out snacks, we headed home for church again. Earlier Bianca had explained to us that many of the people in her church have never prayed quietly like we do. Therefore, they weren’t convinced that we were praying for them. They expected us to actually go up to each person and lay our hands upon them and pray loudly. I knew tonight would be a totally different experience for all of us. Another thing that was different for us was that when they prayed, they not only cried hard and loud, but they would also fall. They would just fall back and sob and sob and sob. Thinking about all of this I thought of how much of a blessing it would be to have Monica here. She is such a prayer warrior and has more experience in this stuff that I do. I started to pray over this man and I just started balling. I started to pray for God to rain down his love upon us and to hold our hands and wrap us in his arms of love. Moving on I saw Kaelin down on her knees praying for a boy who had fallen. She too was cryng. Elizabeth, Melissa and Ashley were on stage playing worship. Most of the people who went up front to pray had gone back. When Melissa started singing, all of us girls raised our voices and it was one of the most beautiful things ever. When we got home Ashley tripped and knocked over a plate that was high. The plate fell on her toe and gave her a deep cut. We ate dinner around 9:00 and then prepared stuff for the carnival tomorrow. While working on the stuff, we watched Miss Congeniality then fell asleep because we were so exhausted.