pescando en la Biblia

This is Laura and Stephanie writing to inform our parents, families, and all who read this blog about the past three days of VBS.

Our day usually begins about 10:30 when kids start arriving at the church to sign in. Grant and other brothers from Ixtlan go out with vans and trucks to pick up kids that live farther away. Stephanie has attempted to help on the attendance table yesterday and today and is slowly learning how to spell these names. Each child has about four names and trying to understand them is virtually impossible. They sign in and recite their memory verses and then get ready to sing at 11:00. The younger kids are in the church, and the older kids are in the school.

They fit a lot of kids in this truck. One time they fit over a hundred!

Aleluia! The little kids singing at church

Attendance table (before the big rush).

After singing, the kids split up into their classes by age group and gender. The four of us are teachers' helpers. Laura has 6-7 year old girls, Stephanie and Tonya have 8-9 year old girls, and Rebekah has 6-7 year old boys. Hannah and Grant are both teachers.

Issa, Tonya, and Stephanie's class.

Issa giving the lesson.

Laura's class working on their crafts.

Hannah/Lupita's class of 12+ year old girls.

The theme this year is "Pescando en la Biblia"- Fishing in the Bible- so each class starts with a Bible story that usually has to do with fish or fishing. After the lesson, the children work on activities in their books until it is time to leave. As they leave each one gets their memory verse, a cookie, and a piece of candy. The kids are very eager to hear the stories, and numbers increase daily!

Rebekah was proud of herself for utilizing every word of her
Spanish vocabulary to teach these boys "Red Rover." 

Other than VBS, we had a fairly uneventful Monday night. Tuesday evening was Bible Study here at the guest house. Afterwards, we played another extensive game of volleyball before going to the taco stand for tacos. We brought them back to the house and ate them with Lalo and Silvia and their three children (a family from church). Also eating with us were three teenagers from Barra Vieja that came to help with VBS this week. They arrived on Saturday, and on Sunday night we heard that Miriam, one of the three, had started repenting! Great news to start the week!

We spent a large portion of our volleyball game retrieving the volleyball - either climbing
on the garage or getting it out of the goat pen next to us.

The taco stand.

Tacos for dinner with Lalo's family and the Barra Vieja kids.

This pretty much sums up the past three days! Below are some other random pictures.

They decided that Monday would be the perfect day to start pouring the roof of
 the school addition while 200 kids showed  up for their first day of VBS. 

It is not unusual to get a wind shield wash while waiting at a stoplight!

Rainy days in Ixtlan!