Friday, August 19th

This has been an exciting week. The children were so eager to do all the things we had planned. Finger painting was entirely new to them and they loved it. Our animated Bible stories held their attention. Oh how they loved learning our songs and singing their songs to us. Lovely melodic voices all blended together. I'm happy to be here. - Ailene

Today is Friday, our last day of Vacation Bible School. It was a beautiful, warm day and we all shedded several layers of clothing! We had about 60 children waiting at the school for us and by the time we set up and started our assembly, there were 90! The songs that we taught through the week were like second nature to the children and they sang a few of their songs for us. They really seem to enjoy teaching us! The story was about Daniel and his faith in God. The team each played a part with stick figures as a team member told the story of Daniel being thrown in the lions den. We handed out “prayer bracelets” that children from one of our California home churches had made. They were thrilled with the gift and kept admiring their bracelets throughout the morning. The games were fun for the children........they did the parachute, jump rope, relay races with Beanie babies, tag and other activities. They colored during craft time. They all seem to love crayons and paper and just having time to color inside the lines. The attention to detail was really nice to see. At the end of the day, the children all got their own bag full of “goodies”. They loved that part!!! There were lots of hugs as the children left for their homesteads. It was sad to say “goodbye” knowing we will probably never see these precious people again.

Homestead Visits

After VBS in the morning, we returned to Manzini to pick up supplies to take to two homesteads about 20 miles outside of town with Chris, and several Manyano (Methodist Women). For all of us, the experience was extremely difficult to see the face of poverty in two families we visited. We brought a month's worth of food supplies along with some clothing and shoes. We sat with them and took in the destitute surroundings and listened to their stories. We cannot put into words the feelings or experience that would do justice to the moment. Our hearts are broken to the core.

Chris gave us bracelets on Wednesday night with these words that seem to be the only way to see hope in the situation we faced today. It says, “God is Big Enough.” We must cling to this thought to find any hope for these people. Becky

As we started our last day at VBS we knew it was going to be hard to leave the children we had spent so much time this week, The smiles the hugs and all the thank yous and all those beautiful smiles.

As the children are telling us how much they have enjoy the time we have spent with them we're trying so hard to let them know how important it has been for all of us to be able to be here and spend this time with them. All I can say is” Thank You Jesus” Vickie