Friday - Children's Festival & Louisa's Dream

Our internet connection is a little spotty so if Angela or I post some of the same stories or similar photos, I apologize. We don't usually have a chance to check one another's posts, before we upload our own.

Here are a lot photos and stories from today. It is getting harder and harder to whittle down all of the images we want to share with you.

This morning we held another Children's Festival at a local Christian School. When we arrived, we found children decorating the walls with water colors. As it turned out, we were there on the same day they were doing their monthly birthday party. The boy in this photo was extremely shy and I had a hard time getting his photo, but he was very into his art.

Another of the decorated walls, with a quote from Genesis 1:1.

Some of the children were patiently waiting for the party/festival to begin.

And since last night's revival ran late (one of us will share more in a later post), some of the teenagers were a little tired this morning. :)

But not Charlotte. She is back to her usual bedtime of 6-6:30 PM! PTL! She has become almost a permanent morning fixture on her Daddy's back.

The crowd is growing...

Always time for a goofy group shot while we wait for the principal to arrive and get the party started!

Tammy and Dianna are ready to go with their pintura de cara (face painting). This is ALWAYS a big hit with the little ones, and the teachers!

Music time! Songs with hand motions are appreciated all over the world.

Joe & Shelley bring it on with the puppets. In case you didn't know, they wrote a puppet script to open our Children's Festival and had it translated and recorded onto CD into Spanish so they could tell the children why we were here.

And another round of Che-Che-Wa-Wa!  My goal is to try and get a photo of every team member doing this wonderful dance. And the song is addictive. Just as soon as it leaves your head, someone walks past you humming the tune and it starts all over again.

For craft time, we added something new - a coloring page. 1 Peter 5.7 is written in Spanish at the top - "Cast your cares upon the Lord, for He cares for you." Just another way we are trying to share the gospel.

The glitter crosses are still mucho popular.

Part of the festivities included a pinata. I don't think it took more than a few kids to bust this one open. The scramble for the candy was crazy, but only for the younger children. The older kids just kind of sat back like they were too cool for candy. Not much different than most American teenagers might act. Know what I mean.

These three children appeared to have no association with the school and snuck in on the side. Angela invited them in and gave them wooden cross necklaces. Eventually, we found Gertrudis to tell them it was okay to come all the way in and I was able to help them make their own salvation bracelets. I saw the girl in the middle raise her hand when Rafael asked who had prayed to begin a relationship with Christ. 

Two cute la ninas whose smiles I couldn't resist sharing!

In the afternoon,  a small group of us returned to Louisa's Dream to finish what we had started the day before. First, we dropped off 3 tubs and 2 bags full of clothes.

Then, the children were divided into two groups that we might give them the ingredients of the salvation bracelets and share the gospel with them. Rafael seemed to have their undivided attention as he presented the gospel to them.

We were surprised to see so many parents present. Though we weren't expecting them, god made sure we had just enough cross necklaces for everyone to get one. And we had plenty of bracelets for them to assemble.

I never did hear the final tally, but I seem to recall seeing more than 10 hands go up in each of the two classrooms when Rafael asked who had decided to follow Jesus.

While we rejoice in the seemingly large numbers of people giving their hearts to Christ, we also rejoice in all of the seeds that have been planted through this simple bracelet.