Saturday morning

Yesterday afternoon was full of new faces and names--about 50-60 of them. We visited the VBS site and used our spanglish to communicate as best as we could with the children who came to the park, eager to spend the next 5 days in VBS. We played "futbol," jumped rope, swung on the swings, and slid down the slide as the children beamed with excitement. This morning, my work group went to "El Arca" (translanted "the ark" in English) which is a home full of children started by an American family with 9 children of their own. El Arca houses 43 children from ages 2-20. We began the day by asking each of the children, "Como te llamas?" or "What is your name?". The children loved playing games, such as "bear, fish, mosquito" which is a version of rock paper, scissors using hand motions and sounds. They also loved singing songs--Jesus is my super hero being their favorite. After the outside activities, we went inside for some crafts. The children made crowns with jewels and glitter glue and created pictures with markers and lots of stickers. Although we wanted to bring some of them home with us, we told them "ciao," gave lots of hugs, and left for lunch.

-Lauren Allen