Yesterday started like all the rest of them, dragging ourselves out of bed. But this day wasn’t going to be like the rest; it was our first day of vacation bible school with the kids! We ate breakfast and talked about how excited we were to see the children this year and experiences we had last year. This year was going to have a totally different feel. The children were going to be students from Antioch, which meant that we needed much more structure to our activities. When the kids arrived, they immediately ran over to us and into our arms, wrapping themselves around us and begging us to play with them. Next ensued a chaotic frenzy of spinning kids around, flying them around, chasing them and being chased, as well as piggyback rides.
After everyone arrived and we got them all settled down, we sang a few songs and did a skit about the creation of the Earth before breaking into groups. Being part of the rec team, we did four thirty minute sections of “rojo verde” (red light green light), freeze tag, and other attempted group games, although with the younger kids it broke down into rolling around on the ground.
We returned to the hostel, worn down and exhausted from the morning, taking naps and eating lunch before preparing to go back out to the work site. The crew I’m in is working on the continuous project of digging meter-deep holes through rocks and rooty dirt for what we assume will be posts for a large fence.
On top of the morning’s romp with the kids, we were exhausted by the end of the day but still held true to our nightly ritual of playing soccer with the locals. We payed $10 to rent a soccer pitch for an hour that was a couple minutes down the road. Fenced in, lit, turf field, very nice. We sacrificed our only soccer ball to the jungle accidentally, but we hope to play again tonight.
AFUMC Youth in Ecuador 
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