Today was one of our more relaxed days. Breakfast was at 7:30, so of course we all woke up at 7:27. We left the guest house at 8:15 for "La Fundacion la Luz del Mundo" (The Light of the World Foundation). At the ministry, we divided around 50 kids into 6 groups, and rotated them through 6 stations (music, story, crafts, games, etc.). All of the stations had activities centered around the parable of the lost sheep. At this point in the week, after 3 days and countless hours spent with kids. I was less then excited to spend another 3 hours with more kids. I was exhausted after spending the whole day yesterday chasing a five year old who loved piggy-back rides around 3 tourist attractions, and who apparently got car-sick easily. But I was wrong, these kids were wonderful. It may be hard to believe, but they were obedient, attentive, and excited about the activities.
I was the leader of one of the craft stations, where we made sheep out of marshmallows and pretzels. When Sra. Woody first suggested that we change the Oreo, frosting, chocolate, and mini marshmallow craft to a jumbo marshmallow and some pretzels sticks, I was a little skeptical. I looked at the example picture (you can google it), and the first word that popped into my head wasn't "sheep" it was "creepy." But inexpensive and easy always trumps cute, and as alway's, Sra. Woody was right. The kids loved those creepy pretzel-headed sheep. They kept "accidentally" breaking the pretzel legs and heads, and then they would look at me and say "esta roto" (it's broken), and I would just smile and hand them another pretzel. I saw all kinds of sheep, we had double-headed, 5-legged, sideways, and I saw some kid just break all his pretzels and stick them into the marshmallow wherever he wanted. After they ate their "sheep," we had coloring pages to take up the remaining time before the rotation. The coloring pages we had for this lesson were sheep themed, but none of the kids took those ones, they all wanted the American themed coloring pages left over from our D.C. day at El Camino Academy. I really didn't understand how coloring the White House or Capitol building was more interesting then coloring shepherds and their sheep (who don't necessarily have to be white).
I was really surprised at the level of maturity and kindness in these kids. They always shared without a thought. One time a little girl asked me if she could have another marshmallow, and I had to say no because I didn't know if their would be enough for the remaining groups. But the little boy next to her just handed over his half-chewed marshmallow, which was adorable but also kinda gross, and returned to coloring. Also, if they didn't want their pretzels they would always ask if anybody else wanted them before throwing them away. I got a whole new perspective on kids, and had a great time. I loved that we got the opportunity to love on these kids, and teach them more about God's word.
--Sarah Nissly
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