July 30^th – Aug 4th

VBS Week

The children receive the activities with great joy.  There are  puppets, games and crafts planned for them each day.  There are over 140 children!  Scott hits the road in the morning with the truck to pickup as many children as will fit in.  We try to share the message of salvation along with morals for daily living.

Most of the children live a very undisciplined life determined by the survival of the fittest.   Although their lives have a great amount of freedom that our children in American do not enjoy, their lives are very chaotic and without direction.  I see the great contrast of American children who are over scheduled, over stimulated and overly ambitious for materials things and the children in Habanero who have absolutely no schedule, (including bedtimes) very little positive stimulation and basically no ambition.  I think that somewhere in the middle is the best for children. 

Tamara’s preparation and the system she has set up makes everything run very smoothly.  Of course always we know we must be flexible.  Things change, things break, tubes for the puppet stage are missing and starting time means nothing!  Lol   We run with the natives here, we must throw away our day planners and live off the grid.  Nothing wrong with that!  Amazingly everything still gets accomplished!  The Dominicans have a can do attitude and are never discouraged when something goes wrong, they just figure out a different way to make it work or to make it happen.  VBS days are days of excitement for the children and the Americans love to interact with them.  Our team is awesome and showing compassion and love to the community.  The children will never forget their names, Tam, Doug, Mandy, Jessica, Kylie, Jacelyn, Sarah, Patty and Carly have made memories for the children they will never forget!