VBS AT LOS LIMONES

VBS in the afternoon is held at Los Limones, a very poor area about 15 minutes from Resurrection Church in Gualan. The huge numbers of kids that come for the session make it necessary to do the lesson in one very large group session. By the last day, we believe that we had 435 kids. That was our best guess, since it's difficult to count. They seem to love the colorful Bible pictures and materials used to present the stories. Many of the moms bring their little ones to the sessions, and they enjoy hearing the Bible stories too.

BRUSH THOSE TEETH!

Here Dolores is teaching the kids the importance of brushing their teeth with Mafer doing the translating.  After hearing the hygiene talk, all of the kids at the church and Los Limones received a tooth brush and tooth paste.  They all seemed to enjoy the plastic Zip Loc bags that were colorfully decorated with "SMILE - JESUS LOVES YOU!"

TAKING CARE OF GOD'S CREATION & OUR ENVIRONMENT

Every VBS has a sub-theme, so in addition to Bible stories, this year the kids learned about taking care of God's creation. It was a great opportunity to mention putting garbage in its proper place and to talk a little bit about recycling. At our afternoon site (Los Limones) their world is so different from ours that we really needed Pastor's guidance to help us understand how to talk about these things with the kids!   The kids loved to help by holding up different animals that went along with the lesson.

CAROL & KAREN'S CLASS

Carol & Karen are definitely the "dynamic duo" when it comes to working with the little ones.  Their creativity and ability to keep the "littles" attention with their non-stop repertoire of activities is an amazing thing to see.  This was the third VBS for both of them.  Here we see some of their coloring, a Noah's Ark sticker page, a cross necklace that the kids made, and stained glass crosses that they colored.

SHAROLYN & NANCY'S CLASS

Writing in and decorating their journals, decorating their coloring cards, coloring a "cardboard kid" representative of themselves - yes, even the older kids had fun learning about Jesus.  The group was so large that it made for a challenging time, but Sharolyn was a real trooper and did great for her first VBS in Guatemala.  As the week went on, she seemed to develop a unique sign language (including LOTS of smiles) that worked really well with her kids.

LINDY AND RENATO'S CLASS

The kids really love making these faces that are representative of themselves.  Lindy and Renato had a VERY big group to work with.  Lindy did a great job and Renato was terrific as a translator.  This was the first time we worked with him, and we hope to see him again next year for VBS.

 The kids made these crosses that have strips of paper woven through them.  They also made friendship bracelets and worked on coloring cards.

GET READY FOR 2012!

Can it really be time to get ready for our Nov., 2012 Guatemala VBS trip?! Wait - I haven't posted pictures from last year's trip yet! And what a great team it was. Carol Jessen, Karen Pautsch, Dolores Brei, Lindy Neukukatz, Nancy Blase (all experienced mission "trippers"), and Sharolyn Sander (our "newbie" for 2011) gave it their all to provide a great week of activities and a variety of learning experiences to share the love of Jesus.  In 2011 we asked Dolores to be our official photographer and to focus on taking a lot of pictures of the kids with their projects, and here are some of those fun things! Thank you Dolores for your expert picture taking! And here is the group on its last day - exhausted, dirty, and tired but very happy.  Our translators Renato, Mafer, and Jenny are with us too.  All in all, a great week!  (Left to right - Renato, Carol, Lindy, Karen, Nancy, Mafer, Sharolyn, Jenny, and Dolores)