Sports days, puppet plays, a village visit...hooray!!

Well, we are just wrapping up what will probably be the busiest week of my time here. It's been exhausting, but SO exciting! Last Friday and Saturday, we spent the whole day down at the local football (soccer) field for two different Sports Days. Sports Day is a MAJOR event for every school here, and is somewhat similar to the track and field days that many American elementary schools have. It is an all day event, and the students from the schools are split into different "houses," (teams with different colors). They have a big parade down from their school to the field to kick the day off, marching and carrying banners for their houses. The teachers and judges have a special covered sitting area, where there are trophies, a sound system with big speakers, and even a D.J., and vendors walk around selling food, drinks, and colored ribbons (so fans can support their favorite house). Some of the games are easily recognizable, such as regular races and relays, musical chairs, and even "tug of peace," which was explained that the name had been changed because they already had enough war in Sierra Leone. Some of the games, however, you would certainly never find in America! Friday was the Sports Day for Kaningo, the school where we had been volunteering, and on Saturday all of our next door neighbors had their sports day, so of course we attended both of those. The announcer even had Megan and I be the judges for one of the events at Kaningo's sports, so that turned out interesting. The house leader for the team which placed last seemed pretty upset with us, and demanded that we explain why her child didn't win, but it turned out all right :)

This week we got creative and worked on different crafts and projects for Easter. In anticipation of our weekend trip to the village, we made 800 wordless books for the children. Our driver suggested that we would probably have anywhere from 300-500 kids, or possibly more, so we wanted to be sure we'd have enough. We actually ended up with only about 200 or so, so we've got plenty of them left for another ministry outing. Then we decided to dye Easter eggs for our Sunday school children. Of course, even though they celebrate Easter here, they've never heard of Easter eggs before, so it's been interesting to see what they think about it. I'm pretty sure they think we're crazy, but at the same time they get a hard-boiled egg to eat, so they are excited about that. We let our teen group hunt for eggs this afternoon, and it went pretty well. We'll see how it goes tomorrow morning with 50 kids! We also have construction paper Easter bunnies, which we made cookies to put inside, so they will get a little extra treat. Meanwhile, we have been practicing our puppet skills, getting ready for our first puppet debut. We actually even got some little African outfits for them, although mine is a dog so he just has a scarf made from some extra material. But they look pretty adorable!

Yesterday, we drove upcountry to Moses' village, which was absolutely amazing!! Of course, I love the village setting anyways, so I knew I would enjoy it, but it was still so great. We had about 200 kids, and we went over the crucifixion and resurrection stories, had a few object lessons (including Bill and Bob, which are always a big hit :), and played some games with them. We even decided to go ahead and do our puppet skit with them as well. Some of the kids seemed a little bit afraid of them, but for the most part they seemed to enjoy it. Later in the evening, we showed the Jesus film in Timne (the local dialect), so everyone loved that. The pastor gave an invitation following the film, and several decisions were made for Christ. I feel like you can never really know in a situation like that how many people truly become Christians, and how many just raise their hands and go along with it because they think you want them to, but I thank God for the opportunity to at least share the gospel and plant the seeds, and pray that the Lord would continue to work on the hearts of the people there. We arrived back home very late last night (well, technically it was very early this morning), but the trip was well worth it.

Tonight we made an Easter bunny cake, just for fun :) Even though we're in Africa, it's nice to still try and keep up with some american traditions. We are all very excited about tomorrow. We have quite a few things planned for our kids, and we are going to try and show a portion of the Passion movie in "big church." Yes, I still call it that :) So please be in prayer for our services and for the people who are coming.