VBS Day Two in the Dominican Republic

We started day two with a brief rain shower as we arrived at the church. While welcomed because it has not rained much here, unfortunately it was not enough rain to amount to anything but it increased the humidity for the day. Little did I know that would be somewhat of a foretaste of the rest of the day.


We all gathered in the church with the children to sing the Bible School songs. I am not sure what I find more entertaining during this time. Ashley and Rachel are very animated as they lead the children and the children are very wide-eyed as they try to keep up with the lyrics and the hand motions. It all makes for a very entertaining sight from my vantage point as I hold the poster with the words to the songs.  -The rest of the group heard me sing and thought it would be best if I just held the poster :-)


I spent the entire day painting on the second floor of the school. Yesterday we had a wonderful breeze blowing through the top floor but not so today. This coupled with the higher humidity kept us running for water all morning. It sounds strange but there is something soothing about painting a ceiling with a four inch brush, especially when all the children come back together in the church as the Bible School is ending to sing their songs once again. I did not hear it yesterday but today the voices of the 100 or so children came flowing across the courtyard and into the windows of the school. What a wonderful way to end a morning of painting!


I was back painting in the afternoon with the rest of the team and we had some of the older children of the church helping us paint. I have taken a liking to a young man named Randy. He is a good kid and really wants to help and he sure makes a tremendous effort at it. I speak little Spanish and he speaks almost no English but we were able to paint side-by-side for most of the day and communicate very well. He really wants to please and seems to like praise for his work. I get the sense he does not get much praise for what he does. He does however like his music and his cell phone - both of which were going all the time we were painting. I guess teenagers are very much the same no matter where we are.


I will be painting tomorrow and I expect I will work with Randy and many of the other children from here. I will be tired, sweaty and sore when we are done but it does not seem to matter. This is what I need to be doing at this moment.

Peace,

Tom