The First Day of School: El Primero Dia de Escuela

Today I got my first taste of Vacation Bible School Dominican style.  What a wonderful and exhilarating feeling it was!  As soon as we arrived, children were lined up outside of the gate ready to come in.  We set up a name tag station and were swarmed with eager faces ready to introduce themselves and start their Bible School experience.  We had about 110 enthusiastic children filling the church this morning ready to sing songs and start off the week.  I was very impressed by their ability to remember the songs from last year.  In addition, they quickly picked up a beautiful new song that we started to teach them "Eres Santo" (You are Holy).  From there, we split into groups to discuss today's Bible lesson - the story of David and Jonathan.  Our theme for this week is "Being the Friends of Jesus" and it was really great to see them already embodying the themes as they played together on the playground.  Our craft involved making a telephone out of plastic cups.  We decorated them with foam stickers.  I think one of today's greatest moments was seeing how such a small craft was so important to the children.  They truly treasured their telephones and several of them were playing with them all the way out of the church.


In the afternoon, we got right into painting as a large group.  With some help from several of the local Dominican boys, we tackled repainting several of the upstairs classrooms.  Many of the classrooms hadn't been painted in several years and needed a good sprucing up.  We finished two classrooms and it already looks much brighter and is ready for students tomorrow!


Our mission team is having a wonderful time both helping those we can in Bani and learning about each other as well.  We have had terrific bonding experiences as we rely on each other for each one of our unique talents.  There are those who excel in Spanish, others who lead us in music, and still others who are perfect at directing the children on the playground.  As a fairly recent transplant to Winchester and Christ Church (coming in August of last year for pharmacy school), this trip has really offered me a wonderful sense of community and fellowship.  I had previously traveled to the Dominican Republic with my Canterbury Club in undergrad and this experience has lived up to and exceeded my expectations in terms of fellowship.  We are working together and learning so much about ourselves at the same time as we learn about those here.


We are starting the week off on the right foot and look forward to a great continuation!

Kevin