New Year's Day at Gatunguru

It's New Year's Eve, and as I write, you can hear the music for celebrating the New Year in the background.  

Bible Camp began with changes, which is usual. Due to construction in their room, Kristi and Victoria were moved to a nearby secondary school, which is also where the recreation is taking place. With the move, the Geography session gained much needed space.  The change seemed to have no effect on the overall success. The Bible story for today was Paul's conversation. Three young men made decisions to follow Christ during the Bible Study.  

Recreation introduced the children to a game from China called "Dragon." However, there is not a Swahili word for translating "dragon," so the game became "The Snake." The children had a great time playing.

The big hit of the day was crafts. The children made kites. They were very excited. Some small boys took off running down the road launching their kites into the wind. The teacher soon realized that they were not coming back. She had to run after them or they would still be running. 

We had our usual lunch of rice and beans. Bonnie and I met with the pastors and their wives at the Holiday Bible Camp.  They are a great group with a calling and passion to serve others in Jesus' name.  

Gatunguru Holiday Bible Week Begins...

 

Holiday Bible Camp at Gatunguru has begun!  The theme for the week is "Love Our Neighbor."  Each day, the teaching will focus around a different continent demonstrating that Jesus loves all the people of the world and they are our neighbors.

Today we started with North America.  In recreation, we had a baseball based game. The game started with "Play Ball."  The children ran, threw, and caught wiffle baseballs. They really enjoyed this game and going to the World Series.

Our daily camp schedule is to provide the children with "breakfast" which is a cup of super vitamin-enriched porridge.  Then, we move through four rotations: Bible Study (Bonnie), Crafts (Shirley and Carol - Bernard's two daughters - and Linda, who was with us during the first Gatunguru camp), Geography (Kristi Glenn - Leesburg, VA, and Victoria Horne - Bonnie and Floyd's niece), and Recreation (Floyd).

Throughout camp we work with the local leaders in partnership during each rotation to teach the children but also to teach local volunteers in how to do a Holiday Bible Camp.  The children are divided by age groups of 4-6, 7-9, 10-12, and teens.  This year, we began with 157 children and teens. For lunch, we had rice with carrots cooked into it and pinto beans flavored with onions and garlic.

Thank you for your prayers and encouragement.  This was a great day.  Tomorrow, if the internet connection holds up, we will try to share more about our full day.