Mud Bath, Anyone!? (Sunday, April 5th)

What a cold night! We still cant figure out how it can be 85-90 degrees during the day, only to be absolutely freezing at nightime. I guess the fact that we cant take warm showers to help our body temperature doesnt help either :) Despite the chilliness, we were excited to join the kids for a quick game of futbol and volleyball before breakfast. As we told you in the last post, they have some skillz! It was a refreshing way to start the day, and another avenue to try and impact the childrens lives for the short time we would spend with them.

Quick side note for everyone...

One of the great parts about this trip is the leadership displayed by our high school participants. Thus far, they have been true diplomats for the not only the YMCA, but also the USA. Not only have they been tremendous examples, but have taken initiative and ownership in planning and implementing ALL of the camp activities here with the children. It is a very spe

cial thing to see these next generation leaders in thier element!

So...after breakfast (yup, rice & beans) we headed to the amphitheatre for a morning assembly of a skit, songs, and games. Elizabeth, Sydney, DC, Marissa and Dana did the classic YMCA bean skit (sometimes referred to as the Emotions skit), aka the frijoles skit in Español. They even did the entire thing in Spanish, which really had the children in hysterics! After some camper challenges and songs led by the other students, it was time to start the day. With it still being a little tough to communicate due to language barriers, we choose games that would illicit fun interactions (Jump rope, bubbles, sidewalk chalk, whiffle ball, etc.). Whiffle ball was a great experience, as many of the children had never really played before and didnt know the rules. This gave us a chance to teach some skill development as well as introduce them to new experiences. We were also amazed with some of the artistic talent these young children had while playing sidewalk chalk. Despite not having tons of schooling, there handwriting and drawings were amazing! The Lord has truly blessed them with many talents that will help them succeed now as well as later in life.

Lunchtime (rice and beans? of course!) consisted of more fellowship with us and the children. We were all becoming more confident in our Spanish speaking abilities, which made communication flow a bit better. With that being said, we were all a little confused when one of the camp counselors told us about our afternoon activities. We all understood it was going to be water activities, but one of the games threw us off a bit. This is what they told us: "You will go to the muddy hole in the ground, find a friend, give them a hug, and roll around in the mud. Then, the tree will spit water at you and you have to catch it in your mouth." WHAT?! We repeated back what we heard and they confirmed we had heard them correctly. So two by two, we joined the campers in this water activity. The first few people came away with a few muddy spots, but as you can imagine, it started to get a bit out of control...MUD FIGHT! No need to expound any more on that, as the pictures do it more justice than words ever could!

We then followed the children down to the river to wash off. For many of us, this was our first official shower and boy did it feel good! However, the mood sombered a bit, as all of us knew the children were getting ready to leave. After some more cleansing, we met back up with the children to say our goodbyes. Some tears were shed, and they all told us how much they loved us. Right before they left, we were able to pray Gods blessings over them and thier families. While the translation from English to Spanish may not have been perfect, we know that our prayers were heard and that God will continue to intercede on thier lives.

As we processed the day with our group, there were many heavy hearts. Although we only knew these chidren for roughly 24 hours, we felt as if we had grown very close the them. While we may never see them again, we have faith that we did our best to impact thier lives in the short time we had with them.

Tomorrow, we will serve in a different capacity, through manual labor. Elizabeth challenged us in our devotion tonight to "change the world with your own two hands." With that being said, off to sleep so we can work with enthusiasm all day long!