Day 03: Submerged in Work

After a good night’s sleep, in our Windy Gap comparable accommodations, and a breakfast of scrambled eggs, we immersed ourselves in preparations for our very first VBS. For starters, a hundred and twenty climbing Zacchaeus’s had to be cut and divided into groups. Following that, we began practicing our two songs and corresponding hand motions (“Sumergido” and “Me Conoces” which can be found on YouTube, if you are curious). Coordinating twenty highschoolers to do the same exact dance is more difficult than one would imagine, and we took all the practice we could get. Additionally, we had a last minute run through of the full VBS before loading up into three vans and heading our way to the local school where we would be hosting day one of the VBS in hopes to encourage the children to make their way up to Kusi for the rest of the days.

Upon arrival, the children began swarming me and chasing the pelota grande (translation: big ball). Cayla and I played monkey in the middle with some second graders before I passed it onto to Preston who ran around the court yard with a swarm of small Peruvian children chasing him (pictured, if I remember), but all good things must come to the end and the adults told us to put the ball away.  We began our VBS with going over our theme, “Jesus Sees, Jesus Knows, Jesus Saves.” After that we did our main song, “Sumergido” with minimal participation from the children. However, as we progressed the kids became more involved and participated when we did the songs for a second time. Shuffling the children back to their respective classrooms, we began to show the kids how to make their Zacchaeus craft that we had prepared in the morning (our Bible story for the day was about the Zacchaeus, for clarification). The children were a lot of fun to work with one on one. Some would ask for help drawing trees or people, while other kids would show off their artwork to us. After pointing to a classroom rule that they must clean up before they can go home, they helped us clean up all of our art supplies. 

Once we made our way back up the mountain, we were given soup for lunch and an hour break before returning to begin our first experience of manual labor on the trip. One group was assigned to sanding down bookshelves, another group was assigned to make bricks that will eventually be put towards building an adobe hut for Kusi, and the last group was in charge of prepping a wall for paint. I eagerly joined the “brick squad” to fulfill a lifelong dream of making my own bricks (I have weird goals, okay?). While I ended covered in mud, I was not nearly as bad as the paint prep group who were covered head to toe in white plaster. In our eagerness to have a hot shower after work, we turned on all of our hot water heaters, which unfortunately caused the power to go out, and no one got hot showers. But it’s okay, they say cold showers are better for you anyway. Tomorrow we will continue brick making and sanding, and have our second day of VBS.