The Day Before VBS

Did I mention that it's winter here? Well, it is. In fact, we carried blankets to Church this morning! And we used them, too. Of course, I forgot to pack "dress" shoes which led to a suit and flip-flops. Go figure.


Church at Conville: Singing in English & Afrikaans
Our day started in the township of Conville, a place of streets lined with one-room houses and wandering residents. It's a town of "colored" people. See, there are three races here in SA: (1) white, (2) black, & (3) colored. The first two are obvious. The third is a mix of the first two, leading to all kinds of social acceptance problems; they're like a population group that can't find it's way, sort of left out to dry. The Church we attended this morning (Conville Church) is a colored Church. The preacher's name is Calvert and he's very short. We had this contest after the Church service to see if Eric Hoover may have found someone shorter than him. Calvert lost. Eric was super-excited! There was much rejoicing. (Sorry, had to)

The service, although totally unplugged, was simply electric. We sang so many songs in Afrikaans that we almost learned the language. Conville meets in a school building, having to move desks to make room for Church members and guests. The children are quite behaived and spend most of their time singing, dancing and starring at the white visitors. (We may have been the best childcare in a long time) At the very last, Joy and I were asked to sing a couple of songs using our guitars. So we tuned up and sang Here I Am To Worship & All We Need. All We Need is a new Charlie Hall song, with almost no exposure in Conville, I'm sure. So I taught them chorus and they outsang us! (We're going to try and upload the video soon) The most memorable part of the day was when they introduced Scott as the guest preacher for the day and the congregation stood up and sang, followed by a dance around the communion table (Oh, no!), which we later learned was a way of welcoming the preacher. It went over five minutes and it never grew tired. The service ended with a hug and a song from every member. Very unique. Will never forget it. Will always miss it.

On Deck: VBS
Tomorrow begins Vacation Bible School in the African township of Thembalethu, just outside the city of George. This endeavor will, no doubt, involve nearly 600 children from the surrounding area. Our whole day has been framed in preparing crafts and lessons for the children. The VBS will take place in a one-room Church, housing the whole gig, including craft time. Tonight we watched a video from a past VBS in the same town and got a good read on the situation. In one part of the video we counted 57 children empty a Volkswagon van. Fifty-seven. Five seven. Way over the recommended capacity. We're very excited about the coming days with these children and your prayers for us are greatly appreciated.

Team Update
All is well! Everyone is working hard and getting to know each other better and better with each passing day. We're all still a little tired but ready to get to work this week.

UPDATE NEWS: I will try my hardest to update this journal every day at 3:00 pm your time. So check back before you leave work! Thanks again for your prayers.