Today was the first official day of our mission work. We started off our day by getting up bright and early for breakfast at 7am. After breakfast, we all piled into the vans and headed towards our destination of Peñasco. It was about an hour and a half drive to get to the Emmanuel Presbyterian Church, where we would be doing our work for the week. Of course, it is never a boring van ride when you are with our youth leaders. We all enjoyed the beautiful scenery and majestic mountains, as well as the fun conversations on the way. Some of us also took naps to rest up for the big day of work, where others listened to music and enjoyed each other’s company.
When we arrived to the church, I was excited as well as nervous for the day to start. I am one of the characters for the beginning skit of the Vacation Bible School. During the skit, Jim Brown and I explained the theme for the day. Today’s theme was caring and was centered around the story of Moses being found in the basket in Egypt. My character’s name is Starfish and I am this actress who is very bubbly and outgoing in the beginning skits. I basically help Jim Brown tell the story and get the kids involved in it.
After the skit was over we started out the day of Vacation Bible School. Not as many kids came to the church as we anticipated, mostly because one of the other local churches decided to have their Vacation Bible School the same week as the Emmanuel church. Nevertheless, we still had an energetic and interesting group of kids. Most of them were younger, ranging from 4 years old to about 7years old. There were also a few older kids that helped take some responsibility of the younger kids. Since we didn’t have that big of a group of kids, we didn’t rotate the stations by grade, but instead kept the kids in one big group. The day went fairly smoothly for it being the first day. We started off the day with Story time with Natasha King and Susan Mountz. The next station they went to was Craft time with Karen Williams. There they got to make a baby Moses in a basket along with a fun craft with sea animals, to tie in the ocean theme for the week. The next activity was snack time where the kids enjoyed some cookies and juice. The youth got involved with both of these activities, but what teenager would pass some food and fun with the kids.
Since the entire youth group got involved with the kids, game time was especially fun. After everyone finished their snacks, the group moved onto games with Chad Thralls, Chandler Steffan, and Brandon Lee. When you saw those three were running games, you knew it was going to be a fun time. The first game was limbo, which was a fun start to get everyone involved. Of course the youngest kids were the best at limbo, but it was very entertaining to see the older youth from youth group try and not touch the limbo stick. The next game, you had to keep a beach ball in the air by hitting it. That was a lot of fun as well. The most fun game had to be a classic favorite- duck duck goose. It was a lot of fun with the kids and the youth group getting involved in it. Chad even got really into that game, considering he tripped because he was running so fast. When games were over, the kids went to their last station before lunch time. The last station was music, where I along with Lois Gayman and Nina Brown lead it. We taught the kids two Spanish songs and two fun warm-up songs. All of the kids got really involved in the songs; even the adults joined in. When music concluded it was lunch time, which meant the Vacation Bible School was coming to a close. It was sad to see all of the kids leave and go home, but it just meant that you would see them again the next morning at Vacation Bible School.
While Vacation Bible School was being held, we also had a construction crew working on renovating the church. This crew consisted of mostly adults but also included some youth. They got a lot done in just one day. They worked outside, weeding some of the flowers and even got a window into the one part of the church. After our work was finished for the day we all piled into the vans and headed to Santuario de Chimayo. On the way we stopped for a picture by a scenic view stop on the highway and that view was absolutely breath taking. When we arrived to Santuario de Chimayo, we got to walk inside the church. Inside the church we weren’t allowed to take any pictures, but I honestly don’t think a picture would do the beauty of the church justice. It was so beautiful with all of the candles and stained glass windows. When you went through the one doorway of the side of the church there was this hole in the ground with holy dirt in it. It is said that this dirt can heal you if you eat it or put it on your skin. In another room of the church there were pictures of all of the people that it healed and there were even crutches from people who got healed from the dirt. Of course after the tour of the church we went into the gift shop to browse around. There were a lot of Catholic souvenirs and books about the Santuario de Chimayo in the shop. Before we left, the entire group enjoyed some popsicles and the company of a local dog that decided to join us in the shade.
When we left Santuario de Chimayo we headed to the Trujillo Weavers Shop to watch some weavers weave some blankets and shop. There were many interesting items in the shop that were all hand made; including jewelry and dream catchers. After we spent about an hour or so in the shop we piled into our vans, once again, to head to dinner. We traveled back to Chimayo to go to the Santuario de Chimayo restaurant. Nina and Jim Brown’s grand-daughter and family joined for dinner with us. We all had a wonderful time, eating great food and enjoying each other’s company. When the night had to come to an end, we piled back into our vans and headed back to the Ghost Ranch Retreat Center for devotions. Devotions started off with Kelly meeting with us youth to talk about our day. Then we sang Happy Birthday to Dale, who is turning 18 today. If you didn’t catch that, I did say 18. It’s a joke among the group, pretty much saying that Dale acts just like us youth, even though he is an adult. We then enjoyed some birthday cake before finishing up devotions. I must take a note to the fact that Chad put on Natasha’s hoop earrings and sang to Dale on the walkie-talkie earlier today, and I must say Chad was an amazing singer! We ended the night with our devotion groups before heading off to bed to get some rest from a very eventful day.
Happy Birthday Dale!
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