Today was another great day for our team. We spent the entire morning at St Paul's School doing assemblies which was very long but so fun. We began by doing the assembly for the 1st and 2nd grade students. Instead of trying to figure out what parts of our program would be age appropriate, we decided to do some games and songs from our time at Beautiful Gate. The kids really seemed to have fun playing and singing with our team. Paul finished the assembly by teaching the lesson that he did from our previous day at Beautiful Gate. Our second assembly was a bit different because we had the 5th-7th grades. This time we did a portion of our normal program with Kirsten sharing about how God really helped her through the healing process after her mom passed away. The children really responded well to her and the entire program. Then we went back to doing some of the Beautiful Gate material for the 3rd-4th grade class. We had already done part of our program for 1st-6th grades so we were trying to do some new things that they hadn't already seen so it was a good thing that we had prepared some extra songs. After this group left to go back to class, we did our program for the 8th-9th grades. Cassie and Nathanael both shared testimonies with this group that really challenged them on the subject of prayer and salvation. It was a great opportunity for these students to hear the Gospel. We finished off our time at St Paul's by facilitating a religious education class for the 12th grade. This was a class where the students came and watched a couple of our skits and then we had some question and answer time where many of our students responded to questions about why does it have to hurt when God disciplines us, how do you stand strong as a Christian when the world tries to tempt you, and what do you do when you are a Christian with non-Christian friends who influence you negatively. They did an incredible job of answering questions and I truly believe that our students enjoyed being able to share from their experience in their walk with Christ to encourage these 12th grade students.
We came back to the Bullingtons house after the assemblies to get ready for our last day at Beautiful Gate. Our program today consisted of some fun children's songs, some more spontaneous melodrama, followed by giving out power bands (colored beads on a string) which basically explain how we are born in sin, but the blood of Christ cleanses us from that sin and then we follow Christ in baptism leading us into spiritual growth and eventually opening the door for us to go to heaven because of our relationship to Jesus. I'm not totally sure that the kids understood the whole concept, but they were given a few little keepsakes over the last few days that will hopefully be a reminder of a group of American teenagers who loved on them and cared for them. After saying goodbye to the children there, we drove through Katutura which is the township that Beautiful Gate is in. The name literally means a "place you don't want to live" because it is such a transient place. It is a poverty stricken area of town that has houses made from sheet metal and plywood. It made a pretty big impact on our students to actually see some of these places where the children at Beautiful Gate live.
Tomorrow is our last day of assemblies and then we start getting prepared for YWAP camp. The time has really flown by but our students have really been amazing at how they have served and loved the students of Namibia. Many have said that this is one of the first mission trips that they weren't ready to go home yet when they got this far into the trip. Again thank you so much for continuing to pray for us and please ask God to encourage us and give us energy as we are pretty run down from a long week of service. Love to all of you and we'll talk to you again tomorrow.
Blessings,
HSM Namibia Team
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