Today we had our third day of VBS and we visted an orphanage with special needs kids.  I was so impressed with our students and the maturity they showed.  The VBS went great.  We shared the gospel with about 40 students, and had a wonderful day.  One of the children, Akil, showed up today crying.  He was balling his eye’s out because he thought this was our last day.  Our words of comfort were, “We’re not leaving today, but tomorrow!”  This made him cry even more because he didn’t want us to leave at all!  Sarah, Whitney, Jessica, Lauren, and Shanda lead crafts again today.  The older kids made bracelets and the younger kids made masks.  It was extremely hot today, which worked well since we had a water day.  We filled up 100 water balloons the night before and shared them with the kids.  The older ones were very desperate to get just one more water balloon from us to throw at their friends.  The orphanage we visited was the first time any one from TTUM had visited there.  We weren’t sure what to expect, but we came prepared to do a big program.  There were about 12 children at the orphanage and 10 of them were immobile.  So, we split up and spent time with each one.  Derek made balloon animals for everyone, many many balloon animals.  Bruce played songs and we loved on the kids.  Only two or three could speak.  The place was very clean and the workers were very nice.  It was really quite and incredible experience.  The only thing we had to offer these children was our presence (and balloon animals).  But, they seemed to care more about the first, than the balloon animals.  

BTW, Barry came back today and spent some time talking with a TTUM worker, John.  He seems to be coming closer to knowing Jesus.

Some words from Whitney:

It was pretty crazy again today with the crafts at VBS-I had to literally take away the stickers from all the kids and they attacked Jess for the glitter! But their masks ended up loooking great and we got some cute pictures Going to the Blessed Quietness Orphanage today was really hard though because many of the children couldnt speak at all. I hung out with Ricardo, who was immobile and couldn’t speak very much. It was really sad to see him living like that but rewarding that I got to spend some time with him for a while. We drove through Port of Spain on the way there and had some amazing views, but on the way back i fell asleep… We had a pretty relaxing night just prepping for tomorrow’s VBS (AKA making like a million balloon animals), going swimming, and singing some worship. Please pray for our group as we head off to devo’s and sleep tonight and then VBS and adult rehab center tomorrow!