Today dawned sunny which made it a far easier walk to the church for the holiday bible club. It was still muddy but at least the roads weren’t rivers! When we arrived we found that we had 56 children...that’s 20 more than the first day which was very encouraging. We tried to sing one of the worship songs in Amharic but we were obviously pretty bad as they all carried on in English after the 1st verse!
It was a great morning and we did the story of “Daniel in the lion’s den” letting the children act out the story. They are now very keen to be involved and they love watching each other being the characters. We then had great fun making lion faces on paper plates...it is a case of find a spot to sit on the floor and get gluing. There was wool everywhere as they stuck on the manes and the finished results were fantastic. They also loved the team games and today there was less cheating but still the same amount of squealing and laughter. They have also been great at learning a bible memory verse and one boy was even brave enough to say it on his own...and he was word perfect!
In the afternoon it was time to meet the older youth and Andy was speaking. It was the first time he had preached with an interpreter but it was great. There were a few sticky moments when he realised that the interpreter didn’t understand what he was trying to say and it made us all realise that we often use very English phrases and jargon. Andy soon learnt that silence and a puzzled expression meant “please can you try and re-phrase that!” Their worship was very exuberant and their youth worship group was excellent...especially the boy on the keyboard. Any excuse to worship and they are on their feet clapping and dancing!
Each session includes tea and biscuits and the tea is amazing. They boil the water with 4 cups of sugar and then add the tea bags. The result is an incredibly sweet tea which we all thought was delcious. It’s like a very hot nectar...just what we need after a hectic session with the children.
David finished his day with another game of street football and after supper we went out on the streets to watch the children light sticks to celebrate the end of the harvest time. The neighbourhood had come out to light bunches of sticks to make a fire. They then chanted and clapped while the sticks burned. They took turns chanting good things about each other that they had witnessed during the past year. There were often bursts of laughter so they were obviously remembering funny things each other had done! It was yet another example of the amazing community feel there is in this wonderful country. It is something we will definitely miss as it is something very special.
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