Know Their Story is Live!
GO Trips
Malawi-2023
Malawi 2023 – July 24
July 24, 2023
Today was our first day working in a VBS, and there were definitely some unexpected occurrences. RBC was expecting about 60 kids to be in attendance this morning. There were about 250 who came. Our schedule was basically thrown out the window.
We started the morning with some singing, and kids kept pouring through the doors. We had to bring out some more chairs to set behind the pews to fit everyone. There was a welcome and then the skit was performed. The skit was translated to Chichewa (ch-ih-ch-ay-wah) after every few lines.
The initial plan was to split into two groups of older and younger kids. We ended up dividing the room down the middle and sending half of the kids out to recreation and half out to craft.
I was on the craft team, but I hear soccer and tug-of-war chaotic but fun. In both activities, we experienced some struggles. For craft time, there wasn’t enough space in the prepared room to fit them all, so we headed out to the parking lot. Kids decorated either a bag or visor with markers during craft, typically with their names.
Because we finished both activities earlier than expected, we did some more singing inside before Jimmy started his lesson. Jimmy’s lesson was also translated. Some kids were asking deep questions after listening. Praise the Lord!
Noticing the kids were getting restless, we gave them snack. Newton ran out to buy some food for the kids because our planned snack was homemade and limited. By time every kid had something to eat and drink, we were over thirty minutes ahead of schedule.
The kids enjoyed playing inside and braiding lots of hair. It took about an hour and a half until most of the kids were gone. We then got dinner, some of us headed to the store to buy craft supplies and food, and then we relaxed for some time before dinner.
In this down time, we created shields with crosses on them out of paper plates and ribbons. This was quite the operation. We ran out of crafts because of the large numbers, so this was an idea Tess and Amy fabricated.
For dinner we had nsima and vegetables. This was a great honor and taste testing experiment. After dinner, we held our devotional time and reviewed new plans for how to run VBS tomorrow.
Fun facts about the day are some team members were able to try sugarcane, many of the kids couldn’t speak English, but they bonded decently with us, and the RBC team members were a huge help and were very organized throughout the day. They were the biggest help when trying to figure out whether to send kids home on busses, walking, or to wait for their parents.
The prayer requests are numerous today. We ask that you pray tomorrow’s changes are helpful. Also, that we reach the kids with our words and actions. We also have had some team members starting to feel ill, so please pray for us as we go forward. We are happy to be here, and we hope we are being helpful. Thank you for your prayers!
