Friday morning after breakfast we headed to another public primary school. We were thinking that we would only have a one or two classrooms of kids with which to share, but we learned that they were going to do an assembly with the ENTIRE school, around 600 kids! We stood in a courtyard and all the kids sat outside their classrooms while we attempted to do some sort of program. We sang a few songs, then did a quick review of our VBS stories, the "I am" statements of Christ. About halfway through our 30 minute program it stated to rain, and we felt like there was no way that anyone would have been able to grasp the message, but we trust God was able to still use us there. After the program, the principle invited our whole group to the teachers lounge and treated us to hot doubles, a common Trini breakfast. They were very spicy but very good.
After the school visit, we visited another school for mentally disabled teens and young adults. We sang a few songs, shared a Bible story and did a craft with them. They treated us with a few group songs, and one of the guys recited a poem for us. It was very special treat.
After our afternoon lime time, we headed out for a final day of VBS on the mountain! One very exciting detail unfortunately got left out of yesterday's report: we had 9 kids pray to trust Jesus as their Savior. At the end of the lesson, I gave an invitation and asked anyone interested in knowing more about believing in Jesus to raise their hands...well pretty much every hand went up. Knowing there were some very young kids who might have just been doing it because everyone else was, I decided to try to narrow it down by then inviting those who were interested to get up and go the back. Again, all the kids stood up! So we made an unexpected change in our schedule, and I told our team to take one child and go counsel them right then. Many of our teens got the privilege of leading someone to Christ for the very first time! Several of the children seemed to have already trusted Christ, and so they were able to be reassured of their salvation. It was a powerful and exciting time for our team.
Earlier in the week, we had been asked if we would be willing to stay after our last day of VBS and participate in their adult prayer meeting. So after VBS was done, they fed the whole team and then about 7pm we started the service. They had actually asked us to run the service. So we opened with some songs, then Robert and Haley shared testimonies and Travis and Tyler presented their drama again. Nan, Lauren C, Gwen and Jamie sang "How Deep the Father's Love for Us" and did a really wonderful job. Our team sang a couple of our favorite songs, then I brought a short message that came from our team devotions about being the salt of the earth. After the service, they thanked us many times, and as we were packing up and saying good byes it was evident that a real bond between our team and the Trini believers had been formed. There were many tears as we said goodbye and began our final descent down the mountain. We thank God for such an incredible week with those people.
One of those people who really got attached to was Tori, a 14 year old girl with sickle cell disease. This girl's testimony, outlook on life, and joy in the Lord was contagious, moving, and challenging as we saw some real faith being put to the test. Please pray that the Lord would heal her body and that she would continue to live our her faith even if he doesn't.
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