Another school visit was scheduled this afternoon and once again I was scheduled to speak. Before I talked we tried to play “Blob Tag”. The person who is “it” tags people who then join arms with the person who is “it”. The World Racers were “it”, as soon as we started running towards the students they screamed and ran out of the gymnasium. I have never seen such a large group move so fast. They seem to be terrified as we chased after them. As I chased after one girl she ran into a soccer goal and fell down. She did not stay on the ground long, but hopped up to keep running and screaming. I have played blob tag many times in school, camp, and youth group. I have never seen such a shy group. We restarted the game and told the kids to stay in the gymnasium. The exact same result occurred; hysterical running and screaming.
In other times we have noticed shyness and timidity to be a common theme among Karin people. When it came time to talk I decided to change my talk a little bit; which made me more nervous. I talked about my shyness and fear of speaking and how the Lord is helping me to conquer my fear. After the talk Linnea shared the story of the Gospel. We finished up by saying thank you, but the teachers did not think we should be finished. Even though our presentation had lasted 2 hours they asked us to continue for another hour. Ray played some songs as we did motions and sang to the music.
This evening was our last night in this village. There are two little girls that have won our hearts with their laughter, smiles, and hugs. We spent the evening playing with them and were impressed by their drawing abilities. One of the young men in the village came to visit. I was not part of the conversation with him, but I did hear him talking about his part-time job. He used to work from 6 pm to midnight making, “good money”. His earnings for a 6 hour day equal out to about $5.
Here are some pictures from our day:
