Our ministry for the month is in Qia Qieta one of the many
slums in San Juan. We are working out of
a small church named Iglesia de Remente and when I say small I mean small. The whole building is approximately 20ft by
18ft at best, but the building is not what makes this church so great, it is
the people, especially the children.
Each day I have the privilege to work with what starts as 15 kids and by
the end of our time there the number grows to a solid 40 kids. Our first day working with the children we
had only a small handful to work with as we went through our lessons a few more
came in, but then it was time to play games outside…with in the blink of an eye
the number of kids went from 20 to over 70.
They filled the streets running around playing baseball, soccer, and
sitting and talking with some of my other team members. I was playing baseball with the kids…they had
so much energy and the smiles are their faces was great…all they needed was a
bat and ball to play and they could have the time of their life.
As the day starts out only a few kids show up in the
beginning Dominican time is a bit different from time in the States…meaning
that if we say we will be there at 9 the kids start to show up between 9:15 and
9:30 and that is only the few and the numbers just continue to grow as the day
goes on.
This day we had a small skit to perform for the kids the
goal of the skit was to demonstrate the forgiving power of God. This two minute skit was the only time in the
past few days where we had the attention of every single kid. We then talked with the kids about the
meaning of the skit and why Jesus came. The
kids were still very shy but a few of them did share and it seemed as though
they got the purpose of the skit and even greater they seem to have a better
understanding of Jesus coming.
It was then time for games outside, but this time it was not
baseball and soccer, but duck, duck, goose and games of the sort. This was where I took center stage of the
sort…I started throwing kids up in the air and catch them or I would twirl them
around to do a back flip…well let me tell you all that this is not a onetime
thing for each kid this turned into its own activity for 45 minutes…and wow how
tired and sore I was after throwing I don’t know how many kids up in the air
however many times. The time was well
worth it to see all the children laugh and smile. I look forward to go back each day to teach
the kids more about Jesus, play games with them, and just be their friend and
love them.
