Let's back up a bit. We had a quiet breakfast, and we're holding devotions at noon since the construction crew wants to leave early to start work promptly. Rode in cramped SUV (10 of us not counting Duory, the driver) to church and started preparing VBS supplies to actually put the books together. Jumped right in and we had a system before long. Vicar is teasing the dickens out of me like a sister - I suppose that's a good thing. Today's lesson is Samuel - for the skit Corey is Samuel, Kevin is Eli, and Vicar is the voice of God. Then craft time - I passed out too many crayons too quickly and ran out. Need to learn from that mistake, but right away at least I felt guilty and inwardly kicked myself for quite a while. Several were showing us their finished books, quite pleased with their work. We sang some, and passed out the candy as they were leaving. It got confusing for the lineup, and of course at the time I felt like I had caused the problems... so I did my characteristic retreat. Angela pretty much had to come encourage me - I'm still taking this so seriously and there is no art to this! A person like me should not take it so seriously when things go wrong, because THEY DO. They go wrong when there's only one culture and language to deal with. I have to learn to be more flexible! But it's so hard... and I have very little patience with myself when it comes to self-improvement - I expect to have instant results and perfection for myself because I reason that I can and should be able to control my own behavior and the outcome of such. This concept totally baffles most people, and they keep telling me that I am setting my expectations for myself too high. But am I really? Ironically, my extra reserved nature might actually help me in a place like Russia (because of their own publicly reserved nature) where it would be a hindrance in other places (where the people are more open by their natures). Meanwhile, I'll still see what I can learn here. Corey tells me that on their way over to the church they saw a dead man lying in the road - because of the blood and the mess, they figure he had either been run over or shot. Yuck. As squeamish as I am at the sight of blood (especially in medical documentaries), it's probably a good thing that our car didn't see that. Our second group of kids came in shifts - half of them came in the middle of the skit. (Oops.)

Later A.M. - It looks like I've already learned from the lesson earlier this morning. The little kids were having some rowdies - crowding in for stickers & crayons. We had to limit them on both this time... and I used the earlier lesson plus my teacher sternness to help keep things flowing. Still - we had to end crafts early, make them practice sitting still and quiet, and then we sang songs. Kids are still kids, no matter the culture or the language. There is another missionary here, a teacher from Michigan named Sarah, working with some of the kids. Apparently she is teaching them English, as well as computer stuff to other people. I am hoping to get some opportunity to watch her. With the little ones, they tell me that she shows them pictures of different objects and has them repeat the English words after her. For older kids, she uses some material that uses the Bible as a teaching tool... something for me to remember if long-term mission work really is my future. Apparently it is a common resource for international students who are learning English. (I am very much thinking of having my friend Lucy (from the novel I am writing) use something like this in her mission work... writing something similar to this into the story, in spite of what her opposition would say. I'd sure do it in her shoes - in spite of Yakov and the others.) The Bible lesson and skit tomorrow is David and Goliath... which Angela, Vicar and I are working on. We thought a little, but I'll end up working more on the detail once we return to the Hotel Kinam. I am watching the little kids rehearse for Sunday's graduation service - there's some sort of processional step they do down the aisle to music, kind of a dance, in a way. It's neat to watch. The construction crew is coming in, so we will be having lunch soon.

Devotions were by Willi and Jennifer - for a lot of this, Willi shared his background. He's basically a very German Canadian (including the famous German stubbornness) - German accent is thick thick thick, and he speaks German quite fluently. Lunch was the Haitian answer to runzas plus fruit and more pop & water. I'm glad they had something other than Coke - something like Sprite that was called Teem.

P.M. - After a lengthy break for planning and watching the construction crew, we had the secondary students. I am starting to get my second wind - between helping lead songs and crafts I am getting more comfortable to a degree. Perhaps mission teaching is something I can do after all - but I think next time I'll actually try to learn the language. At least if it's Russian, I have a head start. Corey had a spill on the work site - while he was carrying three of the Haitian bricks (lighter than ours) he tripped over some rebar lying off to the side, fell (managed to successfully throw the bricks in front of him so that wouldn't complicate his fall) and skinned his left knee, tearing the jeans further in the process. He immediately went over to the resident nurse, Sandy "Mom"... the lady who's been "watering the herd" around the work site, making sure everyone drinks enough water. The sad thing is that I had been close enough to the window to hear Pastor W say to someone "Are you okay?" - and it was my own husband. You could imagine my reaction when JJ came to me with something along the lines of "Kim, don't panic, but Corey got hurt..." Fortunately it was merely a scratch. The interesting thing is that all along I've had a feeling that some sort of accident or other thing was going to happen to Corey in Haiti (which I told no one, because I didn't want to scare them in case I was wrong). Praise the Lord if this is the worst that happens... because it's not that bad. For the skit this afternoon, Eli was played by their own pastor, Pastor B.

Later - Several of us crawled in the SUV (very tight - Enid was on 3 laps including Corey's) and rode back. Corey & I went swimming for a little while together, which he enjoyed - and the vicar kept splashing us. Now he's treating both of us as siblings! This is a good thing... Glad I climbed out when I did - it rained for a little while. After a dinner of Haitian lasagna (like ours, but hotter) we had devotions. Mark & Tad led, and we sang some more. Our friend the bat returned again from last night for another flyby over the pool. Then the guys all started cutting shields for tomorrow's craft while Angela, Vicar & I finished details on the lesson I plan to condense from that whole chapter on David and Goliath into a shortened and less bloody story. Then came the bead bracelet assembly. It's kind of fun to have 10 or a dozen people working on bracelets for 300. We finished exactly half of them tonight and hope to finish the rest sometime tomorrow.