The BBC

I have started writing this post several times, only to get stuck or be at a lost for the right words to describe what went on the first day at the back yard bible club. As I get farther away from the events of those days, the details all start to run together. What happened on which day? what all did we really do to fill those hours each afternoon? How did God work and what was accomplished? Whenever I start to put it down in type, my words don't seem to paint an accurate picture of how God moved in our hearts and in the hearts of those we served. So, I'll try again and see if I can get some organized thoughts about our first afternoon at the apartments.

Our BBC leaders, CF and AW did an amazing job getting things prepared. It was a really big job! They made our daily plans for everything from crafts to story time to object lessons. They gathered all the supplies and had everything organized by days so that we only had to take the supplies we needed for that day. They were truly a gift from God!

That first day, we were immediately greeted from kids running from their apartments in mass to our vans. Even before we opened the doors, they were there and ready to go. We started by going into a room adjacent to the manager's office, which was where in our planning we thought we might do a lot of our activities. It was large enough to hold 30 people and it was air conditioned. What we didn't already know was that it was going to be filled with desks. We also quickly discovered that it was also very dirty and quite loud when you put thirty or more people in it. But we thought we would give it a try. Some of us worked on name tags for the kids, while others began setting up for the other activities. Fairly quickly we were ready to begin.

My job on day one was to tell the bible story and truly it was quite a fiasco! The room echoed every noise and people were coming and going in every direction. I went on way, way, way too long (where is John with the prayer music to signal me to wrap it up when I REALLY needed it!!). One bright spot in the story time was that the Baytree kids did enjoy being covered with "spot" stickers and wrapped in police tape! See, we were doing the story of the 10 lepers and we put spots on the kids who had "leprosy".

However chaotic and crazy some moments of the first day where, though, I must say that day was overall very successful. Yes, if you had been there to assess the effectiveness of our organizational structure or our systematic methods you would have not used the word "successful", or anything close to it. Yet, God is much more interested in the heart of those who do deeds in His name and the level of love and kindness shown. And in those areas, the mission team received an "A+" for the day!

Our own kids jumped right in and served and loved those children as though had been friends for years. They endured heat and craziness and helped where ever they could. Our adults hugged and loved every child they could, showing patience and compassion every where you looked. And each child that came to the BBC had a great afternoon of fun! (By the way, day two went much, much smoother! Our expert leaders knew what we were dealing with and adjusted to our environment with great success!)

The most bitter sweet moment came when it was time to leave. We packed our supplies and loaded up. I never ever expected our exit to be so complicated...the kids, on that very first day, did not want us to go. They hugged us and hung on to us. Kids climbed into the van we were in, refusing to leave us...asking to go with us.

As soon as we would get three out of the van, two more would find their way in. One little girl held onto the bumper and wouldn't let go. At one point, a young girl, maybe 5 years old had climbed into the van. I looked down at this little girl who looked back at me with her arms up as she cried "I want to go with you". Almost immediately an older child helped this little one out of the van, the door shut and my heart broke into pieces.

Oh, how these kids longed to be loved and wanted! The true mission of our trip was never more apparent to me than it was at that moment. We were to love them the way that Jesus Christ loves us...we were to treat them the way He treats us...we were to look at them the way He looks at them...we were to do everything we could, through the power of the Holy Spirit to use our remaining time to point them to the hope that we have, not because of what we have or where we come from, but because of who we belong to!

Sappy I know, but it is the truth.