Team from Tacoma - Tue, 13 Jul 2010 19:53:34 -0700

Hello all!

It was a wonderfully exhausting day! But first off, I want to apologize to the Lighthouse parents because my stories will be so heavily biased toward Kitsegukla. I am trying to get stories from the Kitwanga team, but they're all so tired that all they say is, "It went great."

Garett did say that it was funny to see little Amber beat all the little boys out on the soccer field. And one of the kids told Brian that "This VBS is better than that camp with the zipline!"

I spend a lot of time at the registration table checking in kids, and yesterday Kerena told me how to spell her name: "K-E-R-E-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V." It's so hard to hear some of their voices, but fortunately many of them have the same last names. You spell Hyzims "H-Y-ZED-I-M-S," by the way.

We had a bear sighting in Kitsegukla today. A parent told me that it had been sighted "down the hill, behind the complex." Several of the kids walked down to the soccer field anyway, but Mr. Bear never came out to play with us.

We also had a word of the day - "BAM!" It was one of the sound effects from our skit about the houses built on the rock and on the sand. We actually couldn't remember when it was supposed to be used (we'd written the skit and made the prop cards a couple months ago), so we used it for the sound you make when you build a house - BAM BAM BAM BAM. But at other random times team members could be heard calling out "Bam!" - always good for a laugh.

Today's craft involved using watercolors to decorate a small, wooden cross, and then stringing beads on a thin-gauge wire to wrap around it. It was a fairly long process, which gave us lots of time to chat with both the older and the younger kids. Chats usually begin with "What's your favorite color?" and move on to more personal sharing. Many of the kids have gotten really good at working the gospel into their conversations. Today I heard, "I really like how you painted your cross! Do you remember what the cross means?" And if the VBS friend can explain it, the VBS team member will jump on the opportunity.

One of our team members is named Erika. When our five Edmonton friends arrived, one of them asked her who she was. "I'm Erika," she replied. "America?" one of them asked. "You're AMERICA?!" She now has a new nickname.
Today I heard a sad story about one of the young girls. Please join us in praying for her and others like her. (God knows who she is and what the circumstances are.)

We ended our VBS day with soccer camp. Since it was a beautiful, sunny day, my team members got quite warm. Bless the wonderful people in the Health Center adjacent to our field who came out with trays of watermelon, cantaloupe, and pineapple wedges. Very refreshing!

In Christ,

Sue Acuna

I will sing to the Lord, for He has been good to me. Ps. 6:13