Bible Schools!

Continuing with the theme "Things that Happened Months Ago", I have finally found time to write about the month of January.  We have been moving around so much since the year began that it has been hard to find time to sit down and blog, but now that I am stuck in the same town (Ceilandia), at least until May, I  hope I will be able to write more regularly.

After the holiday festas in Samambaia came to an end the team was reunited to begin working with  the bible school in Gama.  Monday and Tuesday were spent planning and spreading the word around the town.  We went door to door distributing information to the households with children near the church.  Bible school then began on Wednesday and ended with the Sunday evening church service.  The team and I, with lots of help from the Brazilians, helped to lead music and with the dramas and games.  Our theme was "Heroes of the Bible" and the stories were about Moses, Ruth, Peter, and Jesus.

The following week we moved on to Samambaia to do pretty much the same thing again, except the theme there was the story of Daniel.  After Samambaia we came to Ceilandia where we stayed for two weeks, first helping with the bible school of the Mennonite church here and then with a church plant in Sol Nascente.  There were predictions of close to three hundred children that were going to attend the bible school in Sol Nascente, but I don't think we ever had more then eighty,  while at the other towns we had between 30-50.  In general the turnout was lower than expected at each location, but there were still enough kids that we were all ready for our team retreat when January came to an end.

Photos, from bottom to top:  1)Kids watching a drama inside the church at Gama.  2)Playing capture the flag in the street in front of the church in Samambaia.  3)Acting out the story of Daniel in Ceilandia.  4)Most but not all of the kids in Sol Nascente.  5)Keeping the smaller children entertained in Sol Nascente.