Eric Triassi: Howdy ya’ll it be Eric. Today we hosted the 2009 Spring Olympic games. One thing I might say about “the games” is that they were “eventful”. We set up four different events, and I really have no idea about three of these but I can put light on the one event I have a slight idea about, the obstacle course. Put simply, the kids were to form into two lines; that was the first obstacle. Once that got tackled, I was designated to attempt an explanation of the rules of the course, which I will state for you now:
Equipo uno, corre por aqui, meten aqui, aqui, y aqui. Corren por aqui y toquen esa naranjara cosa. Regresan por aqui otra vez. Corren aqui y meten aqui, aqui, aqui, y levantan aca. Toquen esa naranja cosa, y saltan por aqui, entienden?
(More or less, run through here, touch the orange thing, go back, run through here, here, and here, climb up here, touch that orange thing, jump down here.)
‘Twas chaotic, but I’m fairly sure that Pete and Jim would have it no other way, I know I wouldn’t.
P.S: Mexico won gold in all events.

Roger and Gale:  Thanks to all of you who are reading this blog and praying faithfully for us.  We feel your prayers!!!!  Roger’s day began after breakfast.  He, Frank, and Scott worked on wiring a new laundry room for the home.  They successfully completed everything today and will turn the power on tomorrow.  The drywall will begin and hopefully the appliances will be in place by the end of the week.
Gale was all over the place today.  I did kitchen and bathroom duty after breakfast.  Then I was set to scraping a wall by my boss, Teegan.  As others joined me we finished a long wall and another wall, and another wall, and another wall. Then we began painting (white/yellow washing).  My team which had John Benner as team leader, both Tylers, and Paul finished more than Dave expected of us.  Shout out for us!    We then did a quick shower before joining everyone at the playground for our Olympic Theme Night.  Before our festivities began, we gave each child a t-shirt.  Emmanuel Ministries has never had for their staff or children t-shirts with an Emmanuel logo.  Everyone was so excited.  See the photo!  The olympics were great and it fun to watch the kids!  The kids loved the obstacle course, the discus (paper plate throwing), bean bag catapult (try it over your head lying on your back) and many more games.  They loved the candy and their medals which said Champions for Jesus.  Tonight as we were putting kids to bed, they hated taking off their medals.

Tonight Ellen, Khalia, Samantha and I had the privilege of putting girls to bed.  No one from our group had been able to do that yet because they start their bedtime routine at 6:30.  Do you think it would be different from the boys?  Well….the room moms gave us the shampoo, soap, and sent us to the bano.  Eight or so little girls in the shower and the shower over flowing and the water pouring out into the hall, Gale frantically plunging.  Again I think if you look up the definition of chaos in the dictionary you would find a picture of bedtime/bathtime at Emmanuel.  Samantha and Ellen took turns reading Clic, Clac, Muu with a constant chorus of “a ver.”  We are getting more comfortable with the kids which meant hugs and kisses all around.

It has been a wonderful experience serving Christ here. Last night, Khalia curled up next to me and asked, “How can we leave?”  We will all be very sad to leave here.  Our family is already talking about coming back.  Sean, Alice, and Tyler, can you say, “Christmas?”

This is a conversation between Ellen and Sarah.  Leah would be part of this conversation but she is sleeping…probably having nightmares.
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Ellen:  So, first, we took all of the music bells, sticks, and shakers to the kids house.  We waited in the living room for a while until I finally thought it might be a good idea to get some help and ask “where are we supposed to be?” — I believe what came out was “Donde musica?”  Well…that didn’t go anywhere.  We finally found out we were supposed to be in the ballet studio.  We were given a set of keys, but none of them were worked.  Not even the principal could find it out for several minutes.  When we eventually figured it out, all the kids (30 3-6yr. olds) stormed through the room and went straight for the closet, which was full of things I’m sure they weren’t supposed to touch – a large stick/pole thing, star wands, and hula hoops.  Leah (the music leader) started to pass out shakers to the kids.  They were supposed to shake them to the music, like she was doing, but instead they thought it would be fun to stick them down their shirts and throw them against the floor.  We tried to take them away, but that also concluded in a game of tag.  Since the shakers didn’t work, maybe some bells on sticks would do the trick to calm them down…um…yeah…no.  The bells were made into swords, hammers, and body parts.

Sarah:  I willingly (ok, I might be lying) joined the mass chaos when Megan came running to get me while I was painting to say the girls needed help with translating. On my way to the dance room, I refreshed my memory with how to say drums in Spanish and thought I’d be good to go. I opened up the door to the dance room, and immediately saw Ellen with a look of complete horror and terror in her eyes. My first instinct was to slam the door and run away, but Ellen’s helpless look made me face the music.  Leah told me to tell the kids to sit down in a circle and listen, but I thought it’d be best to first get the magic wands and big stick thing out of the boys’ hands.  After getting the sticks back, I simply looked around the room, took a deep breath, and uhhh….tried to prevent complete mayhem. It didn’t work.  My musical experience was not at all musical, and I’m just glad we made it out alive…although Kelly was missing a shoe for a while after.
Reason #2 (on this trip) I don’t want boys.
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Obviously this was a very stressful experience for us, but it was easy to see that the kids really enjoyed it – did we mention there was candy at the end?

Honestly though, it’s been fun to see how much the kids enjoy our presence here at Emmanuel Ministries.

More Musical Melodies with Ellen and Sarah tomorrow!