Haiti - Day 6 (Brad Owens)

Hey everyone! It’s Friday, and I’m writing about Thursday, so hopefully I’ll get all my events in the right order and not accidentally start talking about today….Anyways, yesterday was the last day of VBS, and it was awesome. Danny had told us to be extra loving to the kids and to give them all the attention and affection. I held two little girls’ hands while we worshiped at the beginning of the service. All the little boys think I’m so cool because I can do little hand tricks my dad taught me when I was little, like stretching my thumb, and pulling it off and stuff. But by Thursday, most of the kids had figured out it was my other thumb, and as soon as I started doing the trick again, they would all grab my hands and show everyone else it was just a trick. Still, though, they thought I was pretty cool.

Also, I am now known as Jean Luc because of the puppet (Jean Luc) I use for VBS to help tell the stories. I love doing the puppet because I get the opportunity to teach the kids and tell them all about God. On Thursday, during the little puppet show/skit, I noticed that someone had braided Jean Luc’s hair. It was pretty amusing. Being behind the podium we used as a puppet stage, I couldn’t see the skit going on in front of me. It was the story of the prodigal son, and as Jean Luc narrated, a bunch—if not all—of our team acted out the story. It’s too bad I didn’t get to see it, but I’m sure it was great. I was really hot and tired in the workbook room, so I don’t know how much help I was. The kids all got to keep the colouring packets they did during the four days, so we didn’t have to collect them.



After the VBS, all the kids got balloons and lollipops, so it was all kind of crazy passing that stuff out. A lot of people on our team were bummed that they didn’t have a chance to say goodbye to the kids they had gotten to know. One guy around my age asked me as I was leaving, “When are you coming back?” and that really made my day to know that our team could be such a blessing to these kids, and to know that they were looking forward to next time. I didn’t know what to tell the guy, so I just told him ‘next year.’

After VBS, we went back to the hotel and swam in the pool with the HCH kids. I had fun helping Danny throw Omega in the water and carrying Selindea around in the deep end. It was fun to connect with all the kids that way.



Travis, Spencer, Lucy, Kelsey, and I went to the church to practice our three songs we were planning on playing on Friday for a church conference. Little did I know I would get sick and not be able to worship with them in that way, but that’s okay. It was a good experience running through the songs. We started to draw a little crowd as we practiced in the church building. It was awesome just to worship with them and hopefully brighten their day.

We ate dinner at a restaurant, and everyone who ordered papaya juice soon discovered it wasn’t passion fruit juice. Nixon, the lead teacher of VBS, was kind enough to change our orders to Coke, except for Travis, who somehow liked the papaya juice. That was a fun meal and we had a good time talking and laughing together.



We came back to the hotel and sang some worship songs and shared devotions and feelings about the day at the pool. It was neat because there were people there swimming and they got to hear us sing (or HAD to hear us sing, depending on how you look at it). Either way, it was neat to represent Jesus in that way. All in all, Thursday was awesome.

- Brad