Woodland Hills May Day Eight (Saturday)

Blog from Friday May 21, 2010

     Friday? Already? The week has flown by and we are already at our last day of the week. Today, instead of working out at the land, we worked at the La Vina boy’s house. There we painted windows and the door. We all had a lot of fun doing this and felt privileged to do so. We got done working at around 1:00pm and then went to the orphanage. For our activity, we had planned a carnival. This was by far, our favorite day with the kids. We set up different stations for the kids to play games at. Our activities included a fish pond, sucker tree, duck pound, bean bag toss, balloon animals and face painting. What made this all so fun was simply the kids’ reactions. They were so happy and loved all the prizes and candy. All of the kids spent the afternoon with us the whole time and that was awesome. We never got to play with them all at once so we definitely took advantage of it. At the end of the carnival, we did a raffle for the kids and they absolutely loved that. It’s crazy how much you can learn from children. Throughout this week, it’s easy to say they taught us the value of life, the importance of living it and loving it to the fullest, no matter what the circumstances. We’ve all felt such strong connections with the kids and have definitely loved Esperanza Viva more and more each day.
     When we returned to our house, we really had no plans for our evening but to just hang out with each other. After resting and eating hamburgers, we ended up singing Disney songs, acting really goofy and playing games. Our group is definitely one of a kind. We’ve had really heartfelt conversations all the way to goofy, weird ones. Each of us has felt such a growth in our faith and relationships with each other. We all allowed ourselves to open up and grow as much as possible on this trip. We’re so glad we have 2 more days here, but we’re also looking forward to going home. We’re excited to share our experiences and expand what God and Esperanza Viva have done for us. It’s all been such an amazing experience! See everyone soon! :)

God Bless,
Jen

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  Pictures of the team painting yesterday.