Hillary and Meredith here. And though we come from a united team, we come bearing two different stories. I (Hillary) work at St. Mary's school with Standard 1 children (ages 7 to 9) and Meredith works at St. John's with Standard 3 children (ages 9 to 11).
At St. Mary's the heart touching moments of today include but are not limited to a little boy walking up to me giving me a great big hug and then asking if he could give me butterfly kisses which I gladly accepted. So very precious.There is a little boy named Kies (pronounced Ki-eese) in my Standard 1 class. He is the best little reader that you ever did see. This tends to get him in a bit of trouble becasue all he wants to do is read instead of whatever he is supposed to be doing. He is awesome though and picked out the book with the most pages to read to me today. I loved it. Also, Alison and I also went from class to class bearing a guitar and Alison's amazing vocal cords. After we played a song for the class we would ask if they had a song to teach us, most did. However, after school I was braiding a little girl's new bracelet and she looked up at me with giant brown eyes and asked if I remembered telling the class they could share more songs with me after class. I simply said "of course, do you want to sing me one?" She broke out in Jesus Lover of My Soul with the sweetest voice quite possibly in the entire world. It was simply captivating. These kids have so little, but their hearts are full of joy and you can't help but love them for it.
Most of the children at St. John's went on field trips today, so we used it as a good work day to help out around the school. Aimee, Adam, Mrs. Kelly, and I started out the morning by organizing the supplies and donations to hand out to the teachers and students who need them, which we hope to hand out tomorrow. Meanwhile, poor Sharon, Alex, Savanna, and Jill finished painting the tires for the outdoor classroom and started painting a wonderfully difficult cinderblock wall around the school's garden in the scorching sun. We took a long lunch break to walk to the bakery and see some of the vendors. Then we came back to the school and finished the bucket of paint for the wall (though we did not finish painting the wall) and painted some fun games for them to play on the sidewalk, including tic tac toe, long jump, and hopscotch. Now when I say hopscotch, I don't mean a measly 10 squares in a line, I mean a whopping 40 squares of bending awesomeness around the corner of the school yard. The most touching moment of the day was early this morning. I got up with a couple others to watch the sunrise (positively breathtaking, by the way!) and then before breakfast, Jill and I went with Dr. Meg and Mrs. Kelly to take a few lunches to some kids who can't afford it for the field trip. The kids were so excited about going to see the Mayan ruins that are so close to their home but they do not have the means to get to see them. Dr. Meg and I talked to some of them for a few minutes and it was just precious to see their excitement and hear that they wanted to share it with us.
Tonight, we all had the opportunity to see the preshoolers from St. Mary's in a local preschool artistic talent festival. They, along with several other local preschools, performed songs and poems and dances that were simply precious. We all have sore cheeks from smiling and laughing so much for the entire hour! After another wonderful dinner at the hotel, we are full and tired and ready for a good night's rest before our last day with the kids tomorrow. Pray for us that we will make the most of every opportunity on this last day with the children. Thank you all for your love and support! You mean so much to us!
Signing off for the night.
Love, Hillary and Meredith
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