Today we had the opportunity to return to the school in San Mateo. This time, the Principal arranged for us to speak with the children in their classrooms and we will be doing this for three consecutive days. We started with the oldest group, the 6th grade. The children are jammed into impossibly small areas so it was very difficult for us to fit even our small team into a classroom. So for the first session, we divided the team and went to two different classes. Kevin, Marty, Micah and Avery went in one class. Krista, Kyle, Caleb, Jacob, and I went to the other. Each group had a Guatemalan interpreter.

We began by introducing ourselves and then reminding the students of the presentations that we had made the day previously. We then invited the students to ask any question that they would like—especially questions regarding God, the Bible, or the message from our presentation. In our class, every student submitted a question. Many of them were questions about the team (why do you go on mission trips? how big is your church? etc.) But most of the questions related to our message. It’s amazing how the same questions are asked no matter what country you are in (why should we pray? why is there sin? what is Heaven like? etc.) We answered several of the questions and when we ran out of time, I (Ken) promised to answer all of the remaining questions and send them to their class via email.

After a short break (for the kid’s recess), we went to the third 6th grade class and chose just a few members of the team to do the talking since space was so tight. The atmosphere in this class was a bit more cautious and the kids weren’t as forthright with questions or participation. The class happened to be studying a unit on human evolution at that time (using VERY dated materials) and we speculated that having a group come in and talk about God while they have a workbook right in front of them with images of humans descending from lower hominids might have caused a bit of a disconnect. However, a few of the students were very engaged and we had an opportunity to share some vital truth with them.

At lunch time, we again walked over to the mission church to await the kids to get out of school and be served lunch. We are already beginning to make a real connection with these children. After lunch, Krista led the group in Day 2 of the VBS. Today we learned what a wise person looks like (he delights in the Word of God and he hates evil and turns from it).

Again, we were unable to install stoves today because the materials were not yet delivered. It turned out to be providential that we chose to fill the bulk of our time with teaching rather than installing stoves.

Right now, Pat and Caleb are cooking hamburgers for dinner after which we plan our nightly debrief. Tomorrow we will return to the school in the morning and then back to the mission church for Day 3 of VBS.