Tuesday, April 12 was el Día del Niño, or Children’s Day. It was a packed day! First, the CED group from Word of Life went to a local village, about one hour away, Arani and had a program for the school children there. There were 2,400 kids!! The team had lots of crazy games for them and activities, but most importantly, they presented the Gospel. In the end, about 330 students received Christ!!!
Also, back home, at the property, we had a special activity for the students at Aguila Academy. We had ice cream, played relay races and ate lots of food. The kids loved it!
The CED has started again!!! There are 47 Evangelism and Discipleship students this year for Word of Life. They arrived at the first of April. They had a bon fire on Wednesday to commence the year. Pray for these students as they begin this great change in their lives, that God will work and change their lives forever.
We have started the new Aguila Christian Academy school year, at the first of March. It was a CRAZY day, children everywhere! Parents everywhere! Teachers everywhere! Dogs everywhere! The biggest hit of the year so far are the lockers we have this year. We found some old lockers, repainted them and they are all the rave. The kids find any excuse to go and put something in their lockers.
I asked one of our new students yesterday, in 3rd grade, if she likes school. She said, "I LOVE it!" Awesome!
We have students everywhere, there is never an empty room or space during the day, and the bathroom. . . it is never empty ( which means the kids have learned not to wait til the last minute to go. . . )!
The second week of school, a couple of my students found a baby tarantula in the playground. They brought it to school. As you can imagine, this caused quite the excitement. . . the girls screaming at high, ear-piercing pitches, the boys acting tough but cowering when it came near them. The teachers, most of them, not going anywhere near it. . .
I set up a habitat for the tarantula, putting rocks and leaves and a few flowers in it (not sure what they eat besides birds and lizards). The kids came and looked at it all day every chance they got, it was the high-light of their day. Gracie, my 3 year old wanted to know if it was REALLY REAL!?! Many kids asked me where his fangs were and where his head was (the head and rear are very similar. . . ). All in all, it was a good, calm day of viewing, until Marcy (an American teacher) wanted to take a picture of one of her sons holding it. That is when it got exciting! At the end of the day, we walked out side and began trying to get it out of the fish bowl. The squills and shrills began – also random running and jumping . In the end, 5 of the 19 students held the tarantula and 2 of the teachers (myself and Julie). It felt like a giant grand-daddy long-leg in my hand – kind of neat, but don’t want it on my face!!
Afterwards, we sent all the kids home. Esteban, a 9th grader asked me to let me let it loose again. So, he took it to a rocky area and released it. But, we set the fish bowl with the lid back in the school.
