To be honest, I wasn't really supposed to go on this trip, however, I think John or Brandon mentioned that one of the people groups that the team was going to be Asians and it was a huge population so I decided that it probably was a good idea to come along on the last minute.... Safe to say, probably wasn't the best idea since I didn't meet any Asians at all.... (but I told people about Jesus nonetheless)
Anyways, the trip up was a bit crowded... every seat was full which was a relief for me and we arrived and sort of rested for the night since we left in the afternoon and it was starting to get dark. The team divided into two, one to work at Emilo, a Spanish church plant, and one to work at a multi-housing site. Both would be involved in doing VBS. Our team was supposed to have "around 100 kids" however, when we got there, the only ones that came were another pastor's kids, which was extremely discouraging for our team. What sort of aggravated me even more was that the pastor that was in charge there didn't seem to be bothered nor surprised by it. oh and dont get me started on his son either...We then went door to door (which should've been done before we got there) and tried to get more kids out. Luckily we ran into some while walking around and invited them to come over, in which we did. As you can tell, I wasn't extremely impressed with the preparation this guy did and rarely spoke to him the entire week... Instead I sort of did my own thing for the week... which was going door to door, talking to people that were walking around the neighborhood and inviting them to VBS....
(NOTE: not complaining about this trip at all... just stating my experience... and to say the least, I did take a lot away from this trip that I know will be helpful in ministry later... mostly on what NOT to do... but helpful nonetheless... and this is the ending point where any negativity towards the dude stops)
After dinner, we went out to the park with some of Emilo's church and
fellowship and played soccer with some of the people there. I myself
felt a bit useless with the language barrier being there, but I finally
found someone that spoke English and even though he claimed he was a
Christian, I challenged him a little on his walk with God since he was
out of church.
Day 2 the number doubled (but when you had a low number... that's not hard) but it was a better day for everyone since we knew what to expect now. We did our usual thing, go door to door and invited more to come and that was pretty much our day in general. When we got back, we really just rested and be lazy (well most of the kids did... there was a variation of things for me to do that didn't involve a nap). In the evening, we went to downtown Indianapolis and saw some of the sites including Lucas Oil Stadium... home of the disgusting Indianapolis Colts...
Day 3 the number doubled again and the VBS started to actually look like a VBS... There was also a block party planned that night so we advertised that to the kids as well. After going door to door and advertising a bit, I sat in on the VBS classes and was very pleased with how the CLBCers were connecting with the kids. After we were done, we went back and prepared for the evening.
The block part was huge to say the least... A lot of the neighborhood came over to see what was going on and it was a pretty big hit. The team pretty much mingled or tried to with everyone there... Oh, and the EvangeCubes are probably the easiest gateway to witness to someone... just sit down on the grass and start fiddling with it... before long, someone will ask what you're doing and voila... easy...
Afterwards, we started an Ultimate Frisbee game for the rest of the night and that was it for that day... safe to say we were tired...
Day 4 we went to the famous Indianapolis Zoo.... okay.. not so famous but it was alright... The Beijing Zoo definitely blew it out of the water. The dolphin show, although was cute, was slightly disappointing... However, I loved the dog show and some of the stunts that they did. The rest of the animals were interesting... but to say the least, I saw most of them 2 weeks before... however, hanging out with group made the zoo a lot more enjoyable... afterwards, we left for home on the same day and that was it for that trip
PS. Tug of War is a good activity with these kids... as is a foot race... and... Todd Morgan does really good SNL Harry Carey impersonations....
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