Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite!

THE CHILDREN'S PROGRAM IS OVER!!!

I feel bad for being glad that the program is over, but man am I glad. That was one of the most frustrating weeks that I have had since September. But even though there was a lot of frustration behind the scenes of the program, the kids made it worth it.

One of the things that made me most frustrated was that we had to prepare new crafts for the next day every evening after the program in the morning. Even though we spent most of last week preparing supplies and cutting stuff out for the crafts this week. All of our hard work from last week got trashed and we had to make new stuff the night before we needed it. It was like cramming for exams. I hate cramming for exams. There is a reason I am not in school right now.

But thank Jesus for the Pastor's wife. On Thursday night, she prepped all of the crafts for Friday. I think she must have stayed up all night. but it turned out pretty awesome. The crafts for the week were the armour of God. Which fit perfectly with our medieval theme. On Monday we made belts of truth. Tuesday was breastplates of righteousness. Wednesday was shields of faith. Thursday was the sword of the spirit. And Friday was the helmet of salvation.

At the end of the day on Friday, we let the children put on all of their armour, and then we sang a song called 'on the march'. It was so cute. All the kids were so in to it. There is one part of the song that says stuff like 'Hold high your sword of the spirit' and then the kids yell "I GOT THAT!" and it does it for all of the armour. They loved it.

In the learning centre on Friday, Beth did a salvation call for all of the kids. She got them to close their eyes, and then raise their hand if they wanted to accept Jesus into their life. All of them raised their hands. And then they all said the prayer together. It was pretty awesome. There were 21 kids in my group on the last day. (And I only had one youth helper!!! Thanks Azzy!) So all 21 gave their lives to the Lord. So cool. And in total, out of the 72 kids in attendance, 70 said the prayer accepting Jesus into their lives. Which is so cool. Because now God has his hand on their lives and who knows what might happen to them, but no matter what God will be there. It's pretty cool.

Now, if you have worked at camp with me you may know this... I don't really like children that much. Especially female children. But for some reason they LOVE me. I really don't like cuddling or holding hands or having 10 kids in my lap at once, and that is what girl children like. So poor Azzy had about 3 kids in her lap for the whole week. Oh man. But at the end of the week, one of the girls that was a bit high maintenance, gave me a bracelet. It was so sweet. Because I had really pushed her throughout the week. She really really wants attention because I don't think she gets much at home, so she misbehaves a lot and always runs off by herself to force the leaders to pay attention to her. I have her a few talks about how Azzy and I are here for all of the kids and we want to spend time with everyone. And by the end of the week she was a lot better, but I thought she probably wouldn't like me after all of that, but she did :)

And another girl in my group was so cute. Her mom has spinabifida, and on the first day she asked me if I knew what spinabifida is, and since I am a neuroscientist I actually know a lot about it. She was so excited that I knew what it was, that she introduced me to her mom and we had quite a good chat. Her mom doesn't have very severe spinabifida though, you would never know by looking at her. And I found out that her mom and dad own a cafe in town and they were the ones who had been making me my lovely allergen-free salads all week. How sweet. And then last night they dropped off some left over desserts from the cafe for us YWAMers, and since I can't eat them, the girl wrote me a note. It was so cute and warmed my heart!

So, even though I like female children a little bit better now, I still love my boys. Because instead of being clingy and whiney, they just like to destroy things. So much fun!

One other cool thing happened yesterday. A boy that was at the children's program, who has had some really really bad things happen to him (he was a victim of one of those pedophiles that have just been discovered here in Kaitaia), he said the coolest thing. Apparently he gets overcome by really crazy fits of rage and such things, and everyone was supposed to be really careful around him, but I never saw him act out. And he always knew all of the memory verses and stuff, so he was clearly excited about God. Anyways, I was testing out his armour at the end of the day, hitting his shield and his breastplate, and I said "Woah, this is pretty strong armour!" and he said "Yeah, that's because it's the armour of God!" and then he did a fancy little sword trick. It made me really happy.

So alas, the children's program is done. I did not really love it, but the children made it well worth while.

In other news, I have been growing out my leg and armpit hair since the beginning of outreach. I have grown my leg hair pretty long before because it is really blond and see-through, but I have never grown my armpit hair out before. I didn't think it would really get too bad, because my armpits aren't super hairy. But the hair is darkish and you can actually see it in contrast to my skin, and its getting really long. It's probably about 2 cm long. And I am actually getting really grossed out by it. I have 2 weeks left of outreach. And I can't decide if I should give in and shave it because it's really gross, or if I should wait it out until the end. I think I will probably hold out for the rest of the time, but it will be hard, because it is really gross and every time I lift up my arms accidentally I am ashamed.

Also, our team is getting kinda sick again. On Thursday morning, Leish could not walk on her leg. She had had boils on her ankle in Fiji. I thought they were gone by now because she never says anything, but nope. Boils are super prone to infection which makes them really scary, but I don't think she new that. And I don't think she was keeping them clean or else they would be gone by now. So anyways, Shelley forced Leish to go to the hospital (which was so good because she would have refused to go if anyone on the team tried to take her), and the docs said that she was lucky that she didn't have blood poisoning. And they put her on antibiotics and said that if it wasn't better in 48 hours that they would send her to the bigger hospital in Whangerei. Yesterday morning (after only 24 hours) they decided to drive her down in an ambulance. So I guess it wasn't getting any better. I think she might be getting surgery to get the infection out of her leg. Fun times. Prayer would be much appreciated!

But the one bonus of Leish being gone is that I can sleep on her mattress. In the complex we are staying in, we were given these foam mattresses to sleep on. I was really lucky and got the only one plagued by bed bugs. Literally. It is kind of funny because in Fiji before bed, Hannah would say "Good night" I would say "don't let the bed bugs bite" and Beth would say "Because there is literally thousands". Well, apparently we should have been saying this here in Kaitaia. I have little bites all over my entire body. My whole torso is covered and they are even on my BUTT! Stupid bugs. I am so itchy. And I was really looking forward to Wednesday because that was when we were supposed to leave for Aukland, and I could escape the dreaded bed bugs.

But now, it turns out we are just going to stay in Kaitaia for the rest of our outreach, which means 2 more weeks. So it is nice to be sleeping on a different mattress. Last night was the first night I didn't get totally munched.

We were supposed to go to Aukland for about a week to work with the C3 church in south Aukland and reach out to people on the streets, like the prostitutes. I was so excited for that! But the church cancelled on us, and we haven't been able to find any other replacement things to do in Aukland, so yesterday we found out that we will be staying in Kaitaia and helping run the church programs for the next couple of weeks. It should be pretty relaxed, so that's good I guess since everyone is getting sick. But I think I'll need to purchase a few books for myself because Kaitaia isn't too exciting. Haha. Ohhh small towns. I could never live in one.

Sarah went to the doctor yesterday because she was feeling really sick, and found out that she has strep throat. So I will be keeping my distance from that lady!

I just thank Jesus and my Mom (for letting me eat off of the ground and eat with dirty fingers as a child) for my good immune system!