Tour Day Pictures

Corinth Ruins

Friday was tour day.  Our team had the choice of three different tours.  Here are a few pictures from each location.  The historical stories here are amazing and inspiring.

Today is Saturday in Greece and Day Four of our kids program is underway.  More about that later.

Mycenae Ruins  

Village street in Nafpilo

Ancient amphitheater in Epidavros

Bema seat in Corinth where Paul made his defense

Athens Acropolis

Friday is tour day

It's Friday and the whole conference has the day off to tour some of the amazing sites in the area.  Some will tour Athens, others Corinth and Mycenae.  We will have kids for one hour in the morning so the adults can enjoy and hour of worship and then everyone will head out on their all day tours.

Thursday afternoon (day three) the weather was much improved and most of the elementary aged kids went swimming.  Then they came inside and decorated t-shirts and watched a movie.  A very good day.

Inventor Eva is having trouble with her invention and asked our
team for help

An Octopus caught by a swimmer

Day two Complete

Day two has been successfully completed.  The kids are loving the program and keep trying to sneak into the room before we open the doors at 8:45 AM.  That's always a good sign.  In the afternoon while working on their crafts a group began to spontaneously sing some of the songs they are learning.  They are getting it.  It was too stormy in the afternoon for the kids to go swimming so we did more crafts (decorating their t-shirts), lots of games and a movie.

Each morning we sing songs, go to four different "stations" for stories or activities and then have free time for toys or crafts.  One of the stations is story time where Teacher Chip tells a story.  One day two it was the story of Rahab.  This episode I am going to share will reveal a bit about y sense of humor (sorry).

In one of the groups going into Chip's story time a little boy had his finger up his nose to the knuckle!  The story was about friends.  So Teacher Chip in his deep studio voice says to the group:
"You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but you cannot pick your friend's nose".  At that point I lost it laughing and had to leave.

Teacher Chip getting ready for a story

We asked the hotel for help with a sign.  Lost in translation

Day One is in the books!

Tuesday in Greece we completed our first full day with our 60 children. It went very smoothly for the most part.  Kids are settling in.  We have one child that only speaks Russian, another that only speaks Spanish, and another only German, but the all like the songs and motions that go with the songs.  They are also very involved with the games and crafts.  After lunch all but one of our elementary aged kids headed for the pool.  We had not expected so many so had to adjust our staffing plan, but it went well. Team is in great spirits and doing well. Kids try to get into class early so they must like it.

VBS Director Janet demonstrating her invention

Girls helping Teacher Janan with her hair

Kids love the "Operation" game

 

Heading into our first full day

It's Tuesday morning in Greece and we are getting ready for our first full day with the children.  Our team got introduced to the parents at the opening session of the conference last night and then we had the kids for two hours prior to dinner at 7 PM.  For the most part all 60 kids were full of smiles as they came into our rooms. We had one little guy in the 2's room that wanted his mama.  Pray with us that he will settle in so his mother can be free to enjoy the conference.

Our morning sessions go from 9 AM after breakfast to lunch time at 1 PM.  The morning is full of songs, stories, games, and crafts.  The afternoon session from 2:30 to 7:00 PM is less structured with time for swimming, and more games and crafts.

For security reasons we will not be able to place pictures of the kids on social media so you will have to settle for an occasional picture of our team.

Team ladies enjoying time off after dinner

We had a surprise visit from Eva the Inventor

Some of team enjoying lunch 

More First Day

Bethany and Rebecca getting ready for skit

Molly and Audra preparing crafts

Allie and Melissa working on name badges

Practicing team building

Chip and Rebecca preparing story station

Shelby and Dennis cutting string for crafts

More song practice

First Day

VBS theme this week

On Saturday we did not get access to our meeting rooms as we had hoped so after meetings in the morning and lunch the team had the afternoon off.  The weather was great so everyone got some time around the pool.  Sunday after breakfast and devotions we got into our meeting rooms and began setting up tables, sound equipment and sorting the supplies we will be using this week.  The team is doing great and working hard.  Families started arriving on Saturday and the conference officially begins at 5 PM on Monday.  That is when we get our kids for the first time.

Each morning we start with devotions and a team meeting

Shelby and Audra 

Sorting 27 suitcases of supplies

Bethany and Molly practicing our songs

We Made it!

All 23 team member and 30+ pieces of luggage made it to our hotel safe and sound.  We got to the hotel around 7 PM on Friday.  Got checked into our rooms, had dinner, a short team meeting and then off to bed around 10 PM.  We will take a full-team picture today (Saturday) and update the blog later today.  Today we check out our meeting rooms and try to get setup.

Please pray, we at not be able to get all of our meeting rooms until just before the conference starts on Monday!

More later.

Greece Team 2018

Oklahoma City Team

Denver Team

The team of 23 members is ready to head out June 21.  We have 13 from Portland, Oregon, 3 from Denver, Colorado, 6 from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and 1 from Finland.  Our training is complete and we are excited to get to work.  We are going to do a 5 day program for 60 children ages birth to 10 years old while their missionary parents attend a conference. This frees the parents up to attend worship services, training, counseling sessions, and just have time to visit with other missionaries.  This is the fifth year that Sunset has taken a team to do this ministry.  It is a wonderful experience. We will do our best to update this blog each day.  Come along for the ride!

Finnish Team member

Portland Team