I'm Not "Lion", The Nest Was AWESOME!

Josh Chinn quality blog post #2.

Today was really awesome. Although getting up was a bit tough (I'm still a bit jetlagged), I was greeted by some delicious crepes and sausages for breakfast. After a nice meal, we had a great devotion and then prepared to visit the Nest.

The Nest was absolutely amazing. When we first arrived we visit the toddlers and younglings in their nursery. One of them was crying but stopped immediately after he was picked up. He was a smart cookie who knew how to get attention. After visiting the cute lil ones, we got a tour of the Nest and finally got to meet the children. They were so friendly and fun. They sang us a song welcoming us to their home and kindly asked for our names. Then we went to go set up for our VBS sesh while they went to eat. Brendon and I helped Erika lead the kiddos in hand motions for a couple songs. Some of the kids got really into it, but I think others were scared of us, probably because of our lion hoodies (explained later). We sang Whole World in His Hands, This Little Light of Mine, and Choose Jesus. By the end of the song, most of the kids were participating in the hand motions which was so fun to see. They all had smiles on their faces as we finished the songs and moved on to our short skit.

Brendon, Garrett and I were assigned to be lions for the skit. Erika made us lion sweatshirts with manes and patches of fur and getting to be the lion was my favorite part of the day. Our skit was Daniel and the lion's den. When Erika introduced us, we came in and began crawling and scratching and all the kids were roaring with laughter. Get it? Roaring with laughter? Okay. no.

Anyway, the part of the play I enjoyed most was when the lions were "silenced" by God and us felines had to pretend that our mouths were shut. After our epic play, we moved on to crafts. We helped the fellas make these awesome masks. I eventually finished helping the kids and began to take pictures of them. Man, those kids LOVE the camera. Every single time they'd see a flash they'd race toward the photographer and demand to see themselves. Sometimes they'd hide behind their masks or make hysterical faces, then crack up when they saw themselves in the camera screen. After we made crafts and prepared to leave, the kids sang us another song and invited a couple of us to join in. They'd call us out and want us to dance. Brendon was the first to be called out and everybody laughed as he danced along with the kids. To be honest, those kids have better dance moves than Chris Brown, and they're not even half his age.

After the Nest, we went to the Amani ya juu ministry. It was really inspiring to see the women who worked there and made the most of the opportunities they'd been given. I loved so many of their creations, especially the small stuffed animals and the elephant backpacks.

Then came the toughest part of the trip (so far..). We decided to set up the sound equipment and do a few checks to make sure everything went well. All was going perfectly until we got about 2 minutes in to our checks. I'm not sure why, but one of the power surges blew out. We had to check the surge, the outlet, the adapter, the converter, but we still aren't sure what went wrong. Basically, we were stuck with a limited number of outlets and we had to prepare and be ready for our music set tomorrow. In the end, we got everything we needed to work working correctly and we should be ready for manana. Thanks so much for your prayers and support!

-Josh ♥♥♥♥