On the 2nd day of the Romani Outreach I decided to bring my camera along. As we arrived at the site, we discovered the 3 tents were gone... It turns out the giant storm last night has wreck the tents and the people tried to save them... But even if we had the tents, it would not be able to cover all the children... The people decided to extend a giant tarp over the area...
... the rain was really pouring down that day!!!
Children started to arrive from the 2 settlements... We had approx. 170-195 people...
... Some like it in the rain...
After we packed them underneath the tarp, we started the program...
They loved the songs...
... Our awesome 2nd translator... because this group speaks hungarian we translate through Vasya to him...
Our local DJ.. The audio equipments were setup inside the church(speakers aim through the windows) since it was so wet outside.
Pastor Jon and some of the helpers!
Pastor Jon's daughter, Esther with Tiffany by the door of the church...
Pastor Jon's son, Joshua... I really feel for these Missionary kids, especially in this ministry. I told him I know God will give him and his family much blessings... And I hope he will see God work in his parents and in his life because of their sacrifice...
... Children getting ready for snacks... We had snacks before the other activities because most children come unfed...
... Prayer for the snack...
Snacks was a drink and fruit...
... There were many holes in the tarp...
Every so often they poke the tarp with the shuffle to unload some of the water on top, the kids love to be under it...
The kids love to pop their juice box... Some even blow it up again and step on it for a few more times... The adults were no exception...
The children came wearing their BEST clothes... This boy was in a suit...
We moved the little ones into the church to color as the older ones play games...
Even the helpers want to color...
Outside, we modified our "Hot Potato/balloon" game underneath the tarp...
... when the music stops the first team to pop the balloon gets a point!
... Unfortunately some of the kids didn't understand they should only pop the balloon when the music stopped... During the last round of the game, this kid pop the balloon when it was passed to him and thought he won it for the team... We actually feared for his life...
After the game Crystal showed the Gospel flip book!
And there was a time for prayer and response...
We prayed that the seed is sow...
Afterward we did our craft. The color beads bracelet!
... Catching raindrops with the zip lock bag from the craft...
After the craft, their praise team sang a song while we waited for lunch to arrive... We were actually way early in our schedule and the lunch delivery truck wasn't arriving for another half an hour...We led a few more songs to keep the kids at bay...
... Lunch has arrived! Today was different than yesterday as everyone was crowded under the tarp. We did our best to keep the lunch process under control!
As our lunch reach the end, 2 older ladies walked in with a bucket. Left over food were deposited into the it. Food is very important here...
As we ended our Romani outreach events, we came back with a lot of learnings. We learned alot about the people and the culture, but we were also humbled by the people who are willing to commit their time and their lives into these people...