Today was our first day of the VBS at our first original church. Personally, I think this day went very well for our team. I felt like the team was really connecting with the kids. I started off the day doing name tags and by 5 minutes till 9 we only had like 5 kids. This was a little concerning, but things changed for the better when Brent started showing up with vans full of kids, and they all jumped out of the van excited for the VBS! This was amazing to see. We ended up having over 100 kids show up! The VBS went on as a lot of our team reconnected with people from previous years. 

When the kids were lining up for food, I met this eleven year old boy named Fouricio. He read my name tag and started saying “Samba.” We went back and forth a bunch, because that simply isn’t my name. I just continued to keep seeing him and then he eventually asked me to play with him. He asked if I would play Protect the President and be the President so he could run around and protect me, which ultimately failed, but I said yes obviously. At the end I finally asked him why he called me “Samba” and he said he didn’t really know he just thought it was kinda special like it was “our thing” or and inside joke which I thought was super cool.  

After the VBS we went around some stores in town to do some souvenir shopping. Then we went to a local hot spring which was amazing. After we finished off by having pizza in town. The night ended with lots of laughter and singing. 

~Sam Portale