Every Sabbath afternoon, we have AY or Adventist Youth. Indian Style AY normally consists of a walk and an afternoon program as we prepare to close out the sabbath. Sometimes the walks are short; other times the walks take us to Narnia, Neverland, and the place in that terrible movie, the Neverending Story. Thats how long they can be. This particular walk we went to the playground. Being the silly American that I am, I should have known that the playground was not going to have a tire swing, some seesaws, and a jungle gym in the middle of a jungle in the middle of India. And yet, I am still the silly American.
And so the walk began. First down the hill behind the compound, then literally over the river and through the woods, beneath the bamboo, through the trees, around that one fruit tree in which the children convinced me to eat the fruit that did not take my life, and so on. With each step, I just knew I would never return. I figured if our guide perished, we'd be lost forever and I'd be forced to eat bamboo soup until the animals of the forest finished me off. Moreover, if I fell to my death, who would do the nursing necessary if someone got hurt. Hahaha they wouldn't need me. Anyway, we continued on our path. At this point I was surprised I hadn't seen any snake or giant Lord of the Rings spiders.
We finally got to our destination. It was all before me. I thought it was a joke. But nope, no pinching necessary. It was a playground indeed. It was simply a field where children played. Pretty much a soccer field. That's exactly what it was. An open soccer field. That's it. But maybe I shouldn't see it as just that because I'm sure great things happen at that place. And so we all sat down.
I always find it interesting how often the kids want me to lead out in songs and then no one wants to join in. Just like at camp, I sung with such joy (looking incredibly silly and not caring) until someone joined it. Someone has to get the masses excited about Jesus! The midwives are the funniest. They are all very much older than me and just stare and laugh at me. Sometimes they talk. I wonder if they laugh, look away, stare, or do all three because they think I'm cute or weird or awkward or all three. And so we kind of sang songs until everyone else arrived. Then AY began. Ms Awon led it this time. She split us up into teams. This was the first time I realized that I was at least someone well liked. All the kids wanted to be on my team. It was a nice feeling. It's kinda how you know you are well liked. Half the people who ended up in my team most definitely weren't there to begin with. Ha.
We played a music game where we had to start a song with the first letter of the last word of the previous song that the previous group sung..or.... If group A sung "it is well" and ended the song with "roll" group B had to start a new song with the letter R. You had 30 secs to think of a song. It took half the time to figure out the game, but in the end, it was such a great time. Our fun was short lived because we realized that we were far from campus and didn't want to perish in the forest if it got dark. Ok, I was probably the only one who was thinking like that.
I took the guys on a cross country-like run. I encouraged them like my teammates did for me in high school. The struggle was much more real, however, as we legit climbed mountains and almost fell down them. Probably shouldn't have ran. At one point, we reached the top of a hill and could see the vast expanse of the jungle around. "I live here," I thought. Wild. Literally, it is wild here.
We made it back safe. I'm not writing this from a hospital bed which is proof I didn't lose my life. Alabanza. I'm hoping for more Playground experiences. More days like this. A little more recklessness. A little bit of adventure. More open fields filled with opportunity. Glorious opportunity. Let's do it.
Hobey Ho.
We finally got to our destination. It was all before me. I thought it was a joke. But nope, no pinching necessary. It was a playground indeed. It was simply a field where children played. Pretty much a soccer field. That's exactly what it was. An open soccer field. That's it. But maybe I shouldn't see it as just that because I'm sure great things happen at that place. And so we all sat down.
I always find it interesting how often the kids want me to lead out in songs and then no one wants to join in. Just like at camp, I sung with such joy (looking incredibly silly and not caring) until someone joined it. Someone has to get the masses excited about Jesus! The midwives are the funniest. They are all very much older than me and just stare and laugh at me. Sometimes they talk. I wonder if they laugh, look away, stare, or do all three because they think I'm cute or weird or awkward or all three. And so we kind of sang songs until everyone else arrived. Then AY began. Ms Awon led it this time. She split us up into teams. This was the first time I realized that I was at least someone well liked. All the kids wanted to be on my team. It was a nice feeling. It's kinda how you know you are well liked. Half the people who ended up in my team most definitely weren't there to begin with. Ha.
We played a music game where we had to start a song with the first letter of the last word of the previous song that the previous group sung..or.... If group A sung "it is well" and ended the song with "roll" group B had to start a new song with the letter R. You had 30 secs to think of a song. It took half the time to figure out the game, but in the end, it was such a great time. Our fun was short lived because we realized that we were far from campus and didn't want to perish in the forest if it got dark. Ok, I was probably the only one who was thinking like that.
I took the guys on a cross country-like run. I encouraged them like my teammates did for me in high school. The struggle was much more real, however, as we legit climbed mountains and almost fell down them. Probably shouldn't have ran. At one point, we reached the top of a hill and could see the vast expanse of the jungle around. "I live here," I thought. Wild. Literally, it is wild here.
We made it back safe. I'm not writing this from a hospital bed which is proof I didn't lose my life. Alabanza. I'm hoping for more Playground experiences. More days like this. A little more recklessness. A little bit of adventure. More open fields filled with opportunity. Glorious opportunity. Let's do it.
Hobey Ho.
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