Sunday + Monday, Joy is too little of a word to use in the description

Sunday was church day, we went to a church in Bujumbura where we were welcomed as guests and brought up in front of everyone. The worship took up most of the 3 hours and it was filled with joy! The music, everyone was in harmony and knew the song, even the kids were singing and dancing. Matt was at first taking video from his seat, but then someone grabbed his arm and told him "Go! Go up there!" and from then on he was with his camera right up next to the pastors and with the choir! The service went by like crazy! We left right after on a 3 hr car ride to Gitega on a curvy road with an amazing view of the vast, rolling hills with a flourishing green color.

Our hotel is great quality, and they are trying their best to make us comfortable by playing Christian songs at dinner, and thoroughly cleaning our rooms! We take up 9 out of 10 of the rooms at the hotel.

Anytime I've said was the best day ever of my entire life, just ignore, because today now took that position. We were sat in front of the building where the 400+ kids were worshiping, but we then moved to sit with the kids during Tyler's speech and the hug machine, which was a skit we all took part in. The kids were very happy to have us be there. Afterwards, the students took the kids outside while some stayed inside to ask questions for the adults. We started some dances like the Macarana and Hokey-Pokey to teach the kids and they circled around. After a little bit, Spencer got a grapefruit sized ball that we started a soccer-passing-circle, in which half of those kids participated or watched. We went inside for worship and Tyler's speech about the Holy Spirit, which got a lot of responses from kids who kneeled in between the benches.

We had practiced a skit that used two people, one being the legs and head, and the other being the arms who's head was covered by a blanket. Jacob (Jr) and Doug (pictured below) did the skit as one person, and Francesca and Amy did the other. Videos will be shown later of the actual skit, but since I unexpectedly took Jacob (Jr)'s place in the skit, I didn't get any video.

I cleaned up the shaving cream and toothpaste back at the guest house where we had dropped off our stuff and took a break playing UNO (Super Man Edition)!

I walked back to the center and a guy was teaching the kids in Kirundi. We had translators nearby, but I didn't catch much. The message definitely had an impact on the kids.

Brittany then did a great demonstration that made the kids laugh about eating and keeping your body healthy, doing dance moves and motions to help kids remember what the fruits and vegetables are good for (like eyes, muscles, heart...). The kids had great fun with the motions, and we joined in as well.

We ate lunch. Not much else to tell about that except that Africa has these amazingly good lemon-lime-pineapple?-grapefruit? flavored Fanta that I didn't get at lunch since they ran out, but who cares; the lunch was delicious anyways :)

We got back to some more worship, which you have to keep in mind that Burundi worship is nothing like America worship (it's even better :), and continued on with Tyler's teaching.

Then Brittany came up again to talk about the spreading of germs. She put green sparkles all over her hand as the translator described how germs are little bugs that cause sickness. Team members were called up and greeted, shaking hands with Brittany as they were turned into a sparkly mess to show how germs spread. You continued to see the occasional sparkle throughout the rest of the day.

To keep the kids entertained, we did the Hand-Washing dance, which we all didn't know and later found out Brittany made up on the spot. It was a great hit, especially with the Burundian drummer on his drumset!

After things calmed down, I suddenly heard my name, and looked up. Brittany asked if I would like to play the keyboard. What did I say?? YES!!! I went up and there was a little bit of awkward silence as I changed the sound from clarinet, to strings, and finally to piano. I started to play a tune that was kind of up beat to match the mood, and I was suddenly more comfortable when the drummer joined in! It fit perfectly together and the kids loved it.

I sat back down, happy to be off of piano withdrawal, when it just so happened I was up there again. This time though, it was an actual song, and Tyler played the guitar, while Spencer played the drums. We played "Everlasting God" and worshiped through our ways.

The kids seemed at first taken by surprise, but then joined in quickly. We had them all dancing, Matt (who left his camera on the table), Francesca, and Katie on the mic singing, and their talented bass player playing along. At that moment, I felt like I knew one of the reasons why I was here. The joy in the room was not only overflowing from the faucet, but flooding into the rivers, breaking through dams, and capturing everything in its path, which happened to be everyone in the room. We were later asked to do it again tomorrow.

Just as I was thinking it was all wrapped up in some nice wrapping paper and a bow, the beat started again, but this time it was from the Burundian kids and band. Almost our whole team was dancing with the kids, who grabbed our hands and danced like I never had before. The joyful attitude displayed from these kids was unbelievable, and the room with the open doors and about 12 open windows got so hot that we followed the kids outside to cool down. The happiness lasted me all through and after the bus ride home (which I keep accidentally calling our hotel room). We were all talking about it in the bus, and now we are preparing for tomorrow!