Watching the kids emerge from their shells and come so far from their withdrawn personalities reflected God’s miraculous love and His desire to work in His children’s hearts.
Friday was our fourth and final day running the Bush Mission program. After what we witnessed the first, second and third days, the energy and passion of the kids very clearly had bloomed, and the footwork was utterly off the charts.
This was such a blessing to be able to have both seen and be a part of. Particularly when it came time to sing and dance to some songs. The kids really gave it their all in each one. Especially from my (Mykah’s) perspective as someone who was a part of the Leonora worship team each day.
Watching these kids emerge from their shells and come so far from the very reserved, withdrawn little personalities that we initially got to see, was so beautiful and inspiring.
For me, this truly reflected God’s miraculous love and His divine desire to work in His children’s hearts.
Hearing the kids being able to remember the Bible verses taught by M1 and M2 was so heartwarming. Especially for me since I (Alicia) was M1. We then broke off into small groups and some of the leaders shared their own testimony to the kids.
After sitting down for a while, it was time to GET ACTIVE! With crafts, of course.
We created windmills, stamp paints, spoon people, lion manes and fruit of the spirit slime. After a bit of worship and Congo lines, we gathered again back into small groups where we gave goodbye gift bags and goodbye hugs.
Some kids were certainly eager for ‘the Bible, God’s true Word’ and we are so thankful to have been able to fulfil those desires and provide these kids with Bibles.
The kids were dropped home at about midday. As soon as these children left the centre, our mission was to clear the entire hall, auditorium and crafts room, pack everything we had brought back on to our school bus.
Everyone did their bit; sweeping, vacuuming, washing, drying, lifting, packing, cleaning, wiping, and more.
Within a couple of hours, the rec centre looked just like it did the day we first arrived. This process of taking down everything we had put up was difficult. This included binning lots of the Bush Mission materials we had spent so long preparing, and accepting the fact that this truly would be our last day in Leonora.
We ate lunch and were blessed with boxes full of ice-cold cans of fizzy drinks and icy poles. Which tasted a thousand times better due to the 36-degree weather. After this, we all returned to our home for the week, the sports complex.
Here, we spent a little while resting before preparing to host our final BBQ for the townspeople later in the evening.
During our last every debrief, kids started arriving so we quickly put the sausages on the barbeque and got the evening started. Kids lined up for food and fruit whilst playing sports and signing some shirts. After a little while, the kids under 9 got dropped off home but the older kids stayed to play a game of raiders.
The raiders game was filled with excitement and yelling which helping everyone feel more energised. After a few rounds of raiders, it was sadly the time to send the kids home.
Tears were shed, and many hugs were shared. Later, we came back into our ‘home away from home’ and spent the night with some laughs and hot chocolate popcorn (thanks Izelke), before packing and preparing to leave the next morning at 7am.
