Olympic Opening Ceremony Watching

We watched the Olympic Ceremony, ON THE SHIP! Such a huge blessing. We did have Spanish commentary but it was still so amazing. I kept getting excited about every country that I have some sort of relation with, no matter how vague it was. We did miss Lara though... but we were able to Skype with her as the ceremony was starting which was awesome.

SUCH PROUD BRITS/AMERICANS!

Last Day in Our Gran Canarian Hotel

So we spent our last day in our hotel in Gran Canaria being lazy and doing nothing. I spent my day with the lovely Michelle. We did nothing but eat and lay around. It was wonderful.

Lara's off to Guinea

 

Lara left for Guinea today to help work on advance for the ship. We took her to the airport and dropped her off. As sad as we were, we were so excited to see her big adventure start. The drive home was just so beautiful that I had to take a few pictures.

Trip to the Hope Centre

Last night youth went to the hope centre to play with the kids. The hope centre is a place where all of our patients go to recover or to prepare for surgery. The children there are the sweetest things in the world and they love to play games with us so it was fun to see their joy when we played with them. When we first arrived, we played football with the kids just as an ice breaker and then we began to gather together and play larger group games. We played a few games like monkey-monkey-GORILLA (our own version of duck-duck-GOOSE) and an over and under game (we stand in a line and pass the ball over our heads and then the next person passes it under, etc.). The kids had so much fun and it was great to just laugh and have a good time. We then gathered around a campfire in which two of our guys lead a few worship songs and then an African pastor lead a few more worship songs that were more familiar to the Africans. After that a day worker did a few magic tricks and then we started on the s'mores. It was the first time that any of the patients had eaten a marshmallow and so some of their reactions were awesome. We danced around and before it was too late we headed back to the ship after a long evening.

 Playing football with the patients

 Sarah holding a little girl

 

Playing 'Over and Under'

 

Monkey-Monkey-Gorilla 

Campfire

 Making S'mores

 

There was one little girl that was there who as soon as we arrived grabbed my hand and held onto me. I carried her for the entire evening. When she danced she was the cutest thing ever. I didn't want to have to leave her but hopefully I will get to see her again soon!