Alpine Baptist Church

We have arrived safely in the Bahamas and have settled into our new home for the week! We were welcomed by festive decorations and a nice tropical breeze. Following a short bus ride back to our lodging for the week, we enjoyed playing mafia and basketball. Tonight, we were served a delicious meal of local Bahamian food including rice, chicken curry, and corn! We then worshipped and had an orientation meeting where we learned more about how we will be serving this week and shared our hidden talents! We finished our night with practicing our miming for church in the morning! Please pray that the Lord will prepare the hearts of not only the people we will reach, but our own as well! 

This morning, we got to experience Haitian church in the Bahamas! What a cool opportunity! The people there had so much passion and energy for God. It was neat to see different cultures coming together to worship. We also got to perform our mimes, which thankfully trandsends cultural barriers. At night, we went to Pastor Georges’ night service. That is where we’ll be doing ministry for the week, so it made us really excited!

Today we started our day with kids ministry! After a brief ride to our ministry location, Pastor Gorge’s Church, we were welcomed with the open arms of a crowd of children. Their faces lit up with smiles as soon as we stepped off the bus! They flooded out of the church to embrace us and start games of ninja and crocodile! Once brought in, we taught them bible verses and sang children’s songs with them. After that, we braided beautiful, colorful bracelets alongside the children, laying the foundation for strong relationships to begin. Our morning continued outside as we conducted relay races, got our hair braided, and had an epic dance off! Our afternoon was topped off with painting around the church! 

Today was our second day of vacation bible school, and even more kids showed up! We sang songs, did water color, and talked about how God wants us to work hard like an ant. It felt like there was more energy and excitement today! Hopefully that means the kids feel more open and free to be themselves. We are excited to have an even better day tomorrow. 

Today we enjoyed sponge races and water balloon wars! Though it dried pretty quickly in the heat and bright sun, it was a fun, exciting way to end the week of kids ministry!  

Today we experienced a relaxing and fun day! We went to the local straw market downtown, and spent the afternoon cooling off at the beach. We took time to affirm people within our group at our meeting, and point out the ways we saw God moving in them this week. We feel rested and excited to share all of those experiences with everyone back home!!