getting out there...

Well now that we have had a chance to settle in, we finally signed up to do some ministry and things to do in our spare time (which we have alot of here!!). On Friday we signed up to go to a deaf school for a couple hours in the morning to teach the kids a bible story and to color a page with them. When we got there we were overwhelmed with kids doing all this sign language to us and we had no clue what they were trying to say!! but thankfully one of the other people who came along from the ship knows american sign language and she helped interpret for us!! Did you know that each country has their own sign language? Someone came here to Benin and taught these kids ASL so that was cool that we could communicate with them. We learned a few words in sign language like, good day, beautiful, share, and colour. We gathered all the children together in one classroom and one of the Mercy Ministries leaders spoke french to the teacher and he signed to the kids. It was really funny watching him and the kids were laughing at the story. After the story we handed out papers and some pencil crayons for them to colour with, well was that an experience or what!! (I think my mom forgot that this was a DEAF school and was talking away to the kids) haha only something she would do!! we coloured with them and then we tried to get back all the pencil crayons we handed out, which was a challenge as some of them were putting them in their pockets, but we got them back, and then it was time to go as government officials were there to inspect the school or something. It was really fun going and doing that and I can't wait to go out on our next ministry thing. We were not allowed to take pictures there, so there is no pictures for me to put up here. Then this morning we got up and went down to breakfast to pack a lunch and get ready to head out to the craft market. It's hard to know what to expect until you get there. We walked around from shop to shop, and we were sweating up a storm. It was really really really hot!!! Most of the shops had mostly all the same things in them, some were a little different than others, but most of them were the same. If you find something, and decide to look around it is really hard to find where you found  it the first time because they are so alike and you can get easily lost! We saw a couple lizards and two really super cute goats!! Driving here in Cotonou is CRAZY!! I almost forgot how freaky it is driving where everyone thinks that they are invinsible!!!  We looked around and got a few things but not alot. then we came back to relax in our air conditioned cabin....YESSSSSS. It is so nice to be able to get out of the heat and be dry, I really have no idea how these people live through this constant heat and humidity!!! Nothing much planned for this weekend, just reading, catching up on school and maybe playing a board game or two. Here is a picture of the outside of the ship.hahaha this ship has been sunk at this dock ever since the mercy ships got here almost a year ago!!

Carly