Africa Mercy "Fall" Festival

We don't quite know what to do with ourselves...while the vast majority of everyone we know is celebrating cooler weather and changing leaves and all things pumpkin, Guinea is getting warmer!  I've done my best to compensate for the lack of Fall - the header of my email account is a "fall theme"...the picture on my login screen is fall...buuuut it's really not the same.  And that's ok!  If being where God wants us means missing Fall, we'd give it up everytime. 

 

We DID, however, get to enjoy quite the "Fall Festival" Friday night in Mid-Ships (the "living room" of the Africa Mercy!).  It was a delightful time of games, prizes, yummy treats and costumes (eli opted not to dress up...and caroline changed 1/2 way through....).  The ones who organized it may beg to differ, but from my perspective it all seemed to come together smoothly and easily. Somehow it had the perfect mixture of low-key and excellence (seems like  sometimes excellence can be compromised for the sake of "simplicity").  Everything about the evening was "just right." 

 

The "Mercy Ships Family" did a great job of using available resources to come up with games for the kids.  There was...

• Ship Shower Curtain Ring Toss (used shower curtain rings and the rack used for cups in the dishwasher)
• Bean Bag Toss (used a hula hoop, a copy paper box and 3 bean bags)(this one was run by an ex-marine and his wife - I loved all the spins and twists they put on it - some kids had to stand on one foot...one boy even had to try to throw the bags in while doing a push-up.)
• AFM Bowling at its finest (used water bottles and oranges!)(though the "oranges" are actually quite green)
• A Cup Stacking game (used cups from the dining room!) (2 people would compete to see who could make a pyramid with their cups and then get them back in the original stack the fastest)
• Go Fish (the kids had to put on a poncho and a fun rain hat...)
• A Fall Leaf "raking" game (paper leaves and forks...)(and a fan that was used on occassion to blow the leaves all around!)
• Bobbing for apples (though I think the apples may have been floating in lemonade instead of water??)
• Facepainting
• A photo booth (not sure a single cash participated in this one!)
• Popcorn, pumpkin bread & cookies 

A few pictures of the kiddos for your viewing pleasure:







 

 

 

 

 

Fun times! It's nice to be able to enjoy so many "normal" and delightful activities here on the ship. 

Surely there will be more to come.