Junior class servathon

The junior class went to the Ramakrishna Orphanage today for our Servathon, another Dalat tradition meant to bless our community with our presence. We spent the day with about 70 high needs children ages 5-14, playing everything from soccer to tag games, balloon relays to basketball. And what a great day it was! Everyone was completely exhausted by the end of it but we all agreed it was worth it for the smiles and hugs we received at the end.

Our morning was spent doing active games like badminton and horseshoes. Small things like a game of Duck Duck Goose and skipping ropes made for a lot of fun play time.

During our lunch break, the children attend prayers at the Hindu temple onsite. The girls and boys get very dressed up for this daily occurence and then change back into play clothes for the meal.In the afternoon, we set up craft stations - simple things like paper airplanes, coloring, paper dolls and glitter art....
which all went very well until one little boy figured out the glitter would look better.... on his friend than on his paper. Thus ended the glitter art :)
Back to regular old coloring!
Some of the children loved dressing up in the clothes we brought along. And they LOVED having their pictures taken too!
Basic toys like building blocks, farm animals and little cars are a novelty to these children as they don't have anything like this at the orphanage.
Some of our stellar junior class members taking a break in the heat of the day.
We also sang a lot of silly songs with them and on the video projector showed them pictures of themselves that we had taken - they thought that was pretty amazing! When we left, they all applauded and hugged even as we were climbing in the vans. It was quite difficult to leave, knowing their lives would be boring and uneventful once again.
Back on campus, we were greeted by the senior class who had prepared Coke floats for us! It was a wonderful way to bless us, especially since it was an extremely hot day to be out playing games in the sun.