Piela - December 2 - 5, 2008
Video
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After all the school outreaches were over, we began preparing for the highlight of Give a Kid a Christmas 2008, the Piela Evangelistic outreach.

As we were expecting over 1000 people to come to the soccer field, we bought some rope, dug holes and made a makeshift rope fence to delineate our stage. I grabbed Ali (a yellow puppet), Marcel dressed as a Lion and we sat on top of ‘Old Blue’ with the speakers. We drove all around Piela, announcing that it was time for the dramas and film. Kids, parents, and grandpas all stared at us, first in shock, then with a huge grin as we drove past. People started streaming out of their mud huts - we knew we’d have a huge crowd!

We pulled back into our stage area just as the sun began to go down. Already there were 600+ people (this is when we did the interview in the video), and still people were coming. As we waited for the crowd to arrive, we performed a puppet skit and a couple of fun skits.

By the time the sun was down, there were well over 1000 people, and we decided to perform the evangelistic drama about the life of Jesus. The lights were on, the actors were ready and there was a huge crowd ready to hear the Gospel, when suddenly, the speakers and the amp went silent. We tried everything we could think of to get it going - nothing. (read on below the pictures)

The actors simply mimed the drama without music or narration, with a local pastor introducing each scene with a short explanation. The crowd sat there, listening in silence.

After the drama, Joseph shared the gospel to over 1000 people, outside, without a microphone. He shared about the love and grace of Jesus and invited all who wanted to accept Him as their Savior to come forward. That night, children ran forward by the hundreds to meet the children’s pastors and give their names so they could hear more about Jesus.

Over 200 children gave their names to the children pastors and over 1200 people in Piela heard the Gospel. It was a tough trip, but even though EVERYTHING seemed to be against us, God’s unstoppable grace and love penetrated and touched the people of Piela.

Piela had a truly unforgettable Christmas!

On behalf of all the 3000 children who received a gift this year, as well as the more than 3000 who heard about Jesus:

“Thank You!”

Piela - December 2 - 5, 2008
Video
Previous Blog - Unforgettable Trip

It was a whirlwind! We went to 8 schools in 2 days. At each school, we would:

1. Drop off the drama and setup teams who would start the puppet skits and greet the schoolteachers.
2. As they began the Social skit (a 30 minute skit about hygiene and good moral decisions), the “present team” would load up the gifts back at Joseph’s parents house. They generally had just enough time to load up the presents, hop in and drive back to the school before the skit ended.
3. We would invite all the children and their parents to the evening outreach, which we promised would be even more exciting than what they were seeing. (more in the next blog)
4. Then, we would send the kids back to their classes and we would drive ‘Old Blue’ to each class and distribute the gifts.
5. We would then load everyone back in the truck (and on top of the truck) and head to the next school to start all over again (keep reading after the pictures)

A breakdown: (more about the outreaches below)
Read more…

Piela - December 2 - 5, 2008
Video

After finishing the 9 outreaches in Ouagadougou, we prepared for the highlight of 2008 Give a Kid a Christmas: the village trip to Piela. It was meant to be to Dori, but that’s another story… We were supposed to meet at our house at 7:00 am for prayer and to load the equipment, in order to be in Piela by noon, in time to eat lunch and have our 1st outreach. The last person did not show up until after 10:00 am. This was a portent of things to come… Read more about our trip!

Read more…

Here is a short video about our trip to Piela.  It has some great clips from the different skits we perform each outreach.  What an amazing trip!   I’ll tell more about it in the next blog.

Give a Kid a Christmas Village Trip from Joel Hayslip on Vimeo.

This video is only for our most ardent friends.  Ben, Tyler and I made it for a message about Santat Claus for the youthgroup here.  It is extremely silly (I think it’s hilarious…).  Anyway, enjoy!

Santa Unwrapped from Joel Hayslip on Vimeo.

Our family had a really great Christmas season this year despite the hardships (Heidi got typhoid and the guys ran over a boy’s leg while trying to push-start the truck). We got to spend such wonderful quality time with our family and friends in America over the summer, that it helped us not to miss them as much this Christmas. (We got to call them with the webcam which helps a lot!)

By the 2nd week of December, I was feeling so much better and stronger and ready to start celebrating! Jakob had a little holiday concert at his school. Very cute. Then we had our annual Christmas semi-formal at our house complete with carols, dancing, white elephant and a game show with Joel as your host and Heidi as Vanah White!

Christmas eve, we had a little candle-light service at a friend’s house and we led the singing. On Christmas day, we spent the morning in our PJ’s playing with the kids’ newly opened presents, reading the Christmas story and drawing a picture to go with it, and decorating Christmas cookies. We had our team come over at 2 for a big Christmas dinner, ham with all the fixin’s. We really enjoyed our Christmas, and I think the boys (at least Jakob) really understood amongst all the different ways we celebrate, that the true meaning of Christmas is Jesus come to earth! What a wonderful reason to celebrate.