Ants, ants, ants

So the whole ant theme for our mission trip centering around Proverbs 6:6 (Take a lesson from the ants, you lazybones, learn from his ways and be wise = NLT) was pretty different for a VBS lesson and after last year seeing so many hearts along the way, we fully expected to see lots of little ants in our cabin/dorm but what we did not expect was these 2 incidents about ANTS to happen on our mission trip:
First, when the girls on our team bought ant shirts a month before we left that Madge found on line (they had Proverbs 6:6 on the back of it!) we thought it would be fun to wear them as a group in the afternoons or evenings after VBS since we had our black costumes all planned out to fit into our lesson.
Some wore their's one day,
and some wore their's the last day of our trip.
But one day in Nicaragua, Lynn, who was on the Eye Glasses clinic team and worked away from our VBS's, had on her ant shirt and a man who was the director of Community Movement Nicaragua was talking to her and she was thanking him for running such an efficient clinic and he noticed her shirt.

She told him about our ant theme. As they were talking he explained to her about his organization. They work with the poorest of the poor. One of their symbols is the rainbow, which in their organization, shows the inclusion of all people, all races, and all genders. Another symbol is the national flower of Nicaragua. They also pattern their work after ANTS and how they work together. She could hardly believe it and he went to get a paper to show her he had symbolizing everything he had explained (see right hand bottom corner of this photo copy of it:)
How could it be that our VBS chose the ant theme not knowing any of this and the Community group in Nicaragua coordinating the eye glasses clinics in the different villages patterns its work after the ant?

They also give each person coming to the clinic a little ticket for waiting to stand in line and be seen...and Lynn and Jim were both taken aback when they discovered what the ticket was ...yes, it has a cartoon little ant on it! Even the El Ayudante workers were amazed at how this ant theme was all coming together. They called it a "God thing" :)

But that is not all yall!
After our week in Nicaragua, when we arrived home safe and sound in the Atlanta airport after circling for 30 minutes in very bad weather, we were told to go to baggage claim area #2 to pick up our luggage and trunks. While standing there among 15 other baggage claim areas, I looked up and this is what I saw!
I screamed and pointed to what I discovered -the whole team looked to see what I was pointing at and we just stood there with our mouths open thanking God for helping us with the ant theme and loving us through it all. How cool is that to find "ant art" on the ceiling above ONE out of 15 baggage claim areas and our team got assigned to THAT one area to receive our luggage. Notice NO other area has the ant art on the ceiling beam as this one does!


I am just one of 19 people in Auburn who will never forget the ant VBS theme of 2010. It was a happy ending to a fANTastic week in Nicaragua!