Wednesday Recap

Picture 1 - Interesting working conditions; Picture 2 - Small classroom at the Christian School; Picture 3 - Laura hard at work; Picture 4 - Groceries for lunch; Picture 5 - Lunch preparation; Picture 6 - Kylie gets a hug from Fanny.

(Darren) Today was another typical work day with VBS and work projects in the morning and everyone busy with work projects in the afternoon. As you can image, everyone is quite tired by this point. There are also a number on our team who are dealing with some health issues. For myself, I wasn't feeling well yesterday and this morning, but have felt much better later today.

This morning was our family's turn to help with purchasing groceries and preparing lunch for the Talita Cumi children and our team. It was interesting to experience a Bolivian grocery store and to see the process involved in feeding a large group. It's good and sad at the same time to see that the Talita Cumi children are eating much better this week because we are here. They normally don't have as much for their noon meal and their evening meal is even less.

This evening something special happened at the restaurant where we ate supper. We had a buffet which was fixed special for our group. When we were done, there was a quite a bit of food left over. The restaurant staff brought out a bunch of to-go containers and said that we had paid for the food so we could take what we wanted. The group got busy and filled up around twenty containers to take to the orphanage. This will save them a lot of money. God is good!

I also receive a surprise request at noon today - an opportunity to speak at a rahab facility for women late in the afternoon. There were few details available and I was quite nervous about this. Plus, I hadn't prepared anything. But I felt that I couldn't say no to the opportunity. I spent the afternoon nervously thinking through what to say. Our (Sherry and myself) ride arrived after 4:00 p.m. to pick us up and take us to the facility. As Bob was helping us exchange phone numbers, we discovered that this was going to be and all evening event and we wouldn't return to our hotel until 10:00 p.m. Which, in Bolivia, could easily be midnight - in which we would miss supper and our evening group activities. Needless to say, God intervened and I didn't go to speak. We were quite relieved that we made this discovery of miscommunication before we were on the road and an hour out of town.

We continue to praise God for good weather. The locals have been amazed at how warm it has been. It has been ideal for the work projects lined out for us. Again, God is good!

Pray for our team tomorrow. It will be a difficult day as we have to say goodbye to the orphans. We have all grown very attached to these children and they have been attached to us even though we can't speak their language. We have had more hugs and kisses than you can imagine. I am constantly amazed at how loving these children are after all they have been through in their short lives. There is a special evening planned with supper and a party to close out our time here.

We have also come to love and appreciate our new friends from North Carolina. God knew what he was doing when put this team together. (Should we ever doubt that!?) It will also be hard to say goodbye to them.

Thanks so much for all of your prayers. They have been sustaining us through some challenging days. (Darren)

P.S. Please pray for Ken. He broke his glasses on Tuesday and they found a place to fix them and they'd be ready on Wednesday. The machine to fix them broke and he was not able to get them on Wednesday. Please pray that he will get them back soon. He is functioning, but it has to be miserable not being able to see.