Finally!

So sorry for the delay in updating our blog! First, we don´t have internet access at the school yet. We don´t yet know if that will happen while we´re there. And secondly, we have been VERY busy, and it´s been very, very good.

What a great team we have! Dan and I feel very blessed to be sharing this time with Amanda, Brian, Tyler, Alicia, Ben, Charlie, Mark, Linda, Nate and Alicia T. We´ve seen our team mates come to this school with open hearts, open arms and a willingness to jump in and do whatever needs to be done. This has been a myriad of activities. We got in pretty late on Wednesday night and had a fabulous dinner at Lucho and Lorna´s house and then get settled into our rooms and greatly enjoyed real beds after 2 very long days of travel with no beds, no real meals, etc. ALL of our luggage arrived safely by the way. Praise the Lord and thanks for your prayers for all these details.

We headed out to the Chaco the next morning and spent time working out there. The guys worked at the cleaning out the pond. It was messy hard work, but they all had a great attitude and there were smiles all around. Especially when one of the boys found a huge cockroach! The girls went around gathering the dried palm tree fronds all over and made an enormous pile which will be burned later. It was messy due to all the rain they´ve had recently in Trinidad.

We took the tour of Trinidad, exchanged money, and had the very special experience of breaking up into groups and enjoying dinner at 4 different church families´homes. Each group included one of the short'termers as an interpreter. As always, the hospitality absolutely overwhelmed us. Today we left right after breakfast and went to a village about 1 hour away and did an outreach. It was a great experience for all of us. We got permission from the school principal to perform a show in the mid'morning, and we also went around to the various huts and invited families to come. People did come and the school kids loved seeing the La Palmera group of Kings Kids performing their wonderful dance routines. Dan shared his testimony, and Pastor Carlos Hugo gave a Gospel message and invitation. It was wonderful. Then some of us made crafts with the younger kids and they enjoyed making birds and hearing a Biblical connection. The older kids played frisbee. We left with lots of hugs and new friends.

We came back and had lunch at a very nice restaurant (except for Charlie and Shelly since Charlie wasn´t feeling too well. He is better now, though) and washed the chairs for the church, while a couple of us finally unpacked the team bags. The amount of stuff we managed to get here was incredible, and people were amazed. Such a blessing to see all those medical supplies and various things. It will all be used to God´s glory.

Right after dinner, we left to watch the La Palmera team play in the futball game. They won 9 to 1. It was e specially cool to see Lucho and Lorna´s visiting son, Iain play in the game. This was their 7th win in a row! It is getting late, but we are at the Plaza to use the internet for a short time. Tomorrow we´ll return to the Chaco to continue working, this time the futball team guys will join us and then we´ll have a barbeque. So much more to tell, but we´ll stop there.

We so appreciate all your prayers and we know this trip is successful due to the faithful prayer warriors out there! Thank you.

Busy day tomorrow, too, but we may have time to post again. In between the Chaco work and dinner and then a youth event, we may have time. I forgot to mention that the Minneapolis team was welcomed by the Family Bible study last night at the church. Dan shared the message , and Brian and Nate shared their testimonies. We´ll be doing the teenage church event tomorrow night and more of us will share our testimonies, messages, object lessons, etc

Chau! Shelly