The children of Santa Marta - what a blessing! Would you ever guess that they are loved? Cassie and David look pretty content as well!


Continuing from before, we left Santa Marta headed for Volcan, 6 hours away. We said goodbye to dear friends from Panama City as well, and most slept through the afternoon.

We had supper in David at McDonalds. That was a mess. The manager insisted on having everyone order, then go sit down to wait for food. I am pretty sure that we never did get the foods ordered to the people who ordered them correctly! But we all did eat, and then left behind 'civilization' one more time. Not really, but for some on the trip I am sure it seemed that way.

We arrived home after dark, so the team did not have the chance to see how beautiful the area was until the next day. We separated the luggage and took the boys to their cabin a couple of miles away. the girls all stayed at the house with us in bunkbeds. Our day was to begin at 6:30 in the morning, so most of us were ready for bed right away. I know that I was!

I will not go into each day at El Valle (the school), but will give a general recap; we arrived at the school, which is about 3/4 mile from our house, by about 7:30 each morning. Our first classes began at 7:50. We had two groups working in the elementary school where grades pre-kindergarden through 6th grade were taught. Each group taught three classes per day. The lessons included 'The Good Samaritan', The Story of Creation, and the story of Joseph. The classes were adapted and designed by our great team of teachers. Each class had crafts, a drama, puppets, and a lesson. The children absolutely loved it. The entire week was filled with laughter and joy. We also provided homemade snacks to the children at recess, and a good hot meal for lunch. Generally there were about 25 team members working in the school at any given time.

On the farm there were other projects underway. The farm team built fences, dug drainage ditches, and began building a chicken pen. There were only 7 working on the farm, and rain and supply issues slowed the progress throughout the week, but still much was done.
In the house there were three people all the time, and sometimes more helping prepare meals, clean, etc. Thankless work, but very necessary! We had plenty of great tasting food every meal, with the exception of one, and that , i believe God had all worked out! Josh had grilled hamburgers, but they were mostly rare, and none of us were really in a mood for rare beef, but there was no time to recook them, as we had Bible study scheduled for an hour after supper. It was quite amazing how people started showing up early because of the rain, and we had just enough to feed them all hamburgers before the class. that night we had about 25 visitors for the study - most of them students from the school.

For Monday and Tuesday nights Tim conducted Bible class on our front porch. I was thrilled and impressed that he was able , with the help of Pablo, to truly discuss the Scripture. The classes went very well. WE began each class with songs in English and Spanish, which I know the local folks enjoyed immensely. On Wednesday night we went to David to worship with the congregation there.

To be continued....