I got to take the day off from the Feeding Center at Las Quimeras this morning and take 4 women with me to help cook at the ROSCC Feeding Center. Cathy and Elisa from FBCR went, along with Whitney and Margaret from FBCY. We had a very good time.
Eddie (not sure if I have his name right) is a lay leader at the church. He lives there in a little room and takes care of the place. He oversees the Feeding Center, too. Damaris and Sylvia were there to show us how to cook the food. Eddie took us ladies on a walking tour of the Country Club neighborhood. The homes that have been there for 10 years are 1-2 rooms and made of cement block or stucco. They have electric that runs to them. There is no running water, but they get to collect water from a nice well that was provided by Living Water International.
There are also houses that have been there between 1 month and 1 year are made of tin or plastic or cardboard, and have another well. There are three ‘streets’ to the neighborhood. No one drives on them and they are just dirt lanes. There is an older well near a tree that the ladies use to wash their clothes at. It has a cement ‘sink’ & washboard for them to use. Then they hang their clothes on the tree until they are through washing. Then they take them home to hang around to dry. Margaret asked if she could do a little of the washing for the lady there, and was very happily accommodated!
We also got to stop at the preschool building that was in the neighborhood. It was 2-3 rooms. I recognized the teachers from the church and Bible study. We took pictures with the kids. It was a great excursion for us.
We helped fix the lunch, which consisted of boiled chicken (pulled from the bone and shredded and then the bones were cut up and added back in), spaghetti and tomato sauce. Rice was the side dish. Avena (oatmeal) is the drink. (they don’t eat it here, they drink it). It’s soaked in lots of water and LOTS of sugar is added. Everyone loves it. Cathy was a part-time caterer and really enjoyed getting to cook over the open fire. Whitney and Margaret played and sang with the kids while the food was cooking. I was trying my hand at translating and we all had lots of laughs and a good time.
We helped ladle up the food. The team came and helped serve the food to the kids. There is a process at each Feeding Center and we (teams) usually mess up the flow when we ‘help’, but the workers are gracious to allow us to be a part of it.
We all came back to the Mission House for our lunch. Some of the team swam in the pool, some napped and others traveled out to the beach for a few hours. Everyone was having a nice, relaxing afternoon.
Cathy and Tori went with me and Estefanie to the first Sewing Class at ROSCC. 6 ladies came (we were expecting 12, but there was confusion about transportation boycott of the buses and whether we could move the class to the church). Anyway, the 6 that came were a hoot! We had so much fun! They are learning the basics and made Kleenex packet covers. They were very proud and wanted their picture made holding their projects. Tori is a youth and doesn’t know how to sew, but does knit and wanted to come along to see the class. She demonstrated how to knit. I told the ladies when I learn how to do it, we’ll have a class on that, too. It was a wonderful afternoon.
Something funny… I was handed the keys to drive the car (little SUV) to class. My reputation for backing into the tree is still going strong. So everyone laughed as we left. On the way back to the hotel, I veered to the right to miss the speedbumps on one side (as all vehicles do down here) and Cathy thought I was going off the road. She’s never been afraid of my driving before, so maybe the joke of me hitting the tree is more powerful than I thought.
This was also Estafanie’s first time to translate. She is a student of Pacheco’s English Academy. She is so sweet and I was happy to give her a chance to experience working as a translator. She came early to learn some sewing terms. She did a very good job. The ladies liked her and I was very pleased with her work. Yay Estafanie!
We split into 2 groups for church again. The church I went to was Todopoderosa church, which I love. My ‘son’ Jeremy is an associate Pastor and worship leader there. His dad is the Sr Pastor. I love the people there. It was a Youth service and the music was lively and loud. Our group enjoyed it very much. Elisa and Cathy shared their testimonies and Katie (a Senior on the FBCR team) gave a very good message. It was a good night.
The team was given their instructions for Fun Day on Friday. We took their food orders for the restaurant, so it could be called in ahead of time. Everyone was ready for bed and happy that the ministry was successful.
There were a total of 432 salvations for the week. A lot of construction was done and hundreds of kids fed at the Feeding Centers. God was glorified in many ways.
We are so blessed to be able to serve here and have teams come to work with us.
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