Day 4 in Guatemala

The day dawned overcast and we feared there might be rain...but no...we had a beautiful day for house construction, food distribution, Bible school and Women's health class.  

The food distribution team is getting a workout carrying several heavy bags of food and cleaning supplies up and 

down some very steep hills.  

Today's deliveries were right in the city limits of Ciudad Vieja.  Again stories of 8 to 12 people sharing rental space the size of Room C (if that big) at All Souls...One family recycles paper for some of its income.  One quickly realizes that the paper is collected from the streets and anywhere else it can be scavenged.  Another family recycles bottles which gives them more money than paper.  It isn't much. 

When we asked what we might pray for after we distributed the food gifts, one woman asked for prayers to endure the troubles her family is going through right now.  She did not elaborate, but seeing her surroundings, one could fill in the blanks.  

 Each time we delivered the

supplies we invited the women and children to come to the Bible School and the Women's Health class.  What was particularly striking was seeing how the ragged and dirty kids were transformed into clean, and cleanly clothed children to attend the afternoon event. The mothers expressed their thanks and prayed for God to bless us.  

We delivered food to 6 homes today.  Even the Guatemalan children we have met are well-schooled in gracious behavior.  At the Bible school we saw children sharing crayons without prompting, looking out for siblings without prompting and all of them said, "Thank you"...again without prompting. At the work sites siblings shared paint brushes and helped one another repeatedly even as they contributed to the construction of their new home.

All of us are learning the 5 Spanish Bible School songs very, very, very well...but we have discovered that our translators are now joining in and singing with us too.  Most of them said, "We can't get the songs out of our heads! "

The construction has been moving along very quickly.  Today all three home sites got the walls studded out and all the panels to be installed, painted.  How these teams manage to play hard with the kids at the work sites and accomplish so much really quite astounding.  Even the roof trusses are installed so we are thinking that we might be wrapping up some of our construction work tomorrow...time will tell.

   The team is doing very well and evening worship, conversation and just plain fun round out our days. 

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 We keep you in our prayers....God bless us everyone!