Monday

The bus picked us up this morning to head for the church. (Rachel stayed back at the hotel as she was very sick through the night) The ladies prepared empanadas - one choice of meat and one choice of ham and cheese! It is very humbling to observe how the people of the church create such a warm hospitality, yet have very little means to prepare everything for us. We always have a table cloth, glass dishes and cups, two kinds of coffee, and just a nice presentation. Then we were off to sports camp,with some staying to continue working on the walls. A few hung around the church to see if any children would end up there, and a few did. With those, we worked on some English - colors, numbers,simple words. After all returned from the sports field, we had a fantastic lunch! We have observed that, although we really eat three meals a day without any snacking, we are never hungry. We scurried to the hotel for a quick shower and then off to sightsee at the sand dunes! This was about a 45 minute ride going south - and we really did not know what to expect. It was quite interesting to traverse through the countryside and see what things look like outside of Punto Fijo. After going through a few road checkpoints, we came up on gigantic sand dunes! Not like any of us have seen in the States! Most of us quickly climbed up the dunes - or took it as a challenge to see how fast we could get to the top! We also took Nohely (Juvenal's wife) and son Johnatan with us. On the way home, Samuel found a place for us to stop to view the beach. How disappointing that such a beautiful part of God's creation is so littered with garbage - and it wasn't just a little bit! Quick photos and then we had to hurry and get to the Punta Cardon church by 5:00pm. Once arriving at Juvenal's sister's (Zoraida Gonzalez) house, we filed into her hair salon (which serves as the church). Samuel flashed back to his past of hair styling and created hair-dos for Janet, Judy, Rhonda, and Stephanie - much fun. We then walked to the community center nearby to assemble for a march through the neighborhood - much like we did in Punto Fijo. After the march, we went into the community center for a fantastic music and drama program - including our kids performing both mime skits.
Finishing quite late, we were humbled by the offer of refreshments back at Zoraida's house. We marched through the darkness (as there was no electricity in the streets) and then enjoyed wonderful sandwiches - served out of the trunk of a car. We later reflected how hospitable the gesture was as they provided this with no financial help from us and with such limited resources. Before we left, a scrumptious cake was also served to all.
Devotions tonight were prepared by Judy, Stephanie, and Sarah. The "after party" lasted quite a while for a small group and we were eventually told by the hotel we were too loud! It must have been the games Judy made us play...............ask her about the HaHa game.
Steve is starting to feel not so good so we are not sure if there is a food problem or virus going around.