Monday

Good morning! (My clock got reset to EST so I'm up an hour too early...) Yesterday was an amazing day and a pretty monumental day for the village of El Modelo and we got to be a part of it! You may remember El Modelo as being the village where we have built a church (Jan 2008) and sponsored 4 homes (Jan 2009). The village continues to grow. Some updates on El Modelo - when our team was here in 2009, they were trying to dig a well very close to the construction site. They went down like 500 feet (might be an exaggeration...) and couldn't find water. They tried in a different location and had success! They have plans to build a pavilion type building to do hot meal/feeding distributions. Yesterday, we participated in the very first ever feeding in El Modelo. We served chicken soup type food with carrots and potatos, rice and tortillas and juice. They each bring their plate/bowl and a cup. If they come without them, we have styrofoam plates and cups to give them so we don't turn anyone away hungry. We also handed out 2 bags of dried lentils to each mother. Each bag should make 50 meals for her family. It was a little chaotic because the villagers didn't understand the line thing. There were people cutting in line all over but let's be honest, if you were hungry, wouldn't you cut in line?? The mission had planned for about 500 children. We fed close to 1000 people yesterday. It was definitely a loaves and fishes kind of moment. We were down to the dregs of the soup and had about 20 people to go. God pulled through! We were so honored and excited to be able to be part of such a big event because we have ties to the village. In fact, we saw two of the boys that we built the houses for and they remembered us!

On the way back to the mission for lunch, we had our own adventure - the bus started making a really strange noise and wouldn't shift gears. Praise the Lord we were out on the highway and not going uphill through Zacapa. The driver was able to pull over to a nice wide clear spot on the side of the road. Yup, the bus broke down. The guys called for another bus that came and got us. While we were waiting, they had coolers of drinks for us and with all the windows open on the bus, it was comfortable. We had a great little adventure. When we finally got back to the mission, there was a large helicopter on the landing strip. There were people from Guatemalan congress here to meet with Carlos.

We also took the tour with Sal, Carlos's brother. I know that I see new things and hear new facts everytime I come. We visited some new greenhouses WAY in the back of the mountain. And today, I believe we are picking rocks out of the dirt in some HUGE greenhouses. They are working with Central American Walmart to be the provider for peppers. A lot of the newbies on the team were amazed at how many different areas the mission does. It IS pretty amazing. Devotions last night was great - Aaron led us through song worship songs and then Angel and Graham led devotions. And there was even a shooting star that crossed through the sky while Graham was reading a Bible verse. It was magical :)

Today we will be working under the hot sun. Prayers for sustainability would be appreciated! Pray we continue to stay healthy and have open hearts.