February 21st, 2011
This morning we cleaned up the ministy center. The interior will in the future be used to house missionaries and comes complete wtih small kitchen, shower, and bathrooms. In a separate hall are the public bathrooms for church services.
Everywhere tropical that we’ve been has used slatted windows (like blinds) that never close completely. So all sorts of bugs and dirt find their way in. Besides all this, the public bathroom area was a sanitation disaster. We spent the morning dusting cobwebs out of everywhere, wiping down walls, mopping, and cleaning windows.
After lunch I went to the beach with Jake and Derek and we had a good few hours of man-time, chatting about cars and engines and reminiscing on our earlier lives. Just taking time to hang out is something we don’t do often enough, so such times are always refreshing
.After dinner we had a festival with the local community. Kuya Al set up some events. We split into 5 teams and I was on a team with Jake and 4 or 5 other local kids. We chose a team name “Team Tower” since Jake and I are among the tallest people around, and our team animal was the dog. In the first event we were blindfolded and separated, and we had to find our other team mates using only our animal sound. So I barked loudly while my fews dogs tried to find me amongst other animals calls such as cats, monkeys, birds, and the like. It was fun! Following that we had a game called “Guess that Gargle,” where a representative from each team had to gargle a tune with water while the rest of the team tried to guess the song. Then we had tug of war, and our team won that tournament! Then the game was to make shapes on the ground using our bodies. Triangle, diamond, 10, God, and ABC were all shapes we had to make. Finally we had a small bonfire where we symbolically burned our chains, things that try to hold us back from seeking God. The whole time, whenever I wasn’t doing anything, I had anwhere from 3 to 6 kids wanting me to throw them in the air. It’s a good thing they feed us well cause I’m getting workouts! Anyways, it was an excellent to to continue to bond and build relationships with the community.
On the business side of things… I’m technically not fully funded, I’m remaining on the race by promise to pay any remaining balance by the end of the final month. Right now that balance is about $4,000. Please help me pay it down by donating! Also, for security reasons I’ll be out of contact for the month of March. No news is good news.
