Thanks to the time change, I woke up nice and early this morning. After a quick shower I headed to the kitchen to see what sort of breakfast I could rustle up. What fun to have a little kitchen to play with! I sliced the coffeecake and discovered it was burned on the bottom, so I carefully sliced off the bottom of each piece and arranged the remaining good parts on a plate. Note to self: cook a bit higher in the oven next time.

Then I sliced up a pineapple and a papaya and put them in bowls. I added to the buffet some instant oatmeal, hot cocoa mix, a box of granola and a box of milk. (Yes, the milk comes in boxes here. )

Eric Ross had slipped in early and started the coffee, so that was coming along nicely. The rest of the team started wandering in for breakfast and fellowship, and by 8:15 or so we were all together. Pastor Dave gave us some idea of how the day was going to go, and then we just sat around and visited.

Around 9:30 we all gathered at the main office to catch a ride to church, along with the ladies from the orphanage and some of the older kids. Mind you, the service at the church is supposed to start at 9:30. But despite our very late departure time, we were still in plenty of time to get good seats before the service started.

We rode in a van and a pickup truck. What an interesting group we must have been, with the van cram-packed with people, and then a pickup truck overflowing with guys in the back. At one point, as we were driving along the very long dirt road that goes from the orphanage to the main road, the poor little pickup almost couldn’t climb the hill. It strained and slipped and finally got it’s wheels under it to get up the hill.

Church was a fascinating experience. The service started with a praise and worship service. I wasn’t too surprised by the band and worship singers, but I did a double-take when I saw the worship dancers coming down the center isle. The dancers were a team of our women, dressed in long flowing skirts, with scarves tied at their waists, and waving tambourines that had silver “pom-poms” attached to them. They were dancing and weaving and moving their arms and shaking their tambourines, but somehow they were doing it all while pointing us to Christ. It was beautiful and worshipful and not at all for their own glory.

The congregation sang one worship song after another, mixed in with prayer times. Even though there was a language barrier and a cultural barrier, I found that my soul was lifted and my heart praised my Creator.

Finally it was time for the sermon. Some of the group understood more than others, with Rachel Hodel understanding the most of all. Afterwards she filled us in on the main ideas and points. The pastor had a good repoire with his people, and I loved hearing the bits and pieces I could understand that kept encouraging me to look to God.

After church our group split up and worked on filling my grocery list with items from the store and the open-air market. Rachel Hodle took the market list, and I took the store list. Team members followed along to whichever location interested them more. Karen, our hostess, was going to the store, so I was able to ask her several questions while there, and she was so helpful!

Once we finished our shopping we headed back to Eagle’s Nest to drop off groceries and get changed to head to a nearby town that I cannot spell yet. This time, since we had fewer people, we didn’t take the pickup truck, and instead we piled into the van. That meant we had 22 people crammed into a 15-passenger van. After making our way out to the main road, some of our group decided to be adventurous and ride the local bus system, affectionately termed by gringos as the “Chicken Bus”. It costs all of about thirty cents to get a ticket, and Bill Crumbaugh has declared it a bus ride and a roller coaster ride all in one!

The team was reunited down in the village, and we headed to a favorite restaurant of previous teams, “Don Rodriguez”. I couldn’t figure out what all the excitement was about this place, but once we got our food it all became very clear to me. Everything was the best I’ve ever tasted. The steak was tender and delicious. The vegetables had so much flavor, and believe it or not, the French fries were amazing!

We finished lunch around 3:30 pm and headed out to do some shopping in the market. That was a bit intimidating, because that meant that we were left to ourselves to bargain with the vendors. Fortunately, they know a little English, and most of us know at least a little Spanish, so we were able to bargain with them.

We all met back at the van at 5:30, each with our own stories of our adventures. We squeezed back into the van, and after stopping for gas, a group decided to ride the “Chicken Bus” back to Eagle’s Nest. By now it was raining quite steadily, and the clouds were thick, and the sun was setting. So the ride back up the mountain was quite interesting. The most unnerving part for me was when we picked up the “Chicken Bus” group at the bus stop closest to the orphanage, and then headed on the bumpy dirt road. It was a little slick, and the road is very narrow and winding. What a relief to finally pull up to what now feels like home.

Worship and devotion time was next, with various team members telling about their impressions of the day. We sang and prayed and got an idea of what to expect tomorrow.
Since we’d had such a big lunch so late in the day, supper was a “help-yourself” meal. I made some salsa using local produce, and quite a few people enjoyed that with some chips. (Yes, I did soak the produce in bleach water for the required fifteen minutes, and then made sure it was totally dry before we used it. We are being as cautious as we can without crossing that fine line to paranoia.)

We had some brownies, some popcorn, and folks who wanted anything else helped themselves from the food supplies.

Some of the girls hurried over to the nursery to see what they could do to help with the bedtime routines. Michael worked on getting photos and other information posted online while the internet connection was working. Before long it died again, so we headed over to the main office to see what magic he could work with their system. There wasn’t much magic involved, but it did get going again. It seems to be a very temperamental router. I’m hoping Michael can spend some “quality time” with the computer system here and maybe get it tweaked a bit so it will run without so many dropouts.

Tomorrow the weather will dictate what sort of projects the team will tackle. It is pretty wet and rainy here, so we’re not sure how it’s all going to play out.

The various members of the group have really enjoyed reading comments on the blog, so keep ‘em coming!

We are having a wonderful time, and really getting along well as a group. Thanks for all of your prayers and love for us.