Sunday

Saturday night we arrived at the team house at about 11pm after a long and tiring, but mostly uneventful day of traveling. We started the travel day at 3am with a drive to Chicago, caught a plane to Charlotte, caught another plane to Miami, a third plane to Santiago, and an hour and fifteen minute bus ride to the team house. Boy was that a long day!

Sunday morning was pretty low key. We had a short orientation and then headed to the Ark orphanage for a little bit of play time with the kids. We had the privilege of eating dinner in the homes with the kids and man can those house moms cook! We enjoyed heaping plates of rice and beans (are you surprised?), chicken, fried bananas, and some other food that I don’t remember the name of and we don’t have anything like it in the US (but it was yummy).

 

A waterfall hike with some of the sponsored Ark kids was next on the agenda for the day. The kids all jumped into the back of a pickup truck (with a few of the team members) and followed our van to the waterfall. We bounced over dirt roads with potholes big enough to swallow the van and made our way to the grassy parking area where our vehicle was “guarded” by a weathered old man with a machete and a guard Chihuahua for a few pesos. We enjoyed the spectacular view of the mountains surrounding us as we hiked down the narrow trail to the waterfall. About half of the kids and adults were brave enough to actually swim and the rest played in the sand, took pictures, or soaked up the sun. (Yes, we actually got hot enough in shorts and flip flops outside to sweat a little bit!) These moments being carefree and silly with the kids are the times when bonds are formed and hearts are sealed together and we absolutely love it!

 
(We are never quite sure what is going to be in our way in the road. Today it was a herd of cows.)

(Chris Bennett with his sponsored girl Indiana and Carmen, sponsored by Chris and Rachel Russell. I'm not sure why they look so worried!)

We left the waterfall we got ready for the evening church service. The church now meets in a small church building with uncomfortable wooden benches and lots of ceiling fans to circulate the humid 85 degree air. For anyone who thinks our hour long services are long, you should try sitting through a 2 ½  hour service on hard benches!  As always the praise and worship music in Spanish was beautiful and the enthusiasm of all the people singing helped us enter into worship with a new fervor.

After hugs goodnight from the Ark kids we loaded the van again and headed to Columbiana’s for dinner. The Columbian food was delicious but found it quite interesting that instead of after dinner mints we were served after dinner Hall’s cough drops. Apparently is a common custom around here.

(Dinner at Columbiana's)

Monday morning we will start our first day of construction at Palo Blanco. We will be starting construction on a new bathroom for the woodshop/sewing/computer building that we helped to build over the past two trips. I have no doubt that the day will also be filled with numerous “hola’s”, high fives, and hugs from the sweet kiddos at Palo Blanco.

Now, it is time for a few card games before heading to bed. We are going to need our energy for tomorrow!