El Grupo

A group of 6 adults from Riverside Church of Christ (Holly, Brenda, Dede and her husband Gary, Jay, and Richard) and 2 translators from David (Urian and Marta) came to stay with us last week. So we had 10 people staying in the house. That means lots of cooking! Here’s what the week looked like:

Monday through Wednesday, the team did a Bible class in the morning at a nearby school called El Valle.  They did dramas teaching the stories of Jonah and the whale, the Good Samaritan, and Esther with super fun activities to go along. Monday we started out with 11 kids and quickly grew to 62 on Wednesday. They kids obviously loved it because they brought siblings and friends each new day.

Our afternoons were busy sanding and varnishing about 60 chairs and desks (the kind that are connected). Our arms were sore! The desks started off with tons of white out and permanent marker graffiti. In the end, they looked as good as new! 

(see the white out on the desks above and the ones below?)

This is after the sanding but before the varnish.

Thursday found us crammed into Fred driving 45 minutes to the little Indian school in Caña Blanca (the same one Kyle and I teach English at once a week). Again, we started out with no kids at 9:00. 3 kids by 9:30. And 18 in the end. They loved it!! Each kid walked away with a drawstring backpack with full of goodies and 3 crafts. 

The building behind the kids and I is used as the kitchen/storage. 

We also repainted the inside of this one room school. The team was great!!! They Painted half the room in about an hour! Kyle and I went back today to find that the teacher and students LOVE it. I may even paint the alphabet and numbers next week for them. 

This is a before picture. 

The green and blue are the final colors. 

Friday was their exploring day and explore they did!!! We took the team to Cerro Punta for a rainforest hike and knick knack shopping. The hike was unanimously beautiful and hard. Without naming names, some of got dirty from falls and spills. They had a blast though!! A hard hike can only be followed with fresas con crema (strawberries with crème on top) which of course they all loved. We finished the week off with a delicious dinner at Kid’s World (similar to Applebee’s but with pool tables and arcade games).  

All in all, it was a great week! Thanks for coming down Riverside!!!