Tuesday & Wednesday

Wow! A busy day both days, but probably give the edge to Wednesday in the ranking.

We were told the group would peak in numbers on Wednesday and it sure looked that way. There may be an official count, but I do not have that tonight. What I do know is that one thing they track is how many meals they prepare. Teen boys get double and the youngest children get 1/2 portions, so the number prepared works out to a good approximation of the total of VBS participants and workers. Today, our kitchen staff rep (Doris) said 360 meals were prepared. There may be as many as 50 workers, so using that as a starting point, it would say there were over 300 children and teens.

Steve Dean and I spent almost all day driving. We each put 230 miles on each of our vehicles. Now that is not a big deal in SC, but in Curacao, it means you did not do much other than drive. The mileage we logged today was all in the mostly neighborhood setting where the combination of traffic, rough roads and two rush hours, makes that about all the miles you can expect in one day. We started at 7AM with pick up of children and some staff and ended a few minutes after 6pm. There was a period of about one hour with no travel during the morning.

Today was a chance for Brian to do some work on Cesar's van. It needed universal joints and they needed to pull the drive shaft. After only 4 trips to the auto parts store, they had the right parts and the van was running for the afternoon delivery of children and workers to their homes. It will be nice to have that one back on the road all day for these next two days. Not only did he work on Cesar's van during the day, Brian stayed through supper to do some work on Ilse's car. It needs more than he can do on this trip, but it looks like we can help them save money by purchasing the parts in SC and shipping them back in the luggage of the Curacao team when they leave SC.

The entire team on the ground in FUIK continues to be everywhere doing whatever is needed. The Alabama team worked the full morning at VBS (which included some very helpful driving) and then went to Antillean Baptist Church for painting. Our entire youth contingent went along and they worked the job together. Except for a bucket handle failure, the paint went on the walls as intended.

All had dinner here tonight provided by Gloria. She will prepare a meal for us Friday and after that we will meet the group from FUIK for a casual evening. Thursday evening, we still have some hopes we may improve the logistics to a point where we can be done by 5pm and let the group cool off in the Caribbean before sunset. Just in case some may not appreciate how hard our group has worked, we did get less than 2 hours at the beach Tuesday evening. So the Thursday foray will be the third outing and all three will total a max of 6 hours for the week. A bit less for the group that left the beach Sunday afternoon to help get things ready at FUIK. While there have been the adjustments that always come with a trip like this, the beach time is not a huge surprise to the group because we talked from last fall that we were going to volunteer to help in the afternoons which necessarily cut way back on the beach opportunities. What is really cool is that this large a number were willing to make the investment of themselves and their money to come be hot, tired and at times frustrated in spite of the limited recreational time. All those discomforts can melt away when you get a moment to see just how much our presence means to those leaders here. It also reminds us that we are here in some measure to model for adults and not just help kids in VBS. By our presence and work, there are youth and parents that are seeing how much commitment is needed to make something like this happen and that they can lead and they can make a difference by committing themselves.

We made our devotional tonight a reading of I Corinthians, 13th chapter. My prayer is that I am always aware that no amount of work or sacrifice has value unless it is given in an attitude of submission to God.

Best wishes from all here. The photos may even have to wait until we return. There are a bunch.

Good night,

gene