Penultimate week... :-(

Hola Allabodies...

Sorry its been a little while since my last update. Its been an amazingly full week so i will try to tell you about it without forgetting anything...

Last Wednesday was the usual day of school in the morning and kids club in the afternoon. At the school we carried on our sequence of incredible dramas on the story of David (that instalment was where David realises Saul wants to kill him), excellently portrayed by Guy (although his version of David was slightly less modest than i would imagine he actually was... those of you who know Guy will know what i mean!). At kids club we did the story of Noah's Ark. In the evening we had an amazing team prayer session. It started of as elephant prayers (where everyone puts their hand on the person to their left and everyone prays at the same time) and then we just carried on and were praying for eachother for ages! It was incredibly powerful and we relly felt that God did some work that night! Wednesday was also Matt's birthday so we celebrated that in the evening by having bacon for dinner! It was a really great day and Matt enjoyed it loads.

Building site is going so well. Last Thursday we dug holes in the concrete 1 foot down as the foundation for the roof! On my first attempt at digging a hole i got a bit over enthusiastic and dug down 2 feet which then had to be filled in! We dug 9 of these holes around the place and cemented the long wooden supports in place. Once these were in place securely, we cut notches in the top of them with a power cutter and secured horizontal planks in place. Over the rest of Thursday and Friday we put in place the entire framework for the roof - lots of planks going forward to backwards and side to side, just as you would imagine, and hammering them all in place. Both these days were absolutely exausting and i came home caked in sawdust mixed with sweat (delightful i know...)

On Thursday, instead of walking home the usual route, we took a detour that involved going across the river on stepping stones. Going even more off the beaten track really exposed us to even more of the poverty that people live in. There is one little guy called Flavio who is 10 who is always on the building site with us (he doesn't go to school). When we walked towards the river (he was on Guys shoulders) he pointed out his house to us which was a very small wooden contraption that was very precariously hanging over the edge of a pretty steep cliff. There is another kid who goes to the school we work at who we have nicknamed 'The Gouger' because he always comes up behind us and grabs our eyes like he is gouging them out. When we walked further towards the river he came running up to us very excited and gave us all big hugs (and gouges). It was just really sad but eye opening to see people living in these conditions and it made me even more pleased with the work that we are doing, to help the kids even in th esmall way we are.

On Friday Pastor Victor insisted on bringing us a dinner of Honduran style enchiladas which were amazing. Just another example of the overwhelming generosity that people here have and show without blinking.

For quite a while we have been looking for a way to bless some of the people here who (as i just said above) have blessed us in so many ways. On Saturday we managed to organise and pull of a fantastic meal of Cottage Pie with Apple Crumble and Summer Berry Crumble. It was a fantastic day and we cooked for 36 people without burning a thing! Mainly due to Claire's brilliant planning and cooking. The guys again did out rendition of the barber shop quartet 'Wade in the Water' which everyone enjoyed. In the evening we prayed for all the other step teams (so if your reading in Chile, Brazil, Peru or Argentina then we are praying for you guys aswell!!)

Monday was another tough day on site. Because all the wood was in place, it was time to hammer in the metal sheets that would cover the roof. It was such hard work getting the nails through a sheet of metal and actually into the wood without missing it (because you cant see where the wood is through the metal you have to kinda guess a little bit) The first nail was close to impossible and took so long, but by about the 20th it got a lot easier. Pastor Reny again put as all to shame by hammering them in in about 9 strokes. By the end of Monday we had almost all of the roof up. Some of the last sheets to go up required nails to go through 3 sheets of metal which again was very difficult. We went home on Monday again as a sweatball so the cold showers were again much appreciated.

Tuesday i was on domestic with Guy which was good fun. Wednesday (yesterday) we went to the school for the last time! We did a really good drama of David in the cave cutting Saul's clothes, and of Saul eventually not wanting to kill David anymore. It was great fun and we made it into a pantomine style thingy. It was really hard leaving the school because i really enjoyed all the work we did there and believe it did make a difference to the kids. They were all so sweet and kept on giving us hugs and hugs and more hugs before we could actually leave. I think that we will be remembered at that school (maybe not for a long time..) but i think the kids will definately miss us so we will continue to pray for Maya as she continues with the lessons, and for the kids.

We went to kids club in the afternoon and did another action packed drama of Daniel and the Lions Den. It was really good fun and the kids enjoyed Luke and Matt being Lions as I (King Darius) threw Heulwen (Daniel) into the den. We had a photo with all the kids which i hope will turn out really nice and will be a great memory. Lol we had a hilarious moment when we found out that Ferse (who i mentioned in the last blog) is actually a boy not a girl. HE is still a very cute kid though.

Kossy is now sitting next to me badgering me to get off the computer because she needs to use it so instead of telling you the rest of the incredible stuff that has happened, im going to get off and leave the computer to her.

Kossy: - You can all thank me later for cutting this insanely long blog short!

Quick Prayer points:
-Helen, our team translator/mother, is really quite unwell with very bad head pains. She is seeing a doctor today so please pray that there is nothing seriously wrong and that she can recover very quickly.
-As we only have 4 more days on the building site (we leave Tegucigalpa on the 4th May) please pray that we will be able to finish the work we came to do as it would be awful if couldn't get it done.

Thank you guys for all the prayers and please continue.

Loads of love,

Joel