Southern Evangelists Day 2

The church's mission was threefold: to build new houses for widowed families in the Santa Clara area; to rotate the doctor's clinic in the towns surrounding the lake and supply medicines; and to entertain and teach the local children through activity and games.

Until the prayer that was said at breakfast in the morning the religious aspect of this group was unnoticeable. There was certainly no holy than thou attitude and I was met by very open and friendly people whose generosity was very apparent. A member was invited to pray in thanks for the breakfast (thank you guys that egg muffin was awesome, and the coffee very welcome too!) and the local pastor gave an impromptu sermon which was open as others were invited to partake.

Rain stopped play and the house building was put on hold – I secretly wanted to get some alpha male action and help with that – so instead we took the bus and a bus load of local kids to neighbouring San Pedro for a day of fun and games in the Ebenezer church.

Now can you imagine that some foreigners just come into town one day and take your kids off to the neighbouring town for the day? It would be both illegal and frowned upon and yet the local people here welcome it with open arms, literally. The hardest thing to do is to prize the kids of your limbs as they grip on tightly. The openness and lack of both fear and fear mongering are a far cry from our world back home.

After the morning of activity the guys went back to San Juan for lunch and returned to San Pedro to give out aid to the landslide victims who had suffered great loss in storm Agatha. Vanessa is pictured with a Jason Stackhouse lookalike, an actor in a vampire series on HBO.

For anyone from the churches who reads this, a big thank you for inviting us to join you and appreciate the good work you have done and no doubt will keep doing!