Rebar and Computers . . .

Disclaimer: Below is a post Andrea managed to write and save as a draft to the blog before the internet went down.

Well . . . it has been QUITE a little adventure with computers, the REBAR in my window keeps the signal from reaching my ipad and as MUCH as I'm committed and everything . . . there are some things I just CANNOT do and subject myself to the ten billion mosquitoes and ants outside while I type in the dark is JUST NOT on my list of top ten things to do!

So my apologies this is late . . . I've written 3 different things today, none of which saved, so this is the 4th time to try to summarize who, what, when, where, and how. I know you are anxiously awaiting news of your family members and friends so I will do my best to express an overall "report" but with 45 people . . . it's tough.

The past two days have been filled with work, work, work. The VBS Folks have been amazing! They love the kids so much and it is so apparent in how they interact. Last year on the first day of VBS they had 7 kids. This year began with a whopping 26 and today they had 39 . . . . There's no telling HOW MANY they will have by the end of the week! And of course we don't have enough supplies because Nancy had no idea we would be up to this many by day 2 . . . we planned to have 25 kids consistently throughout the week so tomorrow our goal is to FIND construction paper or SOMETHING that they can use on Thursday to finish up the week! A HUGE SHOUT OUT TO Melissa Norman for getting supplies ready from WCUMC - they have truly been lifesavers.

One of the things I like to do on mission trips is have "Affirmation Bags." These are bags that we hang up and folks are encouraged to write notes of affirmation to each other throughout the week. The first year we did it we had all the WC folks . . . then we realized we needed to extend it to the workers on the work site . . . then this year we made sure we were ALL INCLUSIVE and we emailed the missionary and got the names of everyone in the village . . . so there are about 90 bags hanging around the big room. The most powerful part of this bag thing has been to watch the notes the youth and the VBS workers are receiving from the parents of the children and the children that attend VBS!

Here's part of one of the notes she got, "Dear Miss Nancy, I'm happy to see you this week. I hope you come to Jamaica next year. I know you love my children and you do such a good job to teach my children about God's word. I love you so much."

The construction crews are amazing. They are "ahead of schedule" so much so that I am a LITTLE anxious about folks having enough to do the next two days. We have some different projects tomorrow that will take more people but it seems to happen every year . . . this group from WCUMC gets more done than they anticipate and more than other teams. We have poured floors, laid brick, painted, painted, and painted, gotten an apartment ready for Ionda (who is getting married on Saturday and who we have been working with for the past 3 years here), built a cistern from scratch and are ALMOST FINISHED WITH IT, mixed cement, mortar, scraped, primed, and painted gates to the Village, built shelves and upfitted the sewing factory that we are partnering with in our microbusiness partnership, and I am sure there are NUMEROUS other projects that I am leaving out . . . .

The most interesting thing of all is how we all seem to just work so well together. People get thrown together in adverse conditions . . . we don't have adequate tools, there is no "instruction manual" for the tasks at hand (thus why one group ended up beating the old paint off the gate with tools and ultimately rock because nothing else would work and we have NO sandpaper) yet even though things aren't easy and don't always make sense, there is such a sense of comraderie and team.

Because of the passion of the people here we are embarking on a NEW journey for us tomorrow. We are preparing supper for the people in the infirmary. TUNA SALAD. GOODNESS . . . talk about taking an adverse situation and making it worse. I'm realllllly interested to see how this whole deal tomorrow works . . .