DAY TWO: BETTER THAN BEFORE

I feel spoiled to be with such an incredible team as this. The reasong they are so special is because they carry a piece of The Rock with them. A piece of you.

Each day, Perdon Y Amistad sends teams out to the public schools to feed the children. We were privileged to go with them. One gentleman noted the tremendous difference in the children from when we first began feeding them. In the beginning, the children would grab the food and run. Today, the children will stop and say por favor (please) and gracias (thank you). One of the interns commented on the fact that the children were really excited to see the vans pull up. "It doesn't matter what we have or if the children know us, they love to see us, " he said. "I feel like I take what we have back home for granted."

After lunch, we all headed out to the School of Champions (top picture). Children who attend here are those who have excelled in public school. They come to the School of Champions to take additional classes: English, math, computers and to play. It just so happened that every English teacher was out sick today. Guess who got to teach the children English? That right, we did! The second picture from the top of the page is of Kathryn teaching some girls. We taught four full classes of students from age 7 to 11. We were amazed at their desire to learn. While some interns taught English, others played basketball with each age group.

From the school, Terryl, Kathryn, Richie and I went into the city dump to give food to the workers and residents. We all had a moment of pouring our hearts out as we served. It should be impossible for a country that borders such a prosperous country as the USA to have ANYONE living or eating out of a garbage dump. One of the interns threw up at the reality and the smell of it all. The rest of the pictures were shots I took of residents and feeding in the dump.

I will close with one thought an intern shared during our processing. While here, there is a language barrier but there is always a barrier of some sort when reaching out to people. Whether religious, social, physical, gender or the many others that exist, we have to ask God for the ability to cross those barriers.

Thank you for your continued prayers. My driving is getting better!