First week

Here's an overview of what we did the first week ladies.

Sunday: We went to church at 9am and the church was called La Iglesia. Which means the church! Afterwards we all went to a huge SIT DOWN pizza hut. Never knew these existed. Pizza is different here, but in a better way. After this we headed back to the house and rested for a couple minutes, then Me Parker Mitch Thomas Grace Cameron and Holly all went to play soccer about a 1/2 mile away. We brought 2 balls and ended up giving away one to one of the kids that played with us. Right when we arrived at the field a couple kids joined our game. About ten minutes later we had a 8 on 8 game with lots of locals watching! I felt like a professional. After soccer we ate dinner around 6:30, and then we worshiped and went over our devotional. We are going to be studying the book of Romans - verse by verse. Awesome first day!

Monday: Woke up around 8ish but some of the team decided to go on a run around 6ish. NOT ME! I was waaay too tired. Around 9:30 a lady named Isabel came from Exido (which is the orphanage we will be helping out at every Thursday came by and gave us an introductory of what we will be doing. She was the nicest lady! She explained how most of the kids in the orphanage where either just left there or dropped off there by there parents in a more formal way. All of the kids there range from 3 to 18, and once they turn 18 years old they have the option of staying or leaving. Most of the kids in the orphanage have either been physically or sexually abused, or have come from parents who just don't know how to take care of their children. Listen to this: The lady, Isabel, from the orphanage told us that El Salvador doesn't have good judgement in the laws they pass specifically laws that deal with orphans. Sometimes children are taken away from the parents (who abuse them or just dont take care of them) by the government and then placed in the orphanage. However, if a parents choose to "go to court" with the situation, the government almost always puts the children back in the hands of their parents where they are back in the same situation they started in. Some parents even use there children to beg for money on the streets, the lady explained. These kids just can't catch a break! So, if you would pray that God provides a way in all this mess, that would be great. Pray specifically for better decision making in the El Salvadorian government when in comes to decisions made about orphans. The orphanage is actually not even funded by the government! 26 people work there, and this is their full time job Wait, whaaaat? If you would also pray that God will provide for the orphanage, its workers, and bless them. There is a total of 68 kids, if I remember correctly. Anyways, after this Isabel left, and then we ate (we have our own cook, and her food is amazing!!),walked to the bus route, and we visited 3 malls. These malls where almost right next to each other. We walked to all of them. This took around the whole day.

Tuesday: Our Spanish teach came and met us around 9am and afterwards we headed of the the plaza to get our phones for use between our team. We were going to head to the volcano after this, but it was too cloudy so we headed downtown and visited the local markets. There were places everywhere on the street. I got a El Salvadorian soccer team uniform for around 15 bucks later to figure out that the pants are light blue and the shirt was a slight bit darker. Hmmmm. After this we headed back home and headed out to the soccer field again and played for about 2 hours.

Wednesday: We met the pastor who will be teaching our Bible studies Monday morning. After this we did head to the volcano and it was pretty amazing! We were very high up in there air over looking the volcano and the city. We ate at MacDonalds, came home and then played soccer for about 2 and a half hours.

Tomorrow we are headed to watch the soccer game at a house of someone who goes to La Iglesia. Friday we are headed to the beach to surf, and probably the same for Saturday.

Next week is when our regular schedule kicks in.

Thanks for your prayers!