Wednesday, March 10

Hi all - today has been an emotional and long but fulfilling day for many.

We started the day like yesterday, reading to the children who have been assigned to us. Many of the children need extra help in reading so each of us have been assigned one or two children to take out of class for 15 minutes and just have them read to us. Even though most of us are not fluent in Spanish we can actually help them by just listening and following along as they read and give them an encouraging word or two. It also gives us a special bond with at least two children, I am reading with Reina, the little girl that we sponsor and with a little boy named Tulio, he is very proud to show me how quickly he can read ^:Frog and Toad^; (Sepo and Sapo, in Spanish)!!

Water in the volunteer house has been a little bit of an issue, there is a little bit of a drought here and we are on a water schedule, this morning we woke up to no water (although the schedule said we should have had water), but we all have been good natured about it so far. We think it is just a little communication problem because thankfully when we returned from our trip to the Technical school the volunteer house did have water!!

Raul took us out to the Technical school, we took a tour of the grounds and saw where the boys learn how to become electricians, carpenters and welders. They are adding on a new area in Auto mechanics. It was great to see the work (dormitory) that former work teams from Epiphany did in past trips. We also had a wonderful lunch of rice and chicken and really tasty lemonaide!! Claudia spent more time with some boys at the Technical school translating letters that were written for them. As the only person fluent in Spanish, Claudia is really working hard at translations and making sure each child who has recieved letters gets them translated. The work that is being done at El Hogar with the small children and at the Technical school with the older children is another example of God^s work here on Earth.

When we returned to El Hogar, Suzanne, Betsy, and Scotty with the help of many little boys moved more dirt into the garden , and did some painting also with the help of many little boys. Susan, Anne, and Kara, did a wonderful job planting trees and the flowers we bought for the garden. Anne did a great job designing the left garden to match the right garden and it looks terrific, tomorrow we should be finished with the planting and hopefully we will be able to get it watered thoroughly. Celia and Cory finished off the indoor painting and of course it looks wonderful!!

The highlight of today and every day is the time we get to spend with the children. There were a number of touching moments, particularly when Ginger Barrows called to speak with her sponsor child Diana, today is Diana`^s birthday and we were out in the playground when Ginger called Jenny and was able to speak and sing happy birthday to Diana. Jenny had some quiet moments with her sponsor child, Christopher, they read together the photo album that Jenny and her family made for Christopher, it was a special time for both of them. Suzanne, Jenny, Claudia, Betsy, and Kara finished off the outdoor time by playing a mean game of soccer (futbol) with some of the boys - game to be continued tomorrow evening.

Tonight Jenny had a special surprise for us, unknown to us she found prayer sponsors for each of us, and this evening after a long, hot day she presented a letter to us from our Epiphany prayer sponsor. My letter was very touching and I know that it is comforting to know that there is a special person at Epiphany praying just for us. Thank you to Jenny and to our prayer sponsors and all those praying for us at Epiphany, we miss you and look forward to seeing you on Sunday morning.

See you soon , Suzanne