Redeeming Love Church

(Written Wednesday)

The 9 of us arrived by Friday evening to the Group Home. We officially met each other Saturday Morning, waking to tour the new Land for the Orphanage and were all completely awed by how big and beautiful this land will be for the kids. We then made our way to the current orphanage for the kids at Esperanza Viva. The kids here are wonderful! After the afternoon of getting to know the kids and Staff, we made our way back to the Group Home for some time to get to know the other 8 family members. We´d be working and sharing our house with for the next week.

Sunday morning we were on our way to "Nations" Church. It´s wonderful to see how the people here celebrate God, we were all very moved. After a great morning worshiping the Lord we got to tour the great Pyramid and a Mexican Celebration. After a long day of walking we headed home for a long week of work!

Monday morning we were picked up bright and early to start our main project here this week, building a Basketball court on the new land!!! Monday was spent all day at the Land with about 25 helpers, leveling the land, pulling weeds, digging new soil, and lidding the area of rain water that had accumulated during this Raing season. We had Planned on cementing one section of the court per day, and by the end of Monday we were way ahead of schedule. Monday night was spent at the Group Home relaxing our sore muscles, Devotions and spending time with each other.

Tuesday morning was again at the Land, this time leveling the land, framing and cementing the second section of the court. We feel very blessed to be helping with such a large project. When mid-afternoon hit, the ladies were picked up and taken to the orphanage for an energetic afternoon. Playing with the Kids. Around 4 pm we were taken to prepare the house for worship time with the Staff from E.V.

Our group home was transformed into a worship service in what seemed like 60 seconds! We spent the next hours in worship with the Staff from E.V. complete with microphones, speakers, guitar, keyboard and wonderful people all praying the Lord in music and prayer.

Wednesday morning we were allowed to sleep in a whole extra hour! because we were so far ahead on our work on the Basketball court. We finished leveling the ground and got the third section of cement poured and smoothed over. Some of us left mid-afternoon to play with the kids!

-Courtney Stuempges