July 19

Last night after dinner we headed down to Malacom to minister to the boys who were out on the street. We performed a skit for them and fed them a warm meal. While most of the boys were in their teens the youngest boy we met last night was 10 years old, which is the same age as our youngest son. It's very difficult to comprehend sending someone so young to look for work to be able to feed themselves.This morning after breakfast and devotionals we headed out to Pastor Esmeralda's Church. We led the children in a few songs and performed a skit, followed by a craft. We then took a short walk down to a small baseball field, where we played baseball and games with the children. After lunch and depleting our water supply we headed back to the base for a short time to refresh.In the afternoon we headed to Pastor Gabriel's Church. Pastor Gabriel is 22 years old and has been leading this church for about six months. As we were heading to the church the rain began again. For awhile we didn't think we were going to be able to have a service. We were told typically the families do not let their young children go out in the rain, do to the poor medical care and the risk of injuries. During a few breaks in the rain a small group of around eight children showed up at the church. We played with the children for a while hoping the rain would let up. We decided to go ahead and do our program with the small group. Prior to starting we prayed with our group and were ready to start when the rain let up. Pastor Gabriel challenged the kids to bring as many of their friends as they could within the next five minutes. Within the next few minutes we had a group of approximately 60 kids. We once again sang songs and peformed a skit. We had so many children we actually ran out of our paper plates for our craft, which we had written a bible verse on. We ended up handing out note book paper, which many of the kids wanted more than the plates. We finished up and headed back to base just in time for dinner.