We got up early to take a taxi to meet Maria at her house to take the bus to the ministry sight.
After being dropped off by the bus we took two motorcycles up the hill and then walked very steep roads to the ministry sight.
The building has reed sides and a metal corregated roof.
Even though they have a guard taking care of it, they discovered they couldn’t leave anything in the building so they rent a space in a home across the street.
We helped Maria move 25 plastic chairs, 4 wooden chairs, 9 benches, 5 little long tables, and 2 more tables for the children to sit at.
A group of 55 children swelled to closer to 100 when the classes began.
They took attendance, required the children to pay 10 centimentos ($.032 cents), gave a lesson on getting ready for Jesus coming (Christmas)…having him clean our hearts, gave out balloons, gave the children a chance to color a picture about the lesson with a verse, and then fed them a quinua drink and a roll with egg inside.
More moms kept coming to enroll their children but Maria has to turn them away because she is at her limit of how many children she can handle.
There are 120 signed up now.
After returning some of the furniture to the rented storage area, we went out to a popular chicken and French fry lunch.
Maria will return and teach a lesson to the adults during the afternoon.
The land was given to the ministry by the community but it is located on a steep hillside that has had garbage thrown into it and dirt from other construction sights.
There is a need for a wall on both sides of the building to keep the sand/dirt/garbage/etc in place.
The workers started the wall but the hillside kept collapsing so they stopped.
Pastor Juan and Maria hope they will begin again this week and have success.
Later they plan to build a clinic and doctors will volunteer their time to come and offer their services for small amounts of money.
She hopes to have a classroom that can be kept cleaner eventually as well.
She also plans to have a day care where the children can stay in the day time while their mothers are away at work instead of being alone in the streets.
It is good to see the work that is being done in one of many areas in need.
