Happy 4h of July!

Wassup everyone. This is the first chance I have been into town to use internet for a couple of days. We are in Upala now and all I can say is...it is so cool. Last night we rolled into our two small villages we are working in (Homusa and Villa Hermosa) and the people came out to greet us. It was awesome. It didn´t take long for a soccer game to get going between our guys and their youth. I think we ended up winning 5 goals to 4 but it was cool. They are so good at soccer.

The Costa Rican Christians from San Jose and our team are meshing so well. When I sat down at a meal with Carlos who speaks no English and Andrew and Richard from our team....they don´t speak any Spanish. But it didn´t matter. Carlos was rambling on in Spanish and Richard and Andrew were answering back in English and somehow they were having a great time and looked like they were understanding the other.

Our living situation is pretty basic. We are sleeping on the concrete floor of a community center that is under construction, sooooo.... let´s just say that to flush the one toilet we have for our group of 56 people, you need to go get a bucket of water and pour it in. We do have two showers though. One was built by Teo...it is a hose hung from the roof with some boards underneath. The other shower which is 200 meters away, has no door and actually has two pigs living in the stall next to it. Well, one now...the director of the school killed it in our honor this morning at 6 am. I don´t have to tell you that Grant, Luke, Jayk and most of the boys went there to watch the whole thing.

The team has been working so hard all day long clearing the field so we can pour concrete to make 2 sport courts for soccer and basket ball. I just got done meeting with the people from the local mayors office with Alejandro and Josue. We were hoping that the mayor would donate some of the materials, but were not sure. We were expecting to pay about $5500 at least to buy and transport the materials to the villages. After Alejandro was done talking to the mayor...he told us he would donate all of the materials! Wow! Then we went to find transport and when we told them who we were, and Ale explained that we were all volunteering...the company donated the transport! Unbelievable! We stopped in our pickup and just prayed and laughed like kids and gave thanks to God!

Please keep praying for us. We know God is working! Tonight we are inviting all of the kids and people of the community to come to our location for dramas, music, puppets, games, crafts and of course another soccer game. Josue will share tonight that God loves us so much that he sent his sone to die in our place. Please pray! Thanks for those that left messages. It was encouraging to see your notes and that you are reading the blog and praying.

Also pray...it is so hot here! and our sleeping situation is...wall to wall sleeping bags on concrete with a door we can´t lock, so we need to leave two people to guard our stuff on rotating shifts. It is pretty rough but everyone is so encouraged and has great attitudes. No one is sick, praise God. Oh and tomorrow we start to pour concrete!

Happy 4th of July...I will try to get back to you in a couple of days. God Bless.

Submitted by Ty Thomas