Tarapoto Peru July 9, 2004

Rhonda (5’1’) with the Markham Woods Manaratha Group

Friday, this is the last work day. This has been a day of stresses and many rewards. The screws for the roof arrived from Lima yesterday. Today the roof went on. Tomorrow our group will worship with the church of Lamas inside the new church building.

VBS - What a day! Approx. 230 children! 50ish in the a.m. 180ish in the p.m.! We were surprised to have 57 come on the bus up from the Quechua Indian village. The VBS is down the hill from the new church, in a rented hall which is a good sized single room. Yes, you could say it was a madhouse. But it was not as bad as you think it was.

This has been a wonderful site to be working in. We have had the privilege of interacting with the neighborhood, the local church members helping in the VBS, the Maranatha workers as well as the people here at the Niles Hotel. Today we said our official good byes and thanks to everyone except to the church family. That will be tomorrow.

Tonight, many of us are going to take the 3 wheel open motocars and join 5,000 others at the coliseum for the first night of a major evangelistic series. The sky has opened up with heavy rain. As I set here in the room there is water coming in 8 feet into the room under the door to the hall. The buildings do not have a clear distinction as to what is on the inside and what in on the outside, even in the nice hotel. There is nice furniture and paintings in the hall, but it is open to the outside.

Yesterday, after lunch the bus took us all to the Indian village. They performed a dance, told a bit about the community, and provided great photo moments and opportunity to purchase items. The best part was interacting with the women as they tended to their chores outside their adobe house doors. They had never seen hair like Sam’s. They commented that Sam was taller than his mom. David Garcia explained that in our country, I was considered short. We thought we would play a trick on them by calling Chelsey Appel (6’1’) over and telling them (for a while) that she was my daughter. They were shocked. They got a big laugh and said she was as tall as the church we were building. This visit may have been why so many children lined the streets in the village, waiting for the bus to take them to VBS.


This is the last transmission for Trapoto......