The past three days have been very eventful for the G-Team. The mornings are full of putting in hard work on the wall we are building around the school. The jobs on the worksite consist of tying rebar, mixing and pouring cement, and moving a large pile of dirt by hand. Teamwork on the job site is key and the team has been doing a great job making notable progress every day. We come back from the worksite exhausted, covered in cement, and tanned or sunburned by long hours in the sun.

After lunch, most of the team helps to run a VBS program for various schools in the area. VBS is an absolute blast and interacting with the kids, despite the language barrier, is a once in a lifetime opportunity. They are also filled with much humor. I walked into a classroom one time to a young boy exclaiming "Profesora! Professora! Es una gringo." We were more than amused and could not stop laughing.

Besides the humor though, our eyes are being opened more and more to the hospitality and receptiveness of the people here and we are finding that there are many lessons to be learned from them. Another way we see this is in the house visits that we attend. We witness their impoverished living conditions, yet their kind heartedness and faith in the Gospel and work of Christ. Their families may be torn apart, but their faith in prayer remains powerful and gives them hope.

We are very blessed to be able to perform songs, special music, and our drama at church services every night. The drives to these are always eventful, which sometimes involve steep mountain roads while riding in the back of a pickup truck in the pouring rain.

Yesterday, the boys on the GTeam had the opportunity to scrimmage some of the locals in their new indoor turf facility. We lost 5-2 but it was a hard fought battle.

The hot (sometimes too hot) water of Los Banos cools us down and is a great refresher after a long day of work. Our nights have consisted of group story sharing times, games, walks to get ice cream, and of course lots of sleep.

Your Blogmeister,
Jake Roberts