After morning devotions led by Pastor May (a daily routine) the team headed off to the site with the ladies carrying chocolate chip cookies made the evening before. It was exciting to bring a traditional American treat to the local people. Pastor May informed the team that this would likely be the last day that we would be working on the church so the team’s determination rose to a new high. All of us knew that we could not complete the structure during our short stay, but we wanted to get as much done as possible.

Three of our male team members were assigned to building wooden benches out of 5 meter long planks. This required a lot of tedious hand sawing. The ladies joined in by filing the edges of the planks to ensure smooth, splinterless corners. Placement of the concrete floor also continued.

With the building project well in hand the ladies peeled off to do what they had been doing best throughout the visit … building relationships with the children. Our women found that the children were quick studies and could pick up on games and songs with little difficulty. It was such a treat for the men to hear the children singing “Halleluiah, Halleluiah”, and “This Little Light of Mine”. Not to be outdone by our ladies, Tom Ritter couldn’t resist the opportunity to teach the children the game of baseball. He had fashioned balls from duct tape and before one knew it the kids were whacking it around with a piece of lumber for a bat. When the concrete pile ran down to nothing the local men took a well-deserved break and joined the children on the make shift baseball field. What a great experience it was to see the men and children thoroughly enjoying this great American game.

It was a great day having the full team restored to health and relationships with the people growing deeper every day. Unfortunately, the reality of knowing that we would be leaving these wonderful people tomorrow was setting in and the team experienced a somber trip back to the Baptiste Center at the end of the day.

After our evening devotion several of the team members got busy finishing putting together the French and Moray language Catechisms that we had brought along. Thanks to Emily, the final stapling and folding ended at 1:00 AM. We were ready to hand out to the people what they craved the most … the Word of God.

Tom Ritter  Joe & Kristen   Pastor Bob Green
  Liz      Paul & Emily   Pastor Steve & Kim