Let's dance the night away!

Hola!

It’s Sarah here to give you the inside scoop on day 4 of the adventures of the #PRCHICAS2016! Today we woke up at 7:00am…the birds were chirping, the sun was rising with a peaceful glow and the cool ocean breeze was filling our lungs to start living a beautiful day that the Lord has made! At 7:45am we headed over to the fire pit to do devotions by the ocean. After devotions we headed to breakfast where Deja lead our team and Grace Bible College in a group prayer, I find myself enjoying these little moments the most, praying with one another, encouraging one another and offering our days and each moment to the Lord. At breakfast we ate eggs, sausage and some delicious french bread. As I think of what the Lord is doing in our team this week I think of the verse in Matthew when Jesus tells us to become like little children…we are certainly embracing our silly sides this week, and I find laughter to be one of the greatest gifts from the Lord…it is blessing to be able to live into the goofy and weird ways that God has made us…I imagine Him laughing and smiling with us. The Lord is filling up our hearts with joy this week…I’m grateful for a team that begins the day with smiling faces… immersing in laughter and songs. After breakfast we headed to work on the dorms we have been renovating this week. This day consisted of Deja and Laura being champs while they chizzled (word is telling me chizzled is not a word…pshh) at cement and dry wall with some heavy duty power tools…seriously though they basically killed it today working for the Lord! Another group worked their hearts out sawing and carrying wood, shout out to Camille for being a brave soul and handling the table and circle saw like it’s your job…she did so great today! Another group learned a new thing today…electrical work; let’s just say patience was key. This task took hours of learning and waiting for instructions. Little by little working in two teams we managed to slowly and surely secure pipes, electrical boxes and panels and we will continue to finish this project through the week. At noon we had spaghetti for dinner and enjoyed more conversation and laughter…there really isn’t a dull moment among our team whether Deja is asking us fun questions, or we are making up melodies to songs that have the word sorry in them, we are trying to be like Pitch Perfect, and I’d say we are building up our acapella skills every day. We finished working around 3:00pm and we were greeted with take-out Frappes, so far I have tried the strawberry cheesecake and strawberry pina colada! After a long day of worked we drove to the barrio (neighborhood). The barrio is a diverse community some families struggling through  poverty and others wealthier, and this area is the highest drug point in Puerto Rico. In the Barrio we were able to spend time with local kids at a church that provides kids in the Barrio with an afterschool program, as well as scholarships to attend Camp Caribe. This was my favorite part of the day, as soon as we stepped out of the van I felt like I was where I was supposed to be, spending time with the kids reminded me of why I want to continue mission work long term. God is a beautiful creator and I absolutely loved witnessing God in each of the children we interacted with today. Throughout our time there we colored with the kids teaching them our names and they would write our names on the paper and writing that they loved us. We sang songs with them, they really enjoyed singing “Sorry” by Justin Bieber haha. A few seven to nine year old girls schooled us in a dance off, we played Pato Pato Ganzo (duck duck goose) Abbie Romano fell and hit her chin pretty hard today, but we all admired her strength as she chose to keep a positive spirit and continued to look to the Lord in some challenging moments. Leah, Annika, and Kaley also played basketball with an older boy from the neighborhood. I’d say for many of us our favorite part of the day was going to the Barrio, God’s presence was among us as we embraced the freedom and silliness that kids bring to life. When we came back from the Barrio we ate a quick dinner and excitingly and with some hesitation (lack of confidence in dance skills) we headed over to a dance studio to take salsa lessons! This was out of my comfort, as I tried to remember the moves our sassy instructor Be Be taught us, he was a trip). I slowly learned to move my hips to the rhythm of the music, I successfully learned to salsa with the help of the John Marshall the missionary we are working with this week. We all agreed that Leah did the best as the salsa lesson, good work girl! After salsa lessons we went to the plaza to enjoy Puerto Rican ice cream, walking around and fellowship. Then we went to a beautiful monument of a cross towering the city of lights in Ponce, Puerto Rico. We took many pictures and gazed upon the beauty in darkness of the night as a canvas for the city lights. We then drove back to camp and it was my turn to share my testimony and devotion. Now that I am thinking about it my devotion ties in nicely to the city lights we saw tonight. I shared the idea of seeing suffering and struggles as an act of God’s love, these are the moments when we meet with him in a raw and genuine place. From here he begins to mold and shape us into stronger, wiser and more loving human beings. He is with us always and it is only by the darkness that we can see the glory of the stars in the skies and in our case tonight the glistening of the city lights.

We miss and love you all! Shout to my mom, dad, brother, and Ellie Mae (my puppy). Love you and miss you.

We are grateful for your continued prayers and supports, the Holy Spirit is among us!

Adios!

Love,

Sarah

Sarah outside of Burger King in Ponce

After salsa dancing! 

A group picture from the after school program in the barrio.