Friday March 23

The morning started with a personal devotion from the Tove, Janae and Sam telling us what a wonderful experience this first mission trip has been for them.  After thinking about it for some time, they took the plunge and they are now "hooked".

We arrived at the Mansiones church and sang "In this Very Room" which was very emotional for all on the last day here.  

We finished painting the exterior of the church........

and the drainage team managed to haul a truckload and a half of fill to start leveling the lower level of the parsonage while our masonry team finished the drainage pit.

Gerardo, the pastor, gave a wonderful speech thanking the team for all the work we had done and announced that the church is starting a new month long initiative every year to promote service by asking church members to go into the community to perform service in the Methodist tradition.

The initiative will be called the Ann Littleton Community Service Initiative in honor of all the work Ann has done at Mansiones and the impact it has had on so many people.  A well deserved honor for Ann!

It was then time to say good-bye to our wonderful local supervisors, Juan and Jose, take the team picture and depart for the Children's Home.

After lunch and a brief shopping tour of Moravia, we arrived at the Methodist Children's Home in Coronado to see the finished and occupied first house.

The home is occupied by 11 children ranging in age from 1 to 9, representing 5 family units.  The children were happy and exuberant and enjoyed the crafts we had prepared for the VBS lesson (once we corralled them!)  It was so gratifying to see these children, who have come from very difficult circumstances, so genuinely happy and very proud to show us their rooms and to talk or play with us. (For privacy reasons, we can't show you pictures of the children.) Thank you to all the teams and individuals who have worked on this project over the last several years.

On Monday the team returns to Coronado to begin working on the foundations for house #2 which is now under construction.

After saying good bye to the kids and staff, it was back to the seminary for dinner as we get ready to depart tomorrow for the west coast for some R&R on Saturday and Sunday.