It’s hard to believe I’ve already been here for over two weeks- time is really going by fast! This week we had our first outreach in Las Tablas, a small part of town about 10 minutes driving distance from our house. The area has been taken over by drug users and sales, both in plain sight as soon as we arrived. We walked right past people with bags of marijuana waiting to make deals, and also past people using crystal meth- they don’t bother concealing it. While there, we witnessed several drug deals and saw so many teenagers and adults roaming around, obviously high. The most heartbreaking part of being there was seeing the kids playing only a few feet away from the deals being made. We only got a small glimpse at what they see every single day. Such a different life…

We met up with the pastor of a church and they explained to us what they needed help with: the houses and church in this area are right next to a small but rushing river about 15 feet across, and often in the rainy season (which is right now), the water will rise over the bank, flooding the front of the church. Our job was to shovel and haul sand from the river’s edge up to the church so that they can start building a dam. There were about 16 of us helping out, and we were able to move quite a bit of sand for them. Hopefully we will return sometime in the next couple of months to help them out some more. I would have loved to share this experience in photos, but we were advised against bringing any valuables along to Las Tablas. So here’s a random picture from the week instead: Our weeks are so packed with early mornings, classes, small groups, prayer times and work duties that it’s nice to have free time on the weekends to process all that happened and unwind. This Saturday we drove to the beach (about 2.5 hrs away). The drive was windy, bumpy, and even more exciting because of the car we were using (which was at least 25 yrs old, had a broken gas gauge, and was making horrendous noises- each mile driven was a miracle from God). BUT, the drive was also green and beautiful! The water at the beach was at least 80 degrees and it was fun to play in the waves and bodysurf in the midst of thunder and rain.

Oh, and I can’t forget our stop on the way to the beach…we encountered some friendly natives from Costa Rica and I thought I’d take a short video to show you. They were about 20 feet away from us and it’s hard to tell how big they are, but trust me, they were HUGE.