Hola, this is Terri Hawley writing. I have watched Gary slave over this computer every night trying to give you folks at home a glimpse of what this trip is all about. (It is truly an act of love because the internet connection here is not what we are used to!)
As for me.... I am exhausted! (Not just because I washed dishes tonight after dinner and Twig had used EVERY dish in the mission house!! Note: All meals have been wonderful.) This week we have built 10 houses...no, we have built 10 homes for the families that live up on a hillside in some small community here called Altonega. The work was fun... I love sawing and hammering. But the playing was more fun. We have colored pictures, played with jump ropes, blown bubbles, practiced Spanish and English with flash cards, hugged, danced, and loved with the people up on that hillside. The faces you see in our pictures have names, if not their given names the ones we have given them... Elizabeth, Elvis, Miguel, Jackie Gleason.The places we have worked also have names... the garden house, the house on the top of the hill, the compound where we built 2. (Eating lunch in the beautiful flower garden at one house was a wonderful treat to us.) Today we all gathered, them and us, to dedicate these homes. Prayers, even those spoken in Spanish, were very moving.These people and these places have become a part of us. When we return to southeastern NC, when I close my eyes I will still see all that I have come to know on this trip. Yes, when I close my eyes I will see Miguel holding that new soccer ball so proudly. I will see Elizabeth running behind our bus today when we were pulling off for the last time. And yes, I will see Jackie Gleason doing the hippy-hippy dance. Jim said that when he saw that there was a sign over his head that said "well done good and faithful servant".
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