Nature's Symphony
Church of the Visitation, Ein Kerem
Today we started work on painting the second church. All of the walls had to be painted, as well as the office space. Part of our group started the day by finishing painting the house we’d worked on the past 2 days. Then they joined us at the church to work there. Gillian brought her speaker so we got to play music from Austin’s phone while working. Later, we went back to have a bonfire where we each picked a song that is meaningful to us and got s’mores. The USA vs. Turkey game was on so some people watched it in the community hall. Tomorrow will be the first day since we got here that we will all work in the same building at the same time, so we will be able to talk and get our work done in much better time than before. –Eamon
Hola! Today we woke up to a lovely breakfast of waffles and mini sausages bright and early! At morning prayer, we read a passage from Matthew and spoke about looking for Christ in our daily lives. Following that, we headed to two different locations to work. One team went to finish painting the interior and hallway of the church, and the other team went to finish painting Señora Titi’s house and repair her stairs. After completing both tasks (with a few bad sunburns), we met back in the church, where Father Isaac gave the team some gifts: Puerto Rico themed bags, crosses, and little trinkets with verses on them! Then, we headed to a nearby beach to unwind, where we played in the clear, warm water and saw a beautiful sunset. Dinner was delicious chicken, rice and beans, and salad with ice cream sandwiches for dessert! We ended the day with Compline and prayers for the people we served the last two days. We’re looking forward to one more day of work and the fun we’ll have afterwards! Buenas noches! —Kate
Bienviendidos, We are doing great on day 2! Today we woke up bright and early around 7:15 to get ready for the day. We headed to breakfast and packed our lunches while eating some eggs and ham. We headed out after breakfast to do morning prayer and read from Genesis. After morning prayer we left to work on a church about 30 minutes away. We scraped paint off of the walls and then took a lunch break and painted the walls. We split into two groups and one group worked on scraping and painting a small house. Overall, it was a fun day of work, scraping, painting, and talking to the priest and some parishioners. We drove to Walgreens and grabbed some snacks before we went home. We left Walgreens and headed home for some yummy dinner which was meatballs, Spanish rice, and plantains. Dessert was Twinkies! We’ll finish the day with Compline. We are so grateful for the opportunity to work today and we are excited for the next day! ¡Hasta Luego! –Gillian