Hurrican Ida......

Hurricane Ida has caused some disasters that have been devastating. We have had floods, landslides with rocks, some of them as big as 2 metres high that have destroyed homes and have left people unable to communicate. River levels have increased and the current has destroyed home that were close to the river bank. Many houses have collapsed and killed the people that were inside. Trees have fallen over and destroyed homes and bridges. Many families have lost everything and the only possessions they have are the clothes they are wearing. The wather broadcasters have mentioned that it has rained over 300mm. Thank God the rain has stopped. We are fine, nothing has happened in our town (Santiago de Maria) and we know that the hand of God is keeping us safe.

Operation Provision International

August 17 - Operation Provision International

The directors of Operation Provision International from Orland0 Florida, Jeff and Barbara Neff came to visit us. Pastor Jim ministered to the church on the Sunday services. People really enjoyed the preaching and were amazed at Pastor Francisco's ability to translate. Barbara brought some little presents for the children. The children were so happy.

Our church registration has been approved. We are waiting for the tax exemption approval and also some other paper work to go through that our accountant has submitted to the government.

Retaining Wall

Hello!! Sorry for the late update.....This is what has been happening

JUNE 5th - So we are back in the mission field. Ready to pick up where we left of. We have started to build the retaining wall to stop the rain water to run into the neighbour's property. This is our first step. The land is uneven so the retaining wall is 2.5 meters high on one side and 1.5 meters on the other side. The retaining wall has been finished the total cost was US$5000. Our next step is to build the church. We need US$15000 to accomplish this.

Back in Santiago de Maria, El Salvador

Hi everyone,

We have returned to Santiago de Maria, and have been back for two weeks now. It's exciting to know that we have a goal to acheive and that we can start working towards it. We have been busy visiting the people and getting back into our routine and it's nice to see that the people are happy to see us. Everything is going great!

Hi Everyone!!





Well, we have been working very hard the last
few months to raise money for El Salvador.


Following the success from the last dinner, we
decided to do
another one. The dinner was held
on the 18th of April at Woodridge State High
School Hall.



We are very happy with the way it went, and even happier
that we are getting closer to our target.
Here are some photos from the dinner, hope you enjoy
them.

El Salvador Benefit Dinner

Saturday the 31st of January was our first benefit dinner and we are pleased to say that It was successful.

We had a lunch and dinner session so that the

people could have a choice whether they would

go during the day or at night.

The aim of the benefit dinner was to invite as many people as

possible and have a presentation informing them about what

is happening in El Salvador and what we are doing.

We shared about our goals and of the lifestyle in the community of El Tigre. All in all we were very happy with the way it turned out.

Thank you everyone that attended, it means

alot to us and also to the children.

The Children of El Tigre

HERE ARE A FEW PHOTOS OF THE CHILDREN
IN THE COMMUNITY

The first meeting

Hi everyone.

We're writting about what happened during 2008, so that

you can see the progress that's been made.

January 20th - First meeting

we went to Cerro El Tigre mountain to have our first meeting at our Land, wich was full of coffee trees and some big trees. The ground was uneven.
We arrived early to prepare the land for the meeting, so as

soon as we got there we started cutting some coffee trees

leaving the big ones, so we could be under their shade, there

were around 25 people.

June 29th - BBQ

To have a fellowship meeting is very relevant in a small countryside communities, so we planned to have a BBQ in our land, (we bought a whole pig ) people from the community offered their help to do the preparations for the event, the ladies got involved with the cooking , (we had fried rice, tortillas, salad, pork and some traditional drinks).

The men prepared some shade to cover us from the sun, cut the weeds and grass and some other things that needed to be done. More than 150 people attended.

July 23rd - Flattening the land

Our land has been flattened and all the big trees and coffee bushes have been cut, except for one tree that is situated on the edge of the land wich will provide the necesary shade for our church services ( the area looks big and nice )

The land is a good size

August 29th - Building model & plans

The construction drafts and building designs are ready, it looks so beautiful, we can't wait to start building.

The building has rooms for boys and girls and also has workshops. In these workshop rooms is

where we will be teaching the children different skills. This is good becuase the do not have to travel very far because it's in their community.

October 22nd - Doing the fence

The next step was to fence the land because some rocks for the west side retaining wall have been bought, and will be delivered during the week.

We are doing this to protect the children from getting hurt, as they used to play in the land, and also to stop the rocks from falling down and hurt anyone that may be walking on the road.

December 15th - Weather change

At this time of the year the sun changes position and the tree which we had our services can't provide us any shade, so we decided to build a shanty to protect us from the sun and rain.

Our next target

Our next goal is to reach US$50,000 to be able to begin the construction of the retaining wall and the building. Then we will be able to start with our children and do community programs inside the venue.