After the normal morning routine, we headed up the mountain to Oasis de Amor enjoying the beautiful scenery along the way. It was much cooler there with a nice strong breeze which added to our enjoyment. Oasis is four acres and in 2002, four teams from Heritage worked to build a strong cement wall around the property. Having heart so many amazing stories over the years I was excited and truly honored to behold Oasis with my own eyes. Each of the four original teams have a mural on the inside of the wall along with their names. Other teams have painted on the wall too.

Inside Oasis there are several buildings. One is boys’ dorms. One is girls’ dorms downstairs and an office upstairs. Another is the former house of Boris and Nena (currently under renovation). Also under renovation is the final building which is the school. In the dorms there are four to a room, two rooms per section that share a bathroom. There is also a playground (build by a Heritage team) and a cement soccer/basketball area. As far as orphanages go, this one does very well.

Pablo met me as I got off the bus and happily gave me the nickel tour. He went off to play basketball and Isaias showed me around for awhile. He really loved taking pictures with my camera. Everywhere he went he wanted me to follow him; this was a great time. Pablo and I reconnected for a few minutes then I looked after Jose Daniel while Pablo and many others played soccer. Jose Daniel sat on my lap and would make me clap my hands during the soccer game by holding my wrists and clapping them together. He started to get tired and a little fussy – he started to cry when I put him down, so I held him in my lap for awhile. He didn’t cry loudly – it was almost like he was ashamed of being 2 years old. He also cried when another boy innocently tapped him on the head. Isaias told him not to cry, but I told Isaias it was ok. I handed him to S. so I could get my guitar. I played “Ancient of days” and “Your love is amazing” for them and Angie shared a short message about working hard in school. We then said our good-byes and boarded the bus for Ciudad Nueva.

As soon as we finished lunch, we broke into two groups; one group cleaned up some brush around the GCLA compound, the other went to give food, mattresses, and dental kits to poor families. This was a real picture of the poverty at Ciudad Nueva. In some ways it was worse than Gracias Cristo – no shade, very hot, houses in shambles, kids with no clothes, and a really bad smell. We went to three houses and distributed the goods. I came to find out that Gustavo helped the men move brush and he was surely happy to see me when I came back. Here is a pic of me handing out a dental kit:

After this we stopped at the supermarket to pick up food to take to some families who live close to the hotel that we’ve had a relationship with over the years. We stopped at one house to deliver the food and shared the gospel. The woman we shared with seemed to be unsure about the gospel, so we prayed for her and her family before going across the street to the hotel.

Tonight we had the best meal so far – WENDY’S! All of the sights, tastes, and sounds were the same, but here the beef costs more than the chicken. We celebrated GCLA church pastor Giovanny’s birthday with a few others from his church. It was a great meal and a great time.

G. and I processed the day together again and I was in bed by midnight.