Beautiful Feet: November 24, 2015

Exciting Day….the event! Tuesday morning arrived with a new friend….Wendy. She has finally arrived. We have heard that the dry season was late in arriving and now, the rain is subsiding and the wind is picking up. We planned to recanvas our area to remind contacts that our event in the park would be today at 3. While several people were out, many said that they would come. We worked about three hours door knocking. We came home for lunch and worked on a few details. About 2, Dwaine walked to the park/basketball court about a block away. I put on some coffee, which was a total guess. The coffee part I think I hit pretty close, but here, people will add the sugar before preparing the coffee. I put about 32 tablespoons of sugar in my 42 cup maker and everyone said it was great. I drove down at 2:30. Several people were already there and canopies were going up. The mayor’s office was supposed to deliver 50 chairs at 2, but when I arrived, there were none. People were beginning to arrive, so Dwaine went to our house to get our 14 chairs. Then, he went to Regina’s to get 15 church chairs and 8 from Regina. It quickly was not enough. So Joli and Cesar went to Joli’s home to get some benches that they had. We visited with ladies during this time and it looked like the turnout was going to be good. The mayor’s office arrived at 3:30 with the 50 chairs and we got things kicked off. It was amazing how many people we were studying with came and how many people we recognized from door-knocking. We had 32 ladies and 49 children!!!! Linda, Carlos, Dwaine, Cesar, Arnoldo, and 3 helpers from Apaneca helped with the kids and visited with some men that also dropped by. Joli and I each did a lesson for the ladies and Zuylema kept up with registration so we could have a record of the ladies. Ricardo did the sound. After these activities, we served hot tamales and sweet coffee. Then, we had a drawing for door prizes. Some were small, but several were food bags. Everyone stayed to the end and Zuylema went around asking if anyone was interested in studying. We were already studying with about 6 to 8 ladies and 5 said they wanted to study. Others, we will try to revisit. It was definitely exciting. When things finished up about 5, we started loading everything. The court was on a steep hill and the only level entry had a lot of brown water. After one load, Dwaine slipped and fell on his back. Fortunately, he wasn’t hurt, but he was covered in mud. He helped finish loading and I drove a load of chairs back to Regina’s. Later we learned, Ricardo and Joli’s movie screen for power point presentations was missing. We are hoping it will turn up from someone we know. But, if not, it will have to be replaced as we all used it regularly. We got home about 6 and Dwaine cleaned up to get ready for a study at 6 with our landlord. We were ready, but he never arrived. He is very good to keep his word, so we are sure something must have come up. Overall, the day was really encouraging and we definitely have some follow-up to do. The response is comparable to a campaign group coming through. How exciting!