Well I have finally arrived back in Colombia after 24 hours of travelling on Friday! Despite being charged by Iberia for my extra bag, the clothes donated for the children by Swan bank church, and then having my suitcase damaged en route, the trip went well. On the transatlantic flight the seat next to me was free enabling me to put my feet up and get comfy. Also, despite not having individual TVs on the seats the film I wanted to watch (The Social Network) was shown on the big TVs and I had a good view of the TV nearest to me too :D
The discovery of my damaged bag at Bogotá actually helped to fill the some of the 3 hours I had to wait there for my connection to Cartagena, and the flight into Cartagena went without incident (ironically this 1 hour flight had TV's on the seats!!) Despite being very tired when I arrived seeing the team again renewed my strength long enough to have lots of hugs, give out some presents and see some of the changes made to the house - new paintwork and the double room is now a lounge :D. I spent the weekend mostly recovering from jet lag and unpacking, I am trying to make the most of the jetlag in getting to bed early and up early now I am back to a 7.30am start working day!! we will see how long that lasts!! On sunday I did go to church and met up with my friend Mayra, we are going to try and meet up on Saturday so she can come and see the project - we have been trying to arrange it since May! and then to the YWAM base meeting in the evening, it was great to see everyone again there and I was very happy to see that not only my friend Diana Cristina is on the English school but Elisabeth, who I tried to teach last year, has also signed up. I am still hoping to help out with this school in anyway possible with my schedule.
This morning was my first day back at work and the planning meeting revealed that there are a lot of changes planned! The children are not back at small groups yet as we are getting registered with the Dept of Education to provide special help for children who are not studying or are struggling in mainstream education. This will help our children get into mainstream school and get credit for the work they do with us. However, this will mean us loosing some of the children we have had in small group for a while, to make room for others who are in more need of this help.
Also, this week we have a Medical team coming from the States, 17 doctors both GPs and Specialists. They will be with us on Wednesday for a health outreach, providing medical care for the people of Loma Fresca. We are organising the appointments, which has been going on all day with parents dropping in to see Johanna. And then on Wednesday we will be helping with crowd control and some of the logistics as well as the hospitality of the team.
The other main bit of news is that we are about to become a building site as the now infected Mango Tree gets chopped down, all the outhouses being knocked down, the patio levelled and new buildings built. We will have a 2 story extension which will house out teachers office, a library, 2 toilets for the children and on the second floor 2 bedrooms and a staff bathroom. The patio will also have a roof on it making it usable as another meeting room. This will all start next week!
So we are going to be a bit busy with lots of change! I am really excited by it all, and happy that on the roof we will have a place to sunbathe (the sun is completely blocked by the tree at the moment) and am looking forward to the medical outreach too. I will blog about that next week.
All in All I am very happy to be back and have renewed enthusiasm for the work I have to do.
God Bless You all
Petra
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