A Lovely Day!

Last Wednesday we had a Ladies Outreach in Santa Rita. I really wracked my brain to come up with a craft for this particular activity and for while came up with absolutely nothing! One day my friend was having a yard sale, because she had to sell all of her stuff before she went back to Korea to teach English. The best thing about this special yard sale was everything was only $1!! Some people love garage selling, but I personally have a hard time finding stuff. This time though, I found several treasures. Amongst those treasures were several bags of beads along with the hooks to make earrings. I have never made earrings before, but I thought that might be a fun thing to do, and hey how hard could it be? So I did some googling, came up with a few ideas, and bought the rest of the supplies.

Tuesday night was a lot of fun...think of me saying that sarcastically...we started to sort my beads and some that Shelley had by colors. I believe there had to be at least a thousand beads! Needless to say, I started to second guess myself and kept asking myself, “What in the world was I thinking?” The poor guys were itching to go to dinner, but we girls were on a mission. Finally Jimmy, hoping I would snap out of it, threw some water on me. I willingly took a break with every intention of coming back the next morning and finishing!

Well, to our dismay we woke up to no power or water. We decided to wait around at the hotel for awhile hoping it would come on eventually, but after several hours we caught a tuk-tuk and headed for Jim and Shelley’s. I had to make a quick stop at the Panaderia, which is what they call the bread store, to pick up some cookies for the activity. Here is a little funny, the cookies that we always get are called margaritas, so I left with 50 margaritas. That wouldn't fly here in the States! Once we got to Jim and Shelley's, I saw that the beads had all be sorted...apparently this was a great stress reliever for Shelley! Making one pair of earrings for an example was all I had left to do!

Not even after ten minutes of being in Santa Rita, ladies started arriving! Ladies that had never been to the Bible study came! Many of the children who come to Shelley's Bible study invited their mothers, who also came!

They were all so creative and absolutely loved making their own earrings! This was such a wonderful opportunity for Shelley to make new relationships and build on the ones she already has with these ladies!

This is Shelley with Maria. She has been trying to get to know her for a while now. Her entire family comes to our Bible studies, but she has just started to get involved!

Here is Marta. She just gave birth to their 9th child! I t was a girl, but they haven't named her yet.

The woman in the white is José's wife, Maria. They are the couple who just lost their son Lucas. José comes to Jimmy's Biblestudy faithfully, but this is the first activity she has ever been to.



This is Mercedes' Mom! She has been living in Mexico for years and had just returned to Santa Rita that day!

This is Albina and Cantalaria! Cantalaria daughters Ana, Micheala, and Emma all come to Shelley's Biblestudy. She doesn't speak much Spanish, but she still comes to Biblestudy with her husband sometimes.