Thursday; Final day of serving the community

Hey Everyone!

     Today we spent our last day working at  our ministry sites, which was definitely bittersweet. 

Most of our group (besides AJ, Dylan, and Jim) went to Villa Blanco to help at a Kids Club.  The highlight of my day had to be the massive water fight with all the kids; after we ran out of water ballons the kids were sneaky enough to fill up buckets of water and pour them all over us.  Although we were soaked, it sure felt good to escape this Puerto Rican heat.

     Aaron, Brandon, and Ryan started their own Puerto Rican pop band, [trying to] sing all the weird spanish songs on the radio.
     After lunch we spent our time scraping paint off walls and repainting other ones.  We were all glad that we had shower time after sweating from that job.
     We had a barbeque with the community for dinner tonight, they were all so impressed that we came here to help them out.  We followed with club, where we read about Jesus washing his disciples' feet.  Jim and Elise washed our group's feet.  It was moving to feel their hands washing our feet and imagining our Savior doing the same thing to his disciples just before he died.
     It's sad to be leaving all of our ministry sites, leaders, and new friends tomorrow, but I have seen how our servant hearts have grown, and will carry on with us through the rest of the trip and beyond.  We're reallllly excited to relax on the beach and take showers longer than 5 minutes, though.  All in all, working here in Puerto Rico has been beyond rewarding, I'm so grateful to have enjoyed this experience thus far.  While leaving the children and everything we've created behind, I know that our youth group has made an impact this week. Now it's time to relax!

-Julia
P.S. Mom--thank you for the note you snuck into my suitcase, it made my day!  :) Tell everyone I say hi, and I love and miss you all.