A New Church in A-Bay!!!

Cody and I found out that a new church was being built in A-Bay. The Methodist Church was the one funding most of it. We have never attended a Methodist Church before in the states, but we have attended the one in Pottuvil and Komari before with Johnson and his family. We felt like this was a huge answer to our prayers, after so many issues with the church we supported before. And a lot of our "disciples" were excited to hear this, especially because they have all been in need of a church to attend since they had left the other church. Most of their relatives in other towns and villages attend the sister Methodist churches, and they are now excited to have one in their own village too. It was too expensive for most of our friends to travel to other villages to go to church, and so now they have a Bible teaching, good leadership based church. We took it on as our own and decided to financially  and physically do anything we could to help. 

A donor donated the funds for the concrete building and roof. We (including some of you) funded the paint, doors and windows.

(Of course I'm always taking the pictures, so you don't see me doing any labor; but that is just not true.)

So all of us, guys and girls (basically my Bible Study girls and Cody's Bible study guys) worked hard digging sand to fill in for the foundation to be poured. We cleaned and weeded the area around the building. 

The kids played in the holes, before we filled them in.

Cody and his Bible Study guys painted the church 

It matches the sky :) 

When Cody wasn't painting the church, he was at home painting the Church sign 

The day before the Church's Opening Sunday Service, all my "Ladies Tea Girls" got together and cut vegetables for an after service rice and curry lunch to be served for all the congregation and head pastors coming from Colombo, Ampara, Komari and Pottuvil. 

On the morning of the Church's first Opening Service,  all of us girls woke up at 5:00 and began cooking and decorating the church with flowers and frill.  

A few girls and I made lei's for the head pastors. 

 The church was packed inside and under a tarp outside with around 200 people. 

I taught my Sunday School kids a skit with a couple of songs and they got to perform them that morning at church. 

We really like the Pottuvil head pastor Joseph, who has taken on A-Bay also. He speaks good English, brings the word in a tangible way, has a great personality, loves on his sheep, and even gets the people laughing. The only thing that we don't like so far about Methodist churches, is that they make the pastors rotate churches every two years. They have a great one right now and we're sad to lose him and  praying the next one will be just as good. With coming from our home church HDC and the amount of time our pastors have dedicated to remaining there, really speaks a lot about what our church looks like, the congregation size and the loyalty it shows. Wish it could be the same here. 

 Our cute little church by the beach

It doesn't feel like Fall, but we'll just pretend

A Little Taste Into Sri Lankan Culture

Happy Children's Day at Our School

All five of us teachers took our school of 80 students on an adventure for Children's Day. We started off the morning blowing up 5 balloons for each kid and making little gifts for each kid, with a notebook, pencil, and candy inside. We took them for a 20 minute walk to the beach from the school. The trickiest part of all was keeping 80 kids on the side of the road avoiding motorbikes and tuk tuks all the way there. Once we got to the sandy hill at the beach, we sang songs, played games and had snacks. It was a fun day away from school- but very exhausting when all was said and done!

A family adventure

What a joy it was to have my parents come and visit for a whole month.  It was so much fun introducing all our friends, showing them the things we do for the community, sharing with them our favorite spots on the island, and just spending some good ol quality time with them. 

Ma getting to know all of Tiff's Ladies tea study girls. 

Pa loving the treasure after 500+ stairs

Still in awe and still in love 

Another treasure after a long hike

One of our favorite things to do is explore the tide pools. 

My mama in heaven as she enjoys the beach and savages for shells and other treasures 

Getting up close and personal with the local wildlife.  

Red Bull Local Hero Tour

One of the highlights this month was the Red Bull Local Hero Tour came to our village.
They were looking for the best well rounded surfer in Sri Lanka.  Gabriel Villaran a Peruvian pro surfer was hosting the event and we became good friends with him.  He was great with our young surf club kids and an excellent motivator for the older boys.  It was really good for them to hear a lot of the same things I teach them from a professional instead of this old bald guy.

You know Dixon from previous blogs he is our 15 year old star leader  and genuine  kid.  Gabriel Villaran singled him out of the rest of the boys, spent extra time with him, and even let him ride his surf board.  Dixon was on cloud nine and wants to surf every spare second now.  

The boys learning team and physical training. 

Calu was the first surfer we gave a brand new board too and he was the winner of the Red Bull Local Hero Tour.  He got a free surf trip with Gabriel Villaran to the Maldives.  We were super happy for him and it was a life changing trip.