Sorry we haven't written so long, it’s been a hectic couple of months! Our work has become more focused on the children and the youth, it’s been a bitter-sweet time in that it’s been wonderful to see how these young people are growing in their knowledge of the bible and in their faith but it’s also been frustrating in terms of our relationship with our colleagues. It’s been a bit of a roller coaster ride, sometimes we’re like best friends and they’re really enthusiastic about everything, other times it’s like they’re only interested in what they get out of us and are not willing to put anything in. We’d really appreciate your prayers in this, as it has been quite discouraging. It feels like we’re entering the final phase of our time here so we’re concentrating more on the long term.

Hopefully the co-ordinator of the CAIF is going to start helping with the Escuelita, if she is able to commit to leading it, it would be wonderful as she led it before, so she and Silvia are used to working together and it will be good to know that will continue once we’ve gone. The youth group isn’t so certain, please pray that we’ll find another leader soon, as when we went away for a week, we came back to find it had been cancelled.

We’ve been getting to know some people better which has been great. We’re having a guy round for dinner tonight who works at the CAIF and Merendero, who’s been really interesting to talk to and has given us loads of insights to Uruguayan society, history and politics. For example we found out that people under 18 can’t be punished for crimes, so it’s quite common for parents or older people to get under 18’s to commit crimes for them. He’s also told us that no matter how poor a family is, they all have cable TV, we had been amazed before that one family we know has cable TV even though they live in a tiny house in a ditch and the children have asked the church for shoes for school and beg the Merendero for a bit more milk.

Other bits of trivia you may be interested in:

• Primary and secondary education is compulsory, university tuition is free, you have to pass each year to continue to the next year and it’s apparently unusual for someone never to have repeated.
• Our local hydroelectric dam produces 60% of the electricity used in Uruguay.
• Holy week is known as Tourist week, and apparently every hotel in Salto is fully booked.

We’ve had a couple of lovely visits, it was great to see Michael and Susan, they really encouraged us in the work we’re doing and people here are still talking about them. Ricky’s parents came and spent a week here, then we went up to Iguazu with them, which was a wonderful opportunity to relax, spend time with them and experience the power of God’s creation. The Iguazu falls are considered one of the seven wonders of the natural world and we could understand why.

It’s still very hot here, but there have been meetings to address the problem of winter and how to meet the needs of the people we work with, so please pray for wisdom and resources so that we can really help those who need it.

We’ve got a busy week this week with 6 services at church and two trips out – one with the youth group to the zoo today, and on Saturday we’re going to the park with the kids from Escuelita.

Have a great Easter!