The building is coming together! It is super exciting to see the building finally coming into existence. It has been a long time since the thought was first birthed and now it is being born!

That's one big hole!

My YWAM base was started in 1994. It has gone through many changes since that time, people coming and going, foci changing and most notably from not having a building to having one. Now we are going through another major change, we are expanding! This essentially means we are growing!

Mysterious paths...

Growth is exciting, where there is change there is growth and where there is growth, there are almost always growing pains. The growing pains in our case comes in the form of being flexible. We have lost our kitchen and office space. The laundry room was converted into the kitchen and the lobby and living have become the offices. The kids room was turned into the laundry room while washers were moved into the girls and boys bathrooms. Things have all been moved around and changed, I’m still trying to find out where the mops went to… Everyone is having to adjust.

The paths become walls...

And we fill the rooms with dirt...?

Watching the the construction has been interesting. I was expecting to take pictures of them pouring cement for the foundation, but instead they brought these huge cement blocks and a ton of bricks. Bricks are cheaper than wood here so everything is made with bricks. When the basement was being built and the walls were coming up, I watched fascinated, as they filled the “rooms” next to the existing building with dirt. The new building will be attached to the existing one by the way. I thought “what in the world are they doing? Maybe it’s just a holding place for the dirt?” Nope, it’s a building code here meant to protect existing buildings from structural damage if the foundation settles on one building but not the other. (I hope that made sense, it’s my interpretation from a more knowledgeable source.)

Brick by brick...

We have also had some excitement. Last week a pipe broke, and we had to turn all the water off in the building since it was pouring into our new basement! The men on staff dug a trench, replaced the damaged pipe with a sturdier one, and filled in the hole. We are anticipating more such adventures…

This past week we held an English camp for kids. We had gone back and forth on whether or not we should have a theme. We eventually landed on virtues. This gave us a direction for our English lessons as well as being able to teach kids Biblical values. We chose, friendship, manners, honesty, and work.

Presenting... the "good" friend

I taught on friendship on the first day. It was a fun time teaching what makes a good friend and what the Bible says about friends. We had about 30 or so kids the first day, but they seemed to keep coming as the days went on. We had almost 50 by the last day!

The kids did various activities, they sang songs, did crafts and of course learned some new English vocabulary! They made friendship bracelets, politeness pillows, promise tickets (promising their parents that they would do a certain chore) and an honesty train. Each day ended with a list of vocab words that corresponded with the topic of the day.

Where's Megan?

Parents were grateful for the opportunity to have their kids come and learn virtues that are important in most any culture. One parent remarked “thank you so much, there is very needed. Please do it again next year.” Hopefully, we will be able to do something like it again!

So I’m running out of time and wanted to just throw up some random pictures from my time at home. Here are a few (in no particular order):

The Fam being goofy...

Surprised Lance in Montana 🙂

Sister time at Glacier National Park

Broadway with Alejandra in NY

Mother's Day picnic in the park!