Quick Weekend Update

(This one is actually by Chad)

Just a quick update - we just got back from a 2-day team retreat at the beach! Yesterday morning we caught a bus from Antigua to the Pacific Coast at "Monterrico", where we stayed in an awesome 8-person house/hut/casa right on the beach (and we actually brought along Marcos, who is the Guatemalan SI staff at the elementary school in El Gorrion). It was really fun to just hang out and swim and run down the beach. Everyone got to sleep in a lot this morning before we came back up to Magdalena. (I think we'll have a more in-depth update about the beach tomorrow from Parker, so I'll leave it at that. Aside from Laura and Katy feeling a little bit sick last week, I think our whole team is back up to full health, and fortunately we are working at the community center where there is also the SI clinic, so we're in good hands. It's been great working with the first set of teams/groups that came to work at SI this last week, and tomorrow we should be meeting the next 2-week segment of teams (we overlapped 2 "sessions" since we're here for 3 weeks). Also a very exciting piece of information is that after 11 years, El Gorrion is finally going to be getting access to running water after 11 years without it! Hopefully sometime during the next few weeks we will be able to see this implemented, or at least the beginnings of that process. God has definitely blessed our team so far, and it's great to have quiet times every mornings and also group worship. I think our team has definitely grown closer together over the past week and a half, and we are all a lot more comfortable with our Spanish and with the Guatemalan culture. I know that I speak for everyone in saying that we truly enjoy hanging out with, eating with, and visiting our host families here in Magdalena. Buenas Noches!