We had last night off so we basically cruised down to the grocery store and back. Some bought a few items they craved like Doritos and Oreos while some of us took the opportunity to stock up on Blue Mountain Coffee for the trip home.

We also had a very moving devotional time last night. I think almost everyone is really growing and I think we are really coming together as a group. We wish we had the whole church down here to experience this.

This morning we had another delicious breakfast consisting of a dish based on franks and another based on Ackee. Ackee is a Jamaican favorite and is usually served with salt fish but Francis dropped the salt fish since very few Americans care for it. Thank God for Francis.

Once again we got to the work site about 9 AM and everyone went different directions to get working. The painting is really looking good and they were doing the trim today. We are making great progress on the plastering and we also had another large pour of concrete to cap the walls. The mason in charge told Kevin that we are far ahead of where he thought we would be by now.

One of the things we worked on today were the “cages” for inside the cap. This is the re-bar that is used and consists of four ½ inch bars held in a rectangle by smaller pieces of wire. We have to set up a production station to wire everything together. Once they are done they will go in the forms just before they are filled with concrete. It isn’t really hard work from a physical standpoint but it is extremely tedious and there is always the possibility of getting a good poke from the wire. Not fun.

The churchwomen cooked us another fine lunch today. We had rice and peas again with chicken. This time they had some out-of-this-world potato salad. Every lunch we also have some of the best tasting punch you could ever imagine.

Right now several of the group are down at the market. It is very busy place where the Jamaicans buy and sell just about everything. It isn’t nice and clean so it is usually a culture shock for Americans. Tomorrow we are trying to arrange a little sightseeing tour over to the campgrounds at Malvern and then maybe on to “lovers leap”. I think it will give our group a better idea of what life is like in rural Jamaica.

Tonight we are going to the watch night service at Salem, New Green. They are kind enough to let us check out early so we will not stay for the full 4 hours. We are on our own for supper tonight so we will head down to a restaurant and see what we can find.

By the way, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the driving. A lot of the drivers here are just plain maniacal. The fact that they drive on the left hand side of the road here makes it just that much more frightening. Fortunately there are no straight-aways for them to build up even faster speed. Please pray for us as we travel.

I’m not sure if I will be able to post tomorrow since it is New Year’s Day but I will try. On Friday morning we will head back to Montego Bay and I’m not sure if I will find access there or not. It has been fun writing these posts and I appreciate those of you who have left comments.