Saturday 7th November to Monday 9th November

Hi everyone, it has been three days since we last got the opportunity to post an update, so we need to catch up!

Saturday: We left the hotel in the town where we were ministering and went to the YMCA, where we ministered to 80-100 children and mothers using songs, drama, facepainting, balloons and games. Great time of ministry to some people with very difficult lives though poverty and other things.

The people there fed us lunch and then we started the journey back to Bellwood, which was horrendous! We drove for many miles on very rough roads in torrential rain. We wore through the rubber on the tyres on one of the two vans so that the canvas was showing by the time we got home.

We stopped in Kandy for a meal on the way home and said goodbye to the second minibus driver who we were able to give Christian literature to (written of course in his own language). When you hire a minibus here it comes with its own driver!

We continued the journey to Bellwood in our own bus, crammed in with extra people and luggage. We arrived safely nonetheless.

Sunday: Helen L, Rob E and Ian went to the sister Church in a town nearby and ministered there. Helen F, the two Sues and Bob C stayed at Bellwood with Dave and Alice for the service there. Helen F gave her testimony and the team did a drama. Dave preached and the two Sureshes translated. Dave even built a head wobble into his culturally relevant jokes, which each Suresh had to translate (one into Sinhalese and the other into Tamil)

The worship at Bellwood was fantastic and the presence of the Holy Spirit was amazing. This was also the case at the other church. Bob E really connected with the congregation when he shareed his testimony, Ian preached about having a purpose, and the team prayed for many of the church members who pressed forward eagerly for a blessing.

The Monsoon rains started at the end of the service at Bellwood, and we sat in our 'prayer room' which has a large glass wall and watched the rain and lightning whilst we waited and prayed for safety for the team to come back as the roads had turned to rivers.

Suresh senior became pretty ill during the afternoon, please pray for him as he is suffering badly from stress related ill health. Dave has been ministering to him all week, and both he and Mercy have had some really powerful encounters with God during the mission, and both are improving daily. Mercy has slept all night every night for the past 8 days, something that she has not been able to manage for the past two years!

We worked out the material needs for the small building project that we will be beginning over Monday and Tuesday, and ordered or gathered the various building stuff like cement, cement blocks, ballast etc and worked on the plans for the new chicken shed. We relaxed in the afternoon whilst the rain stopped. In the evening we were presented with a Sri Lankan 'English' roast chicken dinner, once more eating our own chickens from Bellwood's farm!

Monday: The team's first half day off! We went to an elephant orphanage where elephants are rescued from areas troubled historically by civil war. One or two had lost limbs to minefields, but mostly they were rescued as babies that had lost their parents to the mines or poachers. We had a great morning at the river where 50 or so elephants washed and cooled down. After lunch we headed back to Kandy where we are now in this internet cafe. If the monsoon stops for long enough we will be setting the foundations for the cement block walls to be buiilt tomorrow. The students, it must be said are doing the heavy labour and will have moved all the material, cleared the undergrowth and dug the trench for the foundations!

God bless, Dave