We arrived in Johannesburg late Friday afternoon, December 23rd, after a short 15+ hour flight. Jason Webster, a deacon in the local congregation picked us up from the airport along with Nick and Megan Lamoureux. He and his wife Monique live in Pretoria with their four children. We had a lovely candle lit meal with them outside under a tree in their yard as the clouds rolled in and we could see lightning off in the distance. Jason drove us to the Avalon Guest House where we would be staying for a few nights before camp on Sunday.

Camp was hosted at Eco Park Resort roughly 45 minutes west of Boa Vista. We had fantastic weather throughout the week with a rain shower each day during lunch that helped to drop the temperature for the second half of daily activities. All of the volunteers and campers had arrived to Eco Park by 3pm on December 26. For the remainder of this day we discussed the planned activities, settled into dorms, fellowshipped and learned the layout of the resort.

Jonathan rides furiously through town, Mario style, in a Tuk Tuk on our way to the home of a Guatemalan woman that used to be a cook at the Eagle’s Nest Orphanage for a traditional meal.

From dough balls we created tortillas for our meal at Estella’s house turned restaurant. Her daughter pictured above helped us, but some of us were more successful than others.