El Salvador Day 7 It is hard to believe that this was the last day here! Today we visited an orphanage in Ahuachapán – which is a town about 2 hours from San Salvador…it is very close to the Guatemala border. This orphanage houses girls from 1 to 13 years of age. The little girls are absolutely precious…every trip the comment “Can we stick a few of them in our suitcase?” come out when it gets close to departure time! There were only 19 girls here this year…in the past there have been between 50 and 75! Every year our team gets whipped in basketball by the older girls…this year there were not enough of them that enjoyed playing. It was a very calm day that started with singing, the bible verse, coloring, and then lunch. After lunch the girls decorated the drawstring backpacks and then went out to play. They loved the bubbles, chalk, playing with balls and of course the piñata. This day was so full of blessings it is hard to even think of them all! First of all, Amber was able to see Maribelle – a little girl that she has a special relationship with. Maribelle was at a different orphanage previously but has been moved here. They were both so excited to see each other. She made the comment to Amber…you came back! I can’t even begin to tell you how many times the girls have made comments similar to this. Since this is our 3rd year to come to El Salvador and visit these orphanages – we are seeing some of the same children and are building wonderful relationships with them. They remember our team members by name and ask for the ones who are missing. Sometimes we wonder if what we are doing is making a difference…does one day really matter? These girls have expressed over and over again that it does make a difference. Each day before we leave we tell them good-bye and if a team member has something on their heart to say they do so. The children at the orphanages often follow suit with us. They express in heartfelt ways how much our visits mean to them. How they appreciate the love we show them and how much it means to them that we take the time to visit them. These girls are not prompted by anyone to express their gratitude and they do a tremendous job at it. We saw a little girl today who was just a baby when we first visited…she was just over one. We have seen her each year and it is amazing to watch her grow. Most of the time children in orphanages do not have any photos of themselves…we actually have many pictures documenting her life. It is always hard to tell these little girls good-bye! After we left the orphanage we went to a park in the middle of town…it has a pavilion in the middle with a walkway around it with lots of benches and sidewalks. The team wanted to go and hand out all of the remaining tracts and bibles that we had. We drove over there and got out and started handing them out. The people were very receptive…a couple of girls actually ran after one of the team members and asked him to take a photograph with them after he gave them a bible. Some of the team members walked around and witnessed to people, some handed out bibles, some had conversations with locals and some decided to open air preach. All of this was very well received. It was neat to look around and see so many people sitting in a public area reading the bibles and tracts that were given to them. People would actually ask if we had any more bibles. One of the biggest blessings of my day was when we had our evening devotional…I looked around at the youth that were on the trip and thought about what each of them had contributed and I was amazed. These young adults are so passionate about sharing their faith – not only with the orphans but with everyone. They all mentioned that they would rather spend the day next year this than having a day off to sigh see! We ate supper at the hotel tonight and then it was time to pack up and get ready to go home! We are leaving the hotel at 3:30am.