Robyn.Bowles.es

This week we had a break from our usual routine. It was a week of outreach around town and we were very busy!
On Monday we split into two groups, half of us cleaned the streets, sidewalks and parks in the neighborhood and the other half went to a local church to make sandwiches to later hand out to homeless/jobless people in a nearby park. In the evening we went into the center of town to pray for the city, and people and talk with people. It wasn’t anything aggressive, just an opportunity to be available and to open our eyes to the lives of the people living around us.

On Tuesday we did hard labor! Last week the school was able to finally purchase the last open location in the building and we went to work to start demolition (and eventual reformation). Another group worked at cleaning out the basement which, now that they own the whole building, can also be renovated.

Wednesday was the same as Monday, but the groups reversed. Samuel and I went to the church this day. While he cleaned chairs, I helped make 100 ham sandwiches. We then drove to the nearby park and handed out the sandwiches from the window of the camper the church owns. We gave bag lunches to about 75 people – mostly men and mostly immigrants. Samuel practiced his amazing Spanish skills and talked to a couple of guys from Hungary (who also speak Spanish).

Thursday morning we enjoyed the nice weather, and the group going to India practiced a dance routine. Thursday afternoon we went to a local high school and filled more than 20 bags with trash.

And Friday we went to another church in Madrid to help with their food distribution program. Whew! THAT was a big job! Every Friday the church receives hundreds of boxes of donated food from different grocery stores then divides the food into 1200 bags to distribute. I was in the potato packing assembly line. Others cleaned off about 10 large boxes of dirty potatoes, then I put them into bags. Samuel worked really hard and ended up being the supervisor and liason between the “jefa’ (boss) and English speakers. After awhile it got to be too crowded in there, so many went outside to talk to the about 1000 people standing in line. Some stood in line for over 3 or 4 hours to get this precious bag of food. The majority of those there were also immigrants, mainly from south America.

We did a lot, saw a lot and learned a lot this week – even without sitting in class.

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