Tuesday - Hats, painting, bingo, and lots and lots of sun

Tuesday was a very full, very fun day here in Colima. The pattern of these days has been the same:

• activities with the kids
• work projects
• lunch at 2
• 2 more hours of work
• and then return to the hotel for evening festivities

These are days when our hands never stop moving and our bodies never stop sweating and our stomachs never get empty and our hearts never stop loving. They're pretty great days.

The kids really enjoyed bingo. I think it had something to do with the Skittles they got to use for markers

We first called the numbers in English, which necessitated intense concentration

Tuesday's craft was hats and the kids had a blast decorating them! Kelsey mans the glue station and does a darn fine job making every hat adorable

Tah dah!

The music people did their singing, clapping, laughing thing

And the sports folks got some very sore hands with four rounds of vicious tug-of-war

Fruit donations from the community

A few of the guys are working on some pretty intense plumbing projects involving welding and moving rooftop tanks and solar panels. They are such troopers working all day long on a very hot roof.

The sewers got to hem a bunch of pants, fix some bedding, mend some shirts, and have a darn good time doing all of it

The best part about sewing is hanging out on the patio at the Señorita home and chatting with them as we sew. It's so fun to get to know these young ladies better!

Team paint-the-classroom finished their big job on Tuesday and it looks great

Ben shows off his hard work painting on top of the wardrobes

This team is very proud of their work

It's so much brighter now with the lighter walls - the room looks great!

Another part of the team started a new project at the teenage boys' home about 20 minutes' drive away. Here they're cleaning and prepping the walls to get ready to paint

On goes the new paint

And several of the boys even pitched in to help - very cool.

And on Tuesday we had a very exciting evening activity - viewing the Colima Volcano up close and personal

The volcano was very kind and performed right on queue

Getting closer!

It might have been a bit touristy, but we sure did enjoy our volcano tour

The tour was amazing, and not just because it included a fire and all the giant marshmallows we could eat. The volcano "exhaled" a couple of times in the evening and when we arrived at the viewing site it was raining ash - a very interesting experience. It was kind of like it was raining sand which is basically what volcanos make (pulverized rock).

Near the end of our evening we got an even cooler show - a fairly large exhalation that included lightning in the ash cloud. It was amazing. And terrifying. But mostly amazing since we were in the safe zone and our guide assured us that this exhalation was actually smaller than the other one we witnessed, it just looked more dramatic in the nighttime.

It's hard to believe that our time in Colima is already more than halfway over! It has gone by way too quickly. Thanks so much for all of your support and prayers. Here are a few more prayer requests:

• A few members of our team are fighting fevers and tummy bugs. Please pray for their strength, that they would be wise and give their bodies time to heal, and that they would return to health quickly.
• This is the time of the week when we get tired and hot and tempers can flare. This is a fantastic team - please pray that the team would continue to have grace for each member and that we would take the time out that we need to stay healthy in body and spirit.