Wow! Again, we are blown away at how fast the days and weeks are going. When we wrote the first draft of this note, we were at the 6 week mark from when we left the states. Today marks the 9th week since we left!! As you can imagine, we are training, training, training! Not only formally but “as you go” type training! More on that later.
Since we last wrote we have had another team from the USA here. They brought in everything you need, and I mean everything, for an amazing VBS. The theme was creation and wow did they “create” a week of learning and fun around that theme. The kids had a blast and so did we! One little girl accepted Christ as her Savior. 
I had the awesome privilege of helping her through that. I have the chills just thinking about it! We still hear the children singing the song, This Little Light of Mine, which was the theme song of the week. We ended the 5 days with a pizza party! It was very good pizza too!
Once a quarter we have a visitation time for the families of the children. This can be bittersweet for all involved as you can imagine. Some have several visitors and some have none. We have our Director of Children on campus as well as a social worker. A few of the kids will be reunified with their families. One of our girls went back to live with her family this past Saturday. We were very happy for her. It can be tough for those here to see her go, both staff and kids, as well as for the child going back with her family. Our ultimate goal is to have every one of these children be back with family.
Randy continues to learn the “rules” of the road while driving here. I say that loosely. 
Pretty much no rules! Randy also has learned more than he would ever imagine about electricity, generators and battery power. New job for him if we are ever called back to the United States? The kids actually share one Wii console and are allowed to use it between the hours of 12:00pm and 5:00pm if we have power. If the power goes out, of course we can’t do it. They all come running for the power guy, Randy, to let him know that they have no power. His new name here is Randy No Power!
Denise is learning more of the kids names as well as the names of the caregivers. She also is a nurse here. 75 kids all stubbing toes, knee scrapes and all those other miscellaneous things we experience as we play. We have a clinic here that is pretty well stocked with enough Band-Aids and Neosporin for a while! Last month we had to make an emergency room visit at the local hospital. Another new experience! We had to pay for everything before it was done. Need an x-ray, pay for the x-ray, do the x-ray, need a cast, buy the materials, go back and have it put on, need pain medicine through an injection, pay for it, go back and have it administered and so forth. He then had to see another doctor the next day because of some complications. He is doing well as I write this and should heal in another few weeks.
We are feeling a little more comfortable in our surroundings. The heat continues to drain us and we have had some pretty amazing thunderstorms roll through. We go to bed every night quite wiped out!
We spent a day in PAP at the Immigration offices to finish our Permis paperwork. This allows us to stay in the country longer than 3 months at a time. For this process we had to have our picture taken. They asked Randy if he would like to put a jacket on. He was shown a basket of available ones to choose from. As far as me, I guess my overheating was showing. They handed me a paper towel and asked me to wipe the shine off my face!!!! Oh well, the paperwork is all submitted and we wait…
School lessons have started, but school doesn’t start for a few more weeks. Every morning from 8-10, tutors come in to work with small groups of children to prepare them for school. We often hear the sounds of chanting as the kids memorize certain phrases, reviewing vocabulary words, and working on math problems.
We received our first mail! We were so excited! Randy’s Mom and Dad sent us a “welcome to your new home” card! Loved it. Speaking of mail, you too can send us a letter, card, goodies, etc. The address is:
Denise and Randy McGarvey
3170 Airmans Drive, #2129 Feet
Ft Pierce, FL 34946
We’ve also received care packages from teams that have come to visit Hands and Feet Project. What a blessing to have some of our favorite things from home once in a while! Thanks to everyone who helped to get those goodies to us! We really appreciate it!
Power Progesssss! 
As some of you may know, providing power and water to the campus has been a challenge. We didn’t have power from the national power company (EDH) for 5 weeks! Our big generator was in pieces, waiting for parts to completely rebuild it, and our solar panels were insufficient to provide power for the campus throughout the day. We even had trouble with a loaner generator!
We are so thankful that progress has been made in all 3 of those areas! Our new transformer was installed and connected a few weeks ago, so we have power for 10-12 hours every other night. Our big generator purrs softly outside our bedroom window when the national power isn’t on. And we’ve added more solar panels to increase our solar capabilities. Even more is being done to stabilize power in the future!