Ate onion utapom for breakfast in the hotel this morning.  Only two of us went down for breakfast.  I was so hungry that the greasy onion/hash-brown thing tasted good.

Today was the first day of the Bible Worker Training.  Pr. Kelly did a talk about Elijah/Elisha and the importance of our calling to ministry.  Pr. Clark taught how to prepare a sermon.  Mr. Picket on personal devotion, I think.  And it was my turn.  Just before I went up someone told me to shorten it up because it was so hot and the men were all hungry.  I tried to shorten it up on the fly and ended up giving them a “buckshot” splattering of what I had intended to share that probably made very little sense.  Afterwards, as I was lamenting my failure, Pr. Kelly said, “At least it was real (my experiences).  How can you go wrong with that?”  That helped some.

Pr. Clark teaching on how to prepare a sermon (translator Pr. John concentrating hard).

A partial view of the 80 plus Bible Workers being trained (they slept here on the floor two nights).

We went home for an hour and I was asked to take Vyisha down to the lobby.  She was the 8 yr old daughter of one of the drivers - a very disobedient child to say the least.    Her Dad was supposed to be coming soon.  But in the meantime she ignored my hand motions to stay here and ran off to the elevator and ran away.  I figured she was headed for the other girl’s room (they had sent her down with me).  Sure enough I caught up to here there.  I took her hand and made her come back downstairs and tried every game without words that I could think of to keep her occupied.  When I saw her Dad come into the lobby I was so relieved... until I found out that today we were going to the same place!

Vyisha in front of the "screen" at Pr. Clark's village site.

Setting up the projector for the meeting (high tech we were with out projectors, power cords, and box!).

Today I went with Pr. Clark to his village since Nathan wasn’t feeling well.  Vyisha had never been here before; so the little girl who had just run away from me was now glued to me!  The power went out just in time for my health talk, which was fine as I didn’t have slides for it anyway.  Pr. Clark spoke about the meaning of baptism.  Several people raised their hands when the call was made for anyone who would like to study to be baptized.  This group is much more studious than “my” village.  I wondered if they were more educated, or if it was because Pr. Clark is such a good teacher.

I was coughing so much today (a choking cough made worse by the smoke in the air).  One of the translator’s wives brought me some eucalyptus oil and a little electric vaporizer.  It gave me such relief that I used it every chance I got (when we were at the hotel).