(a note from Emily)

On Sunday we went into Zajecar to Branko's house for lunch and were able to explore the town a little bit. We found some nice coffee shops with free WiFi so we sat there for a while.  At 5 there was a church service in Branko's house with our team and about six or seven others from Zajecar.  It was a neat experience to sing in Serbian and worship with the people.  Glen gave the message while Branko translated for him.  After the service, Rada (Branko's wife) had supper for us all and we visited until we headed back to camp in the evening. 

Monday began our construction work.  We started off the day with a time of devotions then got to work.  Some of us laid concrete slabs in the drainage ditch and others helped to dig a trench for the plumbing of the bathroom.  A truck with blocks came that we unloaded via assembly line.  Annie, Elijah, and Emily learned the difference between cement and concrete and also learned how to mix concrete.  We finished a row of blocks on two walls and are hoping to get even farther tomorrow now that we've got the hang of it. 

It is definitely summer here with hot sun and temperatures.  Mike, Daniel, Glen, and Wade made use of the river behind the camp after supper while the rest of us weren't quite brave enough yet.  It is already pretty warm by the time we start in the morning, so the river will more than likely be utilized often in the evenings.

Today (Tuesday) we continued to work and made a lot of progress.  We used up all the concrete slabs for the one drainage ditch.  As for the bathrooms we are building, we are a slippery (here in Serbia we have learned the phrase "slippery" which means "about") three rows up.  We also got to unload another truck of brick.  We seem to have gotten a bit of a system down so the work is going a bit faster.  Today we moved devotions to later in the day so we wouldn't have to work so much during the heat of the day.  One exciting moment of the day was seeing a ten inch gecko.  He didn't seem to like us very much...  After work we got cleaned up, had supper, and headed to town for exploration and WiFi

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