Martin Chambers Ecuador Trust

The exciting news of the week is that we won the Inter-Parish 5-a-side football competition. Of course, with the event being hosted by us on ‘Paradise Park’ we had a great chance. I wasn’t particularly interested in playing but when San Ignacio chapel asked to make up numbers, well, needs must, no? So we played and won 4-0, 3-0, 1-0, 3-2 and in the final 4-1. A victory parade was ours. The ageing 43 year-old got a runaround in each game. Fantastic for the lads! Made a good bit of football news as bad news kept filtering thru from Scotland …… This afternoon I went down to see the finishing off of the school project and to salute the workers for their mammoth effort. Quite good that they have finished off today as the new school year starts tomorrow at 8am. There are eight new brick classrooms, a new office, a new staff room and two new toilet blocks. We have also moved the Soup Kitchen to a new location. It will be a proud moment to bless the classrooms tomorrow – a great thank you to the Rope Foundation and to the ‘2 Hands’ charity – as well as so many friends in Scotland – for their great fundraising efforts that have allowed all this to take place. You are tremendous! Talking of schools, we had the first of our regular in-service days for our school teachers on Friday. I led them in a workshop on Hope – how we can hope in the future but also have hope in the present – and it seems to have provoked a certain amount of thought and discussion. Anyway, after I had done my bit, I moved down tot eh house where I prepared a lunch for them all – all 22 of them! Soup, Lasagna and a pudding. Not as fancy as the Christmas lunch but still ….. And we did the ‘Prayer on High’ – ask our friends who witnessed it on the Scotland trip! Or catechism year is starting up again and various chapels are getting into gear. With this being the first full year of the Parish Church, there are loads more kids coming for Catechism as well as adults. So more work – thanks! One of the things we will have to do this year, though, is cancel Catechism in Maestro chapel as it, along with La Paz chapel is being knocked down to make way for a new brick-built chapel. It’s all go here, then! We had a great night through the week with Lady’s 2nd birthday party. Carmen and Edgar are fantastic people. They live with their five kids in a very basic house. They scrape together a living – Edgar runs a taxi in the shanty and Carmen hires out a washing machine. I got to know them when I moved into my flat here three years ago. And since then I have always seen them as a family who really do struggle to give their family a happy life. So it was great to spend time with them at Lady’s 2nd Birthday party. I had been given a Postman Pat doll when I was in Scotland recently – so it is being given place of honour now in their house!