August 22

Last night we shut everything up, tied everything down, and hunkered low as Hurricane Irene came ashore here in Puerto Rico. As it approached the island it quickly grew from a tropical storm with 50 mph winds to a catagory 1 hurricane with 75 mph sustained winds. I was a little restless as you can suspect but our concerns were unfounded. The hurricane exited the island around twenty miles from our town and all we got was some moderate wind and rain. As a whole, the island was fortunate, suffering only limited property damage and no loss of life.

The last couple of weeks have been busy and satisfying. August 14 we held our annual Friendship Day. This year we moved it from April to August. We had a guest speaker/singer present the message. Friendship tokens were given to every person and after the service we all munched on cake and sandwiches. Our local people tallied 121. In addition to the local crowd we also had in our service a basketball team from Asbury University; twenty of them. That swelled the attendance to 141, an overflow crowd. We had to put additional chairs down the side aisles to accommodate everyone.

The Asbury basketball team came to do some service projects with us in Aguadilla. They painted the facade of the church building as well as 88 metal chairs. In addition to these projects they also painted a couple of houses we had lined up. In their free time they practiced and also played a scrimmage game againt the University of PR, Aguadilla campus. Asbury won by over 30 points. These young men and chaparones were a great group of people. 

Yesterday we met early to hold a special workshop provided by the Civil Defense. Puerto Rico, and in particular Aguadilla, sits atop a very active seismic zone. Past records show ever 75-100 years we have suffered a severe

earthquake/tsunami. We are at that marker right now. So, in an effort to help our people, our church sponsored  a readiness workshop. Around thirty-five participated. Overall, church attendance was down yesterday. Some of our members work for the city and were busy getting ready for Hurricane Irene. Others apparently stayed home to get ready for the storm. Still others were under-the-weather.

Thats it. Until next time, thanks for reading.