It appears that 'Darwinists' are getting worried about evolution not being the only option taught in schools. They're getting defensive and it appears that they're realizing that they've not got any ground, well other than stubbornness that their view is right! According to Albert Mohler:"When a scientific alternative to evolution is presented, they deny that the theory can be scientific simply because it rejects evolution. Evolutionary theory is now at the core of their definition of science itself." Even between themselves they can't agree about any of the details - just that evolution is the only thing that can be right. Berman seems to worry not only about the theory of evolution being rejected but that looking at alternatives is "jeopardizing the nature of science itself, our education system, and even our form of government". If we do follow down the evolution route, even though some of its proponents seem to be loosing their faith in it, then where does it leave us? As Mohler writes: "If human beings are not made in the image of God, and if the entire cosmos is nothing more than a freakish accident, morality is nothing but a mirage and human beings--cosmic accidents that we are--are free to negotiate whatever moral arrangement seems best to us at any given time."

It's interesting to see how differently people here react to rain than those in England. Here everything stops when it rains, people stay in their houses and there's no-one on the streets. A lot of the smaller shops close because of rain as well. So after talking to Gilberto, Youth Group was cancelled yesterday, because there wouldn't have been anyone there. If everything stopped when it rains in England, the country would come to a standstill!!

Today we had a lovely outdoor service in the church garden, because the church has been getting very hot, and last week I commented to Gilberto that it would be nice to have a service outside sometime. By the sounds of things, others had mentioned it too. It was nice, a bit noisy though -but everyone seemed to think it was good so I think we're having another one on Sunday. After the service we had a small party for Laura's birthday (a week late - but still nice) One of the unexpected guests is in the picture - he sat there quite happily while I took his picture, then jumped off!

This morning I updated the weather on the [samespirit] front page to be the forecast for Salto rather than Montevideo, which I've been thinking about doing for a few days. Interestingly though, the same day - the site I was originally getting the weather forecast from changed the way they do their page so it would have broken my weather script if I hadn't changed it!

We've had quite a busy day today - we had Escuelita this morning and then this evening at 6 we had the first meeting of the new Youth Group! (plus in-between Sylvia came round to plan the youth group with us). For the Escuelita, we looked at Creation, and we'd prepared a 2 sheets in advance - one for the older ones with blank spaces for them to draw something for each of the days of creation and one for the younger ones with pre drawn pictures to colour in. On the back of each sheet was a wordsearch, and a set of sentences with missing words for them to fill in. It went really well today compared to some of the ones we did last year. First Laura read through the story of creation from the Childrens bible and we looked at it in a bit more depth, then they worked on the sheets. For the Youth Group we looked at the topic of what it is to be a Christian - Laura did an introductory prayer and explanation of what the group was about, then we had a few games to get to know one another, then we had two groups each looking at one of the two passages (Acts2:42-50 and 1 John 2:29-3:3)Then they shared what they'd found with one another and we talked a bit about it, we sang some songs and then finished with a prayer.

Had a brilliant bible study in the Barrio today, looking at the 4 different set readings for today. It was really cool - I got a lot from it and felt able to contribute which was good. The readings were Genesis 11:1-9(The tower of Babel), Psalm 37:1-18, Hebrews 6:13-20, John 4:1-42(Jesus' conversation with the Samaritan women). They seemed to link together quite well - the tower of Babel, where the people sought their own achievements ignoring God; the Psalm which told us to trust in God, walk in his paths and listen to him; Hebrews which talked about the certainty of Gods promises; and in John, Jesus saying his food was to do& complete the will of his father.

Feeling much better today, back into food - Yippee! We've started reading Hebrews together which should be cool. The prayer meeting tonight was at a lady's house across the street, who we didn't know, but vaguely recognised, it was a good meeting and Gilberto talked about changing the Merendero at the church to have more spiritual content. We're going to be looking at a bible story with the kids and one of the others is going to pray at the start each week.

Happy Birthday Laura! Unfortunatley I'm not feeling too good though

It's Laura's birthday tomorrow so I've been making her a birthday cake. She wanted a bible shaped one, so I did my best - the shape is ok, but I encountered problems with the icing so it didn't end up with a verse on it! Then in the evening we went to see American Pie - The Wedding, - the cinema was the fullest I'd ever seen it here in Salto.

First Sunday service back in Salto, and it turns out that we're going to be looking at John's gospel in the Sunday services -which is cool especially after having looked at it in depth on the camp. The passage was Jesus at the Wedding in Cana, which Gilberto had previously referred to as showing that Mary was needed to start Jesus' ministry - "If she hadn't involved him here...". However the sermon sounded quite good - no particular focus on Mary and no mention of the above - so it's promising! One thing I noticed that was particularly interesting to me, was that Mary is only referred to in John's gospel as "Jesus' mother" or similar - never by name - in the same way as he doesn't refer to himself by name. They are both only referred to in reference to Jesus, there only importance is how they are related to Jesus - The only importance we have is our relation to Jesus.