Community Center in Action

Yesterday we went to see the community center in action. There is a computer room equipped with seven computers brought last year by a church in Mission Viejo. A young man volunteers to hold classes once a week. He takes two buses one hour each from his University to make it here. He holds different classes according to age and computer experience: 4-5, beginners children; 5-6, intermediate children; 6-7, beginners adults; 7-8, intermediate adults; 8-9 teenagers. He spends the night at a local home and takes the 6:00 am bus next morning back. There is an air-conditioning unit in the little 8 X 8 room, but it is not working well yet. Please pray that they figure out what is wrong.

The landlord lives in another house behind. We are friends with the family and praise the Lord that it worked out that Christ for the City rented this particular house. We sat in the shade outside and talked to our friends all afternoon. The invited us to walk up a nearby hill to watch the sunset. Here is a picture of yesterday's sunset.
You can see the ocean from the hilltop. It was beautiful. This couple just got back from visiting Colombia, where the husband is from. After class, we invited the computer instructor to spend the night at our house because we wanted to get to know him better. So, I had to cook dinner, of course. I had rice and a can of beans, and with a salad, we were eating dinner at 10:00 pm, quick and easy. He was very hungry, not having had anything to eat since lunch. We all went to bed immediately.

Today we dropped him off at the bus stop and went back to the center. Now two young women were holding English lessons, as they do every Saturday morning. Again, there are two groups according to ability. The lessons are held in the porch where it is cool in the morning. Some of the students were wearing their new glasses. We stayed until both classes ended. In the mean time, our friend from Colombia told us that his father was very ill in the hospital back home. John took the opportunity to take him aside and share the Lord with him. He did not accept the Lord, but this is the first seed. After class, we gave some of the students a ride home and stopped by the home of one of the committee members to ask permission to use the dance hall on Saturday for an event. They will let us know tomorrow.

I want to talk about this event on Saturday. When we started coming to this town, the priest would come once in a while to hold mass at the public school. When he saw what we were doing, he started to come every week. Now the Hacienda where we live built a beautiful chapel on the grounds, and the priest is holding mass there. The Hacienda is sending buses every Saturday at 3:30 pm to the village free of charge and bringing people to mass. This has attracted more people to attend mass in the beautiful, new chapel. We do not want to be perceived as interfering, so we will hold our event from 1 - 3 in the afternoon, with crafts, games for children and a little talk for the women, and will come back at 7 pm to show a movie. This will mean that we have to set up and take down twice. Pray that the Lord will bring those with hearts ready to listen.

Tonight will go back to have dinner with our Colombian friend and his wife. They are very kind and friendly people. Pray that the Lord will guide our conversation. Until next time, from the beach...