Ministry

On my last entry I asked you to pray for the events this weekend. Thank you for your prayers. The Lord blessed all the activities in unexpected ways, as usual.

Erika and Nichole, Christ for the City missionaries

Tuesday and Wednesday we had the two missionaries who work in our town every week staying with us. They normally stay at Christ for the City house, but the conditions are not very comfortable there; therefore, we always ask them over whenever we are in town. We had an early dinner and went to the Bible study they hold for teen-aged girls on Tuesday evenings. They have kids' club on Wednesday. They stayed with us both nights. On Thursday afternoon, we picked up the missionary sewing lady, Damaris, who was arriving from the capital by bus. It is about a five hour bus ride. We gave her the two boxes of donated sewing materials from the SALT ladies. It was like Christmas for her! Specially the bag of embroidering threads! (Thanks, Rory) With a portion of another cash donation received from a person in our church, she had bought embroidering fabric for a project to do during our outreach in the neighboring town. I had told her over the phone about the threads, and she was smiling from ear to ear when she saw what the Lord had provided. She spent all day Friday getting the fabric and designs ready for Saturday, with help from the ladies from our town at Christ for the City. The rest of the materials donated will stay at Christ for the City until Damaris comes back. She will plan the projects according to what she knows she has here. She will come back in a few weeks after we are gone.

Friday evening we had the couples Bible study and pizza night, but before the event, we had to go pick up the missionary clown who was arriving by bus from the capital also. We left him at our condo with a pizza and took three pizzas to Christ for the City. We had to set up the projector, speakers and screen before the couples arrived. The ladies were still there sewing, so we all had to change the set up from sewing to movies. Damaris went across the street to a house to finish getting the materials ready for Saturday. All the couples who came to the first meeting returned, plus a new couple.We used a clip from Fireproof to talk about love and respect. We had Bibles for everybody and told them that we were using biblical principles to guide our discussion. We had such a great time of dialoguing with the couples! The session went far beyond our expectations. We provided the couples with an opportunity to go off by themselves and talk about some of the issues. This went well also. The whole thing took about two hours.

Saturday morning we rested for the afternoon event. We packed all the equipment again and headed for the neighboring town, which is smaller that ours, at about two o'clock. Only about 40 families live there. Our little Nissan Stanza was full with DVD player and speakers, embroidering supplies, the clown's suitcase, water, cameras, etc. John and the clown were in front. Damaris and I on the back, but on the way there, we picked up Cassandra, the young girl from church, who was going to guide us, and one of the full-time missionaries, who was coming to help with the event, and who was also arriving by bus. There were six of us altogether in that little car, four in the back, no need to worry about seat-belts.

Getting the embroidery project ready

The event took place at the plaza, which is really a soccer field. All they have in this town is an elementary school and a soccer field. There are no stores, bars or churches. A group of ladies was already waiting for us under a tree. The clown actually had to go to somebody's house to put his make up on. Damaris quickly got the ladies who were there starting on the embroidery project. She had prepared pieces of fabric with designs that the ladies had helped her draw by hand the day before, the right amount of threads and a needle, all neatly folded for each woman. Some of the women did not know how to embroider, others did. We started to pair up late comers with those who had been instructed, or who knew how to embroider. The clown took the children to another shady spot and started to work. He is so good. He immediately had all the kids, and some of the men, laughing and participating. There is always a Bible story and an opportunity to accept Christ.

Audience participation

Damaris (red cap) instructing the first group

The women worked on their embroidery for over an hour, and then I shared about the Samaritan woman. I don't ask people to raise hands or come forward during these events, but I guided them into a prayer and invited them to attend church today (Sunday). The women from church had prepared sandwiches for everybody. This was a great help for us because in the past, we would bring everything. The idea was to feed them so that they would stay for the Jesus film as soon as it got dark enough to show it. We set up for the movie outside a house in front of the soccer field that has a long, narrow porch, but right before we were ready to start the movie, the power went out in the whole area. We waited about 20 minutes, but decided to dismantle everything before it was too dark to even see what we were doing. As we packed up and left, it started to rain hard, so maybe it was just as well. The Lord is in control. We all felt that we had an excellent time with great attendance from most of the town. The seed was planted. The Holy Spirit will give the fruit.

Isabel getting ready to share. Notice our white Stanza on the background.

The power was also out in the area where we live, but the condominiums have generators. I brought out all the left overs that we had in the refrigerator and had dinner. The two ladies, clown and us were very tired and went to bed right after dinner, besides, we had to get up at 5:00 am today so that they could all catch the 6:30 am bus that would take them to the big town with bus connections to their different destinations.

We are home from church now and ready for a nice, long nap. Until next time...form the beach...