Ministering

Another busy Sunday! I taught Sunday School Sunday morning in both churches. The lesson was about resisting the world's influences in our Christian walk. This time we went to both churches because last Sunday some people were confused about the schedule.One pleasant surprise was to see one of the families we have befriended here, but who do not know the Lord come to church because they knew I was teaching. Whatever it takes to get them there works for me. The pastor announced the movie that we were showing at the other town, and our friends decided to go to that event also.After the service at the second church by the river, one of the guys asked to talk to us. He and the cabinet maker work in construction. They have jobs and work every day, but they are not getting paid. Their boss has all kinds of excuses when payday comes around. They haven't been paid for four weeks now. Back in the States we would take this man to the Labor Board, but there are no such resources here. It is so sad to see honest men being taken advantage of. We could only pray with them and asked the Lord to take care of the situation. Please pray for Giovanni and Milciades. They are new Christians.

We got home late and just had enough time for a short nap before we had to take off again to set up for the movie showing; therefore, we missed all the football games on Sunday. After loading our SUV with the screen, DVD player, digital sound equipment (we are so proud of this equipment that is very easy to use and very light), LCD projector, extensions and miscellaneous cords to attach the screen, we left at about 4:30 because we were going to stop by our town and pick up our friends and Kassandra, a young lady who is a very serious Christian, and we had to set everything up before dark. The event was on the soccer field. This town has about 60 families. They don´t have a community hall like our town to hold events. Giovanni and Milciades built a backing with some poles and black plastic. They attached that to the soccer goal frame and hanged the screen from the top bar of the goal. It worked perfectly. The screen was secured and the backing worked so the image was nice and bright. I praise the Lord for our Epson projector which I bought when we were doing short-term trips to Kazakhstan so long ago. We just keep it here now. One lady brought something cold to drink, and yet another made empanadas, but they charged for all this. They are poor and can't afford to donate. Money goes towards the church. Giovanni brought a 20 cup coffee maker. As I mentioned before, he works in construction, so he has very, very long extensions. We got the electricity from a house in front of the soccer field. John went back to Giovanni's house and brought the church's chairs. The pastor brought the chairs from our town and from the third town. We had about 65 chairs total. We put them in front of the screen, trying to avoid the cow chips as much as possible. The movie that we showed is a true story about an Mexican church planter who was shot and killed by enemies of the Gospel back in 1952 in Mexico. People seemed to enjoy the movie, even though, and maybe because there was a lot of violence. Our friends have a precocious three-year-old boy who talks constantly. They did not want him to see the violence, so they would take him away every time that there were bad scenes, but we were out in the open, so really there was little that they could do. When the scene of his murder came, they took the little boy away and thought he was being distracted until he said: "You can take me back. He is dead." After the movie we took down all the equipment with the help of flashlights. It is very, very dark here at night. I was a little concerned about crossing the river in the dark, but John did fine driving the car through all the obstacles. We drove everybody home and went home. We were so tired that we put the car in the garage without unloading the equipment. We did it the next day.

Monday we had to go buy gasoline, always an event here, and groceries for the couple's night because I am making my world famous lasagna. I am very disappointed because I could not find ricotta or cottage cheese this time. I will just have to add extra wine to make up for the lack of cheese!! We thought we were getting a break and not going to our town, but a man called who wanted to talk to us; therefore, after putting the groceries away, he headed back to our town. We met the man where he works because he wanted to talk to us alone. He is really in a lot of trouble. We counseled him and prayed together. Please pray for A and S. The Lord knows who they are. I am trying to make some phone calls on his behalf today, but can't get through the place where I can get some information for him. I have been trying all morning, since 9:30 am.

John played golf today with our friend, the father of the three-year-old boy. Tonight we are having dinner with our American friends. One more thing: we have a new granddaughter: Brooklyn Hines, born January 17, 7 lbs 6oz.

Until next time...from the beach...