STUCK

Stuck in a ditch

One of our worst fears finally materialized. We got stuck! There was no mud, just a little foolishness. We were in the second town looking at the plot of land that they are planning to buy. The surveyor was there to measure off the lot. It will be about 0.25 acres. It took a while for the surveyor to work. We had three cars parked on the road: ours, the pastor's and the surveyor's. We were all leaving at the same time, so John decided to back off all the way, while the pastor and the surveyor turned around. Well, John did not realize that there was a bend on the road, and we ended up in a ditch. Just about an inch prevented us to go completely on our side. In the States we would have called a tow truck, and we actually have towing in our policy, but the closest tow truck would be an hour away, and it was close to lunch; therefore, the driver would have waited until after lunch to come. The pastor had a rope in his car, so they tied our car to the pastor's and the surveyor, his assistant, and Giovanni, the carpenter push and lifted the rear while the pastor pulled. The pastor's wife and I both prayed out loud at the same time. We were praying: "Lord you are bigger than this whole." I was also praying for protection for the men. I did not want them to get injured. It was a precarious situation for them if the car happened to tip, but the Lord allowed them to pull the car out safe and sound. PTL!

The path to the plot

The pastor standing by one of the markers

We are praying that the Lord will grant the desires of this group of people, providing the funds for the down payment and the monthly payments. The down payment will be $2,000 and then the payments will be $200 a month for six years.

We were starving by the time they got the car out of the ditch., so we drove to the beach town near here to a great steak house and had a big lunch:

Well-deserved lunch after the morning excitement

We are resting at home now. We had enough for one day!

Until next time....by the beach...

WEEKEND ACTIVITIES

We have been very busy this weekend. Friday night we took out a young couple to dinner. They have a little one-year-old girl who looks like a little doll. We took them to our favorite typical restaurant, which was new to them because it is about a half an hour by car from their house, and they don´t have a car. We had a very nice time. Our purpose is to spend time individually with the couples to get to know them better.

Isn't she cute?

Saturday was the couples' meeting. We had pizza again. This time we ordered four large pizzas. The guy came on time, since he had his own car. He asked us who we were and why we were having pizza delivered to the town. We told him that we were Christians and that we were having some meetings. The guy was excited because he thought we were going to order pizza every week. Alas, we had to tell him that this was our last order until we come back here again (Nevertheless, we raised the flag, Pastor D).

We had eight couples this time, two more than last time. We ate all four pizzas, and really did not have enough dessert for all. We had to cut it into smaller pieces. We showed clips from the movie and had a very good discussion about near-death experiences, what "going home" meant in the movie (the non-Christians did not get that), and absentee fathers. They can all relate to these. We talked about how to have the assurance of salvation. We closed with a prayer. I prayed for the Lord to open their eyes to the truth of the Gospel. I thought they were going to leave right away, but they stayed talking and making jokes. They were very relaxed with each other and with us. They finally left at 10:00 pm. Next Saturday we are just going to have a pot luck birthday party for two people whose birthday is on the same day, September 5th. We will be getting up at 3:00 am the next day, and if they stay as long as Saturday night, we are not going to get much sleep.

Today, Sunday, I spoke in both churches. The group here in our town is growing with new people, thanks to a man, Francisco, who invites four of his friends. They were all there at 8:30 by the time we got to church.  Francisco and the mother of his children, Luz, along with another couple are also attending the couples' meetings. Luz said that she could attend the meeting at the second town because she has to cook breakfast for her boss and his family early in the morning. The meeting at our town starts at around 8:30 in the morning, but the second meeting starts at 10:30; therefore, we told her that we could take her today, at least. So we took Francisco, his three friends and two of his children back to his house (no seat belt laws for back seat passengers here) and picked up Luz. By the time I started to speak in the second church with the corrugated tin roof and the four poles, it had begun to rain. Since the people on the edge were getting wet, everybody got very close together, and I really needed to project my voice to be heard over the rain, thunder and lighting. They are a very lively group at this second church. They need $2,000 for a down payment, so they have a special faith-promise fund and are having all kinds of fund raising activities. You have to understand that they are very, very poor, scratching a living with very little resources. Our cabinet maker is going to build a bed and donate the sale for the fund.

Francisco is building a house across the street from where they now live and work. They showed it to us on our way back. It is a beautiful two stories, five bedroom house. Francisco is a carpenter also. They invited us, the pastor and people from the church to come on Wednesday to pray at the new house. She is going to make some special chicken dinner. It sounds a little different to us, but we will be there, Lord willing.

We are now relaxing at home. One thing we also had to do this afternoon is to go to our friends' condo here to pick up our meat from their freezer, which they had kept for us while we were having electricity issues because they are going back to the States tomorrow.

Now you are up to date...until next time...from the beach...

AFTERNOON VISIT

Some of you are interested on what happened last evening at our visit. Francisco is the care taker of a property belonging to a wealthy national. It is a large property with two houses, horse stable, goats stable, geese, even a pond. It is very beautiful. If we go back there again, I will be sure to take our camera. They gave us a tour of the property while there still was some daylight. They love living there. We even had a tour of the owner`s house. It reminded me of Tarzan´s tree house, very rustic and open to the elements, even though it has electricity and running water.

This couple has lived together for many years, but as I said before, it seems that Francisco wants to get married, and he is trying to change their ways. I read the parable of the prodigal son to them, explaining some points as I read. While I was reading, another man who attends church with Francisco showed up and stayed to visit. During our conversation which followed, Luz told us that she had accepted Jesus as a young girl of thirteen, and she knows that she does not have to do it again; however, she told us that Francisco has never accepted Jesus as his Savior! Well, that was a surprise. We thought it was the other way around. We presented the plan of salvation to them, but told them that we were not about arm-twisting. They had the information and had to make their own decisions. We stayed a long time talking about repenting, salvation, and how the Lord takes us just as we are, etc.  We invited them again to the meeting on Saturday, and to church on Sunday. Please pray the His word won´t return void.

By the time we left, it was 7:30, raining hard, and pitch black. Turning the car around, we even had a hard time locating the way out of the farm. We made it safely inside the hacienda. It is only about a mile from the farm, but with the ruts on the road, the rain and the darkness, it feels a lot farther. It was so dark that even with the high beams you are not sure where you are. At one point inside the hacienda, we knew that we had to turn right, and John said: "I am just turning right and hoping that the road is there!" You have to have a sense of humor.

The German Bakery truck just arrived! Tuesdays' highlight! Here are some pictures:

Who can loose weight when they knock on your door twice a week??!!


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

MINISTRY

We have had a good weekend of ministry. Saturday night was the first couples' meeting. One of the girls suggested that we buy the pizza from a place a little closer to our town because they would deliver, since Pizza Hut refused to deliver here any more. She even went and got us a menu. I called the place on Friday and ordered three large pizzas delivered to our little town. I told them that we would wait for them by the soccer field. I am still not very good at giving directions, local style, without street names and numbers. We agreed to a 6:00 pm delivery. Saturday at about 5:00, John asked me to call them again, just to make sure. The girl who answered the phone said that they did not know anything about the order and that the owner was not there because he was having car troubles, a common occurrence here, as you know from our own experience. I asked her to call the owner and call me back. She called right back and said that yes, they would deliver.

We packed out car with screen, projector, DVD player, sound equipment, sodas, paper plates and napkins, prizes for the bingo game, movie, etc. On our way, we stopped to pick up one couple and got the keys to Christ for the City house from another. It was 6:00 sharp when we arrived at the soccer field, of course, no pizza man. We waited for a few minutes and decided that John and our friend would go to open the house while the girl and I waited in the dark for the pizza man. It is safe in town, besides, there were a group of young people in the community hall (where we use to have events) practicing folk dances for Independence Day next month. All kinds of acquaintances from town stopped by to say hi to either or both of us. The kids from our initial English Club are always very friendly towards us. They are teen-agers now and were the ones practicing.

John went to the house, unloaded and came back, but no pizza yet. We called back to the restaurant, and they told us he was on his way. The pizza was finally delivered, so we went back to the house. By that time, everybody was there waiting, and they had managed to hang the screen from the rafters. We thanked the Lord for the food and ate immediately because the pizza was already cold. There were two new couples in the group. One of the guys, Francisco, attends church faithfully every Sunday with his three kids, but his live-in girlfriend, the mother of the children, never attends. He really wants her to accept the Lord because he wants to get married in the church. His children also attend the Kid´s Club on Wednesdays at Christ for the City´s house (the same house we are using for these meetings). He brought another couple with them, his neighbors. The movie this time was "The Climb" by the Billy Graham organization. It was an excellent movie. The men specially were touched by it. We will meet again this Saturday to talk about the movie.We feel that it was a very good meeting.

Sunday John preached to both groups. He talked about Elijah and how he was a man just like us (James 5:17-18). Francisco showed up to church with his three kids, his neighbor and another man. They filled the back row! But none of the women came. He has asked us to go visit them this afternoon. We are planning to go at about 5:00 pm today. I am going to read the parable of the prodigal son because I can tie it to the movie and bring just a short devotional. Pray for this family. We asked for your prayers about crossing the creek to travel to the other church. Well, your prayers were answered, but not the way we expected: we did not cross the creek at all. The pastor asked us on the way there to go the long way around to pick up some people from the third town who attend there on Sundays. It turned our that two of the ladies couldn´t go because they had to work, but they sent their tithes with us (such a humbling experience for us!). Nevertheless, we brought a young man and a single mother with her two little daughters whom we found on their way to church. Now, this is the group that meets under a corrugated roof and four poles, no walls. Yesterday, as John was preaching, I was looking at the monkeys on the trees behind him. (Hey, Pastor D, remember when you were preaching in San José over the din of the cicadas, or maybe you thought it was the traffic outside as I did at the beginning?? Well, this time we had real monkeys, but John did not even notice them because they were behind him.) This group is really going strong. They are starting to set money aside to send to their organization missionary fund, another fund to help out people in need, whether they come to church or not, another fund to have an end of the year party for the children who attend faithfully, and they are starting to look at a parcel of land that they might buy to build a church. We have had nothing to do with the formation of this group, except that they first attended the church in our little town. The pastor told us not to try to cross the creek on the way back because it was high, and the slope going back was too slippery.

The cabinet maker, Giovanni, whom I mentioned back in January, is making some furniture for us. The church actually meets in his property. He told us that the bench we ordered for our front porch was ready. It is made out of solid wood and weights a lot. John, Giovanni, and another guy who was still there after church were able to put it in our SUV, but going through the creek was out of the question, in fact, we got stuck in the mud just trying to leave Giovanni's yard! But we have four-wheel drive. So, we went around the long way again. John had to ask a security guard here and another worker to help unload the beast.

New bench

 Last night we went to Kassandra's house for dinner, along with the pastor and his wife. Kassandra's parents don´t attend church, but she is the most faithful of the little groups here in town. At fifteen, she has the keys to the church, opens it early and cleans it before every meeting. This involves sweeping and washing the floor every time with a hose and dusting all the chairs. It is very dusty in the town, even now during rainy season. Her parents and her younger brother are very nice people. They actually have much better reputation in town than some of the Christians. Her mother's name is Sinai, so I asked her if she came from a Christian family as her name is from the Bible. She said that her grandmother was a believer and that they all have biblical names. Interesting! We had a great meal. I don´t know why ministering involves so much eating for us. I already put on five extra pounds in Florida, and can´t shake them, no matter how much walking I do every day. The pastor had some nice words for them, saying that they were still enjoying the blessings that have come down from a Christian grandmother, and we had a time of prayer also, praying specifically for their salvation. We invited them to come to the couples' meeting next Saturday.

Today is Monday. John is out golfing. We don´t want you to think that it is all ministry around here, but this afternoon we will go to Francisco's house, Lord willing. I will blog about it tomorrow.

Until then...from the beach...

Internet Woes

Hello, Everybody!

You were probably wondering what happened to us! Well, basically, we arrived here at the beach Tuesday night after spending one day in Miami Beach with an old friend. We left her house at about 8:00 am, a little too early for our flight at noon, but we did not want to take chances with the airport traffic, which can be horrendous. Actually, we had no problem. We flew back to Houston and from Houston here. The plane from Houston was almost empty, so we were able to stretch and sleep most of the way. They picked us up in our own SUV (yeah!), AND it had passed the DMV check. One small problem: the air conditioning doesn´t work now. We are working on that... We arrived safely home and went straight to bed.

Tuesday morning we got up to set up the place and to unpack. Well, we found out that we did not have Internet connection, no phone land line, and our local cellular did not work either. We were completely isolated.The cable guy came Thursday and said that our modem was not working. Back home we would have gone to Fry´s, bought a modem and plugged it in ourselves, but not here! We had to go to a nearby town, pay for the modem, and schedule another appointment for the cable guy who would bring the modem. He came the next day; however, he happened to come at the time when the power had gone out and was not allowed to enter the compound by Security. We waited all day. When we finally called late afternoon to see if he was coming, they told us that he had been turned away at the gate. The appointment was rescheduled for Saturday, but they couldn´t even tell me morning or afternoon. I called the front gate and told them to let the cable guy in no matter what, which they did. He finally came after lunch, and he brought another guy with him, Also the guy from maintenance had left word to be notified when the cable guy came because it was he who said it was a cable problem. All three guys came in and worked on plugging the modem for a while. Finally, they got it to work, and here I am writing this.

It always takes us about a week to get things going. The land line was fixed by the maintenance guy on Wednesday. In the afternoon we went to town to get groceries, try to charge our A/C and buy more minutes for our phone. Last time when we had a wayward muffler, we found a nice mechanic in a little town nearby. We went there first, but he doesn´t do A/C; however, he knew a guy. He called the guy, who agreed to take a look. We are so proud of ourselves because we actually went straight to his house following the local mechanic´s directions. Remember, there are no street names and no house numbers in this country. The A/C guy determined that the main A/C switch is bad. He kept it to try to find a replacement. We gave him our cellular number, and he agreed to call us back.

We left the A/C guy and went to the local pharmacy to buy $20 worth of minutes. We were told that it would take a few minutes, so we went shopping, but kept trying the phone and nothing happened. With the car full of groceries, we went back to the pharmacy. They told us that we must had a problem with the phone, so we had to go to the phone company's office, a half and hour down the road. We found it, but  had to wait a few minutes (I was worried about my yogurt and meat).We found out that since our phone had been inactive for two months, the SIM card was deactivated, our phone number given to somebody else, and we had to get a new SIM card, phone number, furthermore, our $20 in minutes were given to the person who now had our old phone number. Tough luck. We sped home to put our groceries away. We hope we don´t get food poisoning when we eat that meat. After we got home, we realized that the A/C guy had our old phone number. We had to call him to give him the right one.

I am sorry that you have to read this saga, but I am actually recording this for posterity, or for times when we can't sleep. We can always read this stuff and laugh or fall asleep, whatever! Well, on to ministry. Saturday night we went out with our oldest local friends who still don't know the Lord. They told us that some of the couples already know that we are here and are wondering when the first meeting will be, so it was decided that we will meet over the next three Saturdays, starting on the 20th, for movies and pizza. They paid for our dinner. It was very nice of them. Also, Saturday I got in touch with the Pastor to let him know we were here. He asked me to speak today at the second church. Monday is Mothers' Day here, and the second church had organized a special lunch. He wanted me to speak to the women. I agreed because I have some old talks that I gave at Iglesia Latina, and I always bring my little notebook with all talks and Bible studies just in case.

So today, Sunday, we went to our little church here first at 8:30 and the Pastor spoke, and then we went to the other church, crossing the river and through the woods, and I spoke to the women, but the men were listening (I told them they could). There were about 30 people gathering, without including children. After the service, lunch was served by the young people, the local chicken and rice. By the way, it is very, very hot and humid here in August. We are now back in our condo cooling off and resting. At least the condo's A/C works.

I am sorry this is long, but I had a whole week's worth of frustration to vent.

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

Last Days in West Palm Beach

Outside view of the church

John sharing his testimony

John sharing

Inside sanctuary

People coming forward to rededicate their lives

Desserts from Guatemala

Grandpa John

West Palm Beach

West Palm Beach

From right to left, Yoelsys, Rosario and Isabel

Rosario teaching Sunday School

Adult Sunday School

Mime

Speaking live on the radio with Carlos Cordero

Our last few days have been busy. As I mentioned on the last blog, we spoke on the radio Thursday night. On Friday, we visited more people and had another conference that night at church. This time John shared his testimony and talked on John 17, then Carlos closed with a call to rededicate ourselves. Everybody in attendance came forward. On Saturday morning, the conference was divided into three groups: Rosario had the women, John and Carlos took the men, and I had the young people. All three audiences participated. People shared concerns. The meetings were good. We had lunch at church, then we had another meeting at church all together. Carlos spoke this time. 

Today, adults and young people met together for Sunday School, and Rosario shared about all the things that are threatening the family structure around us. After a short break for coffee, we went into the sanctuary because the Sunday School room was too crowded. The four of us answered some of the questions that the congregation had sent us two weeks ago. It took a little longer than planned, so we were already running late for the worship service, but it isn't a big deal in Latin cultures. We had a full worship service; Carlos preached the last message about the family. We finished at about one o'clock, then we again had lunch at church. There are about four families who were in the restaurant business, so the food is very good. As I said before, we have been eating good Cuban food all week and probably have gained about ten pounds each.

Tonight we will go out to eat once more at another family's house, and tomorrow we will go to Miami Beach to visit an old friend from Cuba. We will spend the night at her house, and then leave for Costa Rica on Tuesday. Pray for traveling mercies and for the Lord to take what we shared at this church and use it to bless the families.

Until next time...from West Palm Beach...

This is the church where we are having the conferences

Church building from the back. I did not take a picture from the front.

Pastor Israel and his wife, both from Cuba

I had another birthday party!

We had dinner with this couple,also from Cuba

Last night w e had our first conference about conflict resolution in the family. It went well. We had about 60 adults in attendance. I am going to have to publish the pictures later because I did not take any since I was busy, but somebody took pictures and will share them with me. I introduced the subject, then Carlos spoke about the 12 steps for conflict resolution, and Rosario had the application where they had to work with their families to solve one conflict. One couple said that they had no conflicts and refused to participate. They also said that they weren't coming back to the rest of the conference. It is sad to see people who need to keep the appearance of perfection. The rest participated, and I hope that they learn to apply the principles.

If you received a copy of our schedule, you see that we have a lot of visitation. I was worried about this, but basically, we just go with the pastor as he makes the rounds visiting the sick. We share from the Bible some inspirational verse to bring them confort. He asks each of us to share something that comes to mind after listening to their problems. They are very appreciative of our visit. Tonight we are going to speak on the radio. It is a Christian am station. We have to be there at 9:30 for a 10:00 live interview. We will see how that goes. That wasn't on the schedule.

We keep going to different homes for meals. I think we are both going to put on about 10 lbs. by the time this week is over.

That is all for now...until next time from West Palm Beach...

WEST PALM BEACH

We arrived safely at Miami airport at 5:00 pm local time. By time we arrived, plans had changed slightly. The Corderos' nephew picked us up,then we drove to Fort Lauderdale Airport to pick up the Cordero's arriving from Costa Rica. Gustavo, the nephew is married to a Cuban. The Corderos had just cleared customs when we arrived. We then went to have dinner with Gustavo's wife's family. His wife has a twin sister. We went to the sister's house for dinner. We had a party! It was the twin sister's wedding anniversary. It was just the Corderos and us, Gustavo and his wife, the twin sister, her husband, their son and daughter (teenagers) and the grandparents. Wow! We were greeted like old friends and immediately immersed in the Cuban culture: jokes, singing, and a lot of food. It was so much fun! John was the star of the show when he told the story of how we met, dated and how he asked my father for my hand in marriage. We left after 10:00 pm because we weere staying at the pastor's house.

We arrived at around 11, by the time we unpacked and went to bed it was midnight, local time, but we couldn't sleep. We really had a hard time sleeping. I don't know why. Maybe because we were so excited and ate so much Cuban food. The accommodations here are very comfortable. The pastor is a man in his forties. They have two young children, but only the 5-year-old girl is here. Her 7-year-old brother is staying a couple of weeks with the grandparents in Orlando. They take turns in the summer, one at the time. We are staying in the little boy's bedroom and have our own bathroom.

I got up at 7:30. We had a nice breakfast, read the Bible and prayed together, then left for church. The Senior members were having their weekly prayer meeting and pot-luck. The pastor says that they are the backbone of the church. They were already praying when we got there, but it was planned that way because the pastor did not want us to rush the first morning. The men and the women were in different rooms. They were in groups of three or four, so Rosario and I joined different groups. Carlos shared from the Bible after the prayer time.They sang happy birthday to me and gave me  card signed by a few. (This people have never met me before.) I also met three ladies from my home town, one lived just a couple of blocks from my house. Lunch was delicious. These were about twenty grandmas bringing their best stuff!

After lunch we had a brief planning meeting, the four of us and the pastor and his wife. Then we went visiting. The first visit was to another pastor on staff who is really a retired missionary, but he is the Pastor of Evangelism. He has some serious health issues. We read the Bible and prayed for him. The other visit was a family new to the church. One son worked in landscaping and fell from a tree 60 feet high. It is a miracle that he survived. He was in a comma for three weeks, then physical therapy, altogether, he spent two months in the hospital. He is still not well, but he can walk and talk. There is a long road ahead for him, but he knows now that the Lord has a plan for his life. English was their dominant language, so John shared and prayed for him.

It is now 5:30 pm. Tonight we are having dinner with another family. I think we are going to put on a few pounds this week.

The conference starts tomorrow night.

Until next time...from the beach...West Palm Beach, that is...