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...