Denny Boersema called this morning from Kalamazoo Michigan to be sure we have received the e-mail with pictures and cost estimates from Luis Paz for the remainder of construction of the church in our village. I assured him that we had. He reminded me that we had wanted for our carpentry students to be able to help with construction of the church pews. A week ago we would not have been able to take on that project. However, we have hired a new shop teacher who would be able to do such a project, especially if he were to have a couple of our students to help him. As it turns out, Luis has someone to make the pews and at a very good price. I have written to Luis to ask if there is any way to use our guys. I'm thinking that even if somebody else makes the pews perhaps Russell could do the finishing. I'm eager to find something for him to do as he is unemployed until we return in September. We would like everybody to pray for this matter.
Jeanette and Alyssa [volunteers from Oklahoma at the Mission Center] are doing a great job! They have some very creative methods, such as yesterday after I taught the ladies' meeting, did Bible verses and sang with them, Jeanette had them look up a Bible verse to go with each of the items in a gift sack she gave them, such as a verse about how to use our lips to go with lip gloss and a verse about being cleansed from sin as with soap to go with the soap in the sack. She had each reference written on the white board and a picture to go with it. The gift sacks were donated both from her mother who sales Avon and from the doctor's office ...
I have so enjoyed teaching Bible studies with Norma again and meeting many new ladies. I have taught 3 days so far and plan to meet with both classes again tomorrow and Tuesday. They have been very well attended. Saturday I felt the Lord was leading me to share about heaven, reading Revelation 21 with the beautiful description about heaven and verses which specify who shall not enter heaven. I shared a shortened version of my testimony Saturday, as well as some present day testimony each day. Several women shared prayer requests and we prayed for each one. Several were about the marriages, especially that the husbands would attend church. Norma shared that her father is saved and has returned to church (apparently he was active years ago). When I asked for testimonies, a young married woman named Sandra shared a precious testimony of her life and salvation Friday which was very inspiring! Norma shared about 20 minutes about her beginnings here in your ministry and all about her surgery, of which she also showed us her scrapbook with many pictures and written explanation. The women are so precious! We visited several homes Saturday afternoon and passed out some medicine. Lourdes here was sick with dengue and most of her children. We also prayed with her. Keila is so pleasant to have around, so joyful and thoughtful. Her cooking is simpler than Lourdes's, but she does a good job. Her fried chicken last night was excellent. She sounds eager to learn and asked me if I could send her some recipes. Bill and I visited Iris, Enrique and Marisol this afternoon. They were very excited to see us. She insisted on making some baleadas for us and Nicolas which were delicious. She makes baleadas, tajadas and pastelitas at the school where she works 6 days a week: for 500 kids in the morning and 500 in the afternoon with only 1 helper. Marisol walks over from her school and helps from 1 to 3 pm. They get up at 4:30am to get her to work at 6am and Marisol to school by 7am. Iris works until 6pm and they get home about 7pm (I'm sure riding the bus). Enrique starts a job at the port authority sometime this month. I got to share my testimony with Iris for the 1st time and gave her 2 Spanish tracts. She did grow up in a church which separated women and men into 2 different buildings and she said the teaching was "bonita." She says she has accepted Christ, but is not sure about Enrique. She likes to watch Christian programming. Marisol visited El Chile with us and found the church very friendly and loving. I will add that the music was especially LOUD tonight! Yet we so enjoyed visiting with the people afterwards--though it was hard to understand much of what Silvario preached. We went to the church in El Chile tonight. As I was praying about the service this afternoon I returned to an old mindset that you'd think I would have outgrown after being here for eleven years. According to that perception God lives in the U.S.; He speaks mostly English; and He, like me, will be seeing many of these people for the first time tonight. Call it egocentric, ethnocentric, the perception is false. When we arriverd at the meeting He was already there.
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