Mixed emotions filled our hearts, as we gathered on the upper floor of the mission house, for our last morning meeting, and what a meeting it was! The devotional was brought by Bro. Travis Northcutt from Habakkuk 1:5, and he put into words those mixed emotions mentioned above, and God used him to cause us to pin them down and understand their meaning, not only in our lives, but in the lives of the people we have touched here. Our understanding of what God has done in bringing us here was expanded, and we were challenged to carry the burden God has given us for these precious people home with us. We were challenged to pray, give, and act upon this burden.
A burdened, but joyful-hearted group left to dedicate the fifteen homes built this week. This experience is like no other down here, so they were looking forward to it.
Yesterday’s activities were red-letter memory makers. The group who went to the volcano were awed by a piece of God’s creation they had not seen before. Some toured the Seminary, and were delighted to meet Tico. We all loaded up and went to a church in a village to disperse food and clothing. Bro. John gave us a brief history of how God built this church in five days. In preparation for our visit, when John commissioned the Pastor to first find the widows in the village, he visited from door to door, and found 50 of all ages in life, many with young children. These were given tickets to admit them to the church to receive needed food and clothing. In all, 80 families came through, tagging family members, totaling well over 200 folks served. After we had cleared out everything, we sang with the pastor and his family and some of the members–they in Spanish and us in English. Then Bro. Jerry prayed for the pastor, his burden for the people, and the church. It was a holy time!
Supper was pizza, so Miss Sharon and Miss Kittie had concentrated on a batch of cookies that turned out to be flat disks (Miss Sharon had changed her recipe slightly), but they must have been good because they disappeared without leaving a crumb. Sharon also fixed a batch of spaghetti to round out our supper.
Going back to this morning,we were given explicit directions as we shut down our week at the mission house, and leave it in good shape to receive Bro. Teddie’s group on Thursday afternoon. 3:00AM is our good-bye to the mission house time, as we head to the airport and home. Pray for us.
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