Day 5 - Sunday, July 15, 2007
By Daniela Ortiz
Hot, hot hot. This is how I would describe this day. Outside it is hot, but when I use this word, I am referring more to the loving atmosphere around us and to the amazing things God reveals to us every day. Although we are working in a rather poor area, people are happy, smiling, and extremely friendly. Many of them live in shanty houses, and you wonder how safe they are. You can see they hardly have anything. Sometimes, they only have one room they share with siblings or family members. I wish I could help all of them more, but for now, we try to give them our greatness richness: knowing Christ and serving Him.
At the church construction, we managed to advance quite a lot today. All walls were raised up and they have already started putting the stacco. It is incredible how fast the Lord helped us raise it. Today, we started working on the baptistry as well. The fact that we can build it is a miracle in itself. At first, we did not have a lot big enough to build the baptistry but the church prayed and some people who live in the back of the church were touched by the Spirit to sell us their lot, so we could work on the baptistry, and later on also have some children's rooms. Everybody has worked extremely hard. There are also many natives that are helping us which is always good. They have taught us pretty well how to lay brick and stacco I think that by now, all of us know how. So, if you ever decide to build a brick house, you can count on us.
Because the work started getting more specialized, some of the ladies of the group, together with Dr. Hernandez and nurse Janice have started organizing the medicine for the boat. They put the medicine in bags with prescriptions, ready to be handed over to people.
At the Evangelistic night meeting, Pastor Ortiz presented the message and many were touched by it.
VBS also continued with its third night, and we talked about Jesus' death for us and what it means to all of us. I played Peter's role and spoke about the wonderful forgiveness in Jesus. The most beautiful thing is to hear all children sing both in English and Portuguese. They all sing loud and are eager to learn English words and songs. A group of Adventist children from the local church had a wonderful special music for us that touched our souls. We pray that we will continue planting seeds and showing them the love of Jesus.
Your prayers are needed for all our group and work here. Especially for our health. We try to stay hidrated and be careful about what we eat, but please, pray so that we will not get sick, and we will have the energy to finish the work we started.