We had two baptisms today. Two sisters, Hannia and Haysel. Hannia is the older and Haysel is the younger. Haysel is 14, but she has an illness that keeps her from growing like normal, so she looks about 10. Haysel has been visiting for quite a while with her younger sister Cristian and her niece and nephew, Hannia’s kids. This is a great example of how important our children’s program is for outreach. Hannia has visited for a few weeks, and her husband came with her this past Sunday, so please pray for him as well.

Haysel and Hannia

We finally finished with Auralila’s house. Hers is the house that collapsed during a rain storm, and while the Edmond mission group was here they built them a temporary place. The farm workers and members of the church have been working for several Saturdays to get the house complete.

Rafael and Auralila with their family and their new house

Since we got that done Sunday, yesterday we started on our children’s classrooms. The gables weren’t there, so we are finishing the wall. We also put in support boards, as the wall that was there wasn’t all too sturdy. My next projects are putting up dry wall on the inside (right now you just see the back of the wood with the support boards and that makes decorating very difficult) and painting. I figure I’ll get to have some fun painting since it’s for the kids. Once we get dry wall up, I think we are going to paint Bible scenes inside so that we don’t have to worry about redecorating so often. It’s a chore!

This next Sunday we are having a program with another congregation in Diriamba (not the one we door-knocked with). The preacher there is a young man who was recently married (I don’t know if you remember the bows that I blogged about making, but those were for his wedding), and he would like some help with the preaching task. Nicaragua isn’t like the states where there is a pulpit minister, but rather the “preacher” preaches about once a month, and the other weeks rotate with visiting preachers and men of the congregation. So our men are going to start preaching there once a month to help out.

We had a busy day Wednesday as we went to Managua to run bunches of errands. With donations from the Edmond congregation we were able to buy 25 Thompson Study Bibles for the graduates of the School of Preaching in Managua. We also bought 60 Bibles for our congregation. We got a super deal and they cost about $6 each! Wow! We are going to give them to those who don’t have Bibles and new converts and then have the rest in the building for visitors. Our next thing to purchase is song books. The tradition here is everyone purchases their own, but that causes problems for new converts and those who don’t have the money for one. Plus, it means that new members get a new version of the book and the numbers change. It’s a mess. So we are going to get 60 song books too for a church supply. Then when we change song books later as new versions come out we can all change together! We just ordered the song books, so they don’t come for another 3 weeks.

I have been working with the women of the congregation to get the class room decorations done. They’re turning out really good. We have scenes of kids arriving at services, studying the Bible with a man preaching, praying, singing, offering, and the Lord’s supper table set for Communion. Along with the regular class, we have general themes that we work on, and right now we are working on respect during prayer time in the regular church services. Kid’s class organization is going well too. We have a snack from 9-9:15, which makes the kids come on time, all classes together for singing and offering from 9:15-9:25 or 30, and then the kids divide up into 30 min of class and activities. Since our classes are so close together, this keeps one teacher from having to yell to be heard while another class sings.

I’ve noticed I’ve been slacking of on my writing. I’ll try to do better.

We had a good door-knocking trip on Sunday in Diriamba. We had about 9 groups of 2-3 people, and 7 met with contacts while 2 went door to door. One of the contacts that they had been studying with decided to become a Christian!

Today I get to teach the women’s class on Negative Reactions to Suffering. Cruz will follow up next week on the positive reactions. I divided it up into 3 types of suffering - for our sins, for other sins, and for Christ. Under each our negative reactions are: thinking selfishly, using it as an excuse or justification for our bad conduct/sin, and doubting God. I think the hardest negative reactions of suffering to avoid are under suffering for the sins of others. We think selfishly like the man of the parable in Matt. 18:21-35. He was forgiven his large debt, but then didn’t want to forgive a small debt owed to him. Our great debt of sin has been forgiven by God, who has never sinned against anyone, but when others offend us, we who should show understanding and compassion because we have sinned, often don’t want to forgive. Under an excuse for our bad conduct, we see in Luke 6:27-36 that Jesus taught that we should take the offenses of others and do good to those who do us wrong. Turn the other cheek so it can be slapped too! Ask the robber if he would like your jacket as well as your shirt! Someone borrowed something and never gave it back? Don’t ask for it. How many times do we act badly because others do? Christ gave us this example too - 1 Peter 2:19-23. Finally we shouldn’t doubt God when we suffer for the sins of others. He has promised us that he will judge - 1 Peter 2:23, Romans 12:19.

Well, the internet is back, and things are getting back in order. An update on Gabriel: he didn’t get to do the tests last week, but made an appointment for this week to see if he still needs the same tests (the ones they told him to do were from when he went last year, but the government doctors have been on strike so he couldn’t do them), and then hopefully he can get them done next week.

On the farm we are working on cleaning out our giant water tank. It’s 7 meters deep, so we pumped out the water, and now the workers are removing about 6 inches of mud and gunk. Yuck! I told David that we have to give thanks for what good workers we have, that none quit when we told them their next fun task at work! God is blessing us with a dry spell, so hopefully we can get it done before the rain comes. After it’s clean, we are going to patch any cracks and make a little mesh roof to help keep the trash out.

We’re also working on corrals for our goats. We have 9 now, and 3 are pregnant. They’re our little lawn mowers! When it comes time to plant the church beans, we are going to make the goats clean the area instead of us!!

Next week we are going to start helping the congregation in Diriamba. They only have 9 members, so we are going to help them door knock and then attend services there. It works out because we have services from 9-12 and they have them at 4, so we don’t have to miss our services. It’s exciting to get to be the “established” congregation helping out a “new” congregation!! Good to see us growing and maturing spiritually.

David and I got to go to San Juan Del Sur with the kids on Saturday. It was a much needed mini-vacation, and we had a great time. We are very sun burned though. I put sun screen on 3 times, but the sun still won!

Sunday David taught a Bible class about planning for your future. Do you have a plan for this week, this month, this year? He talked about how all church members have hopes of becoming teachers, elders, song leaders and such, but are we making plans and taking action for this to happen? He also talked about plans as a family member. Whether you’re a wife, mother, husband, son/daughter, grandmother, etc, you need a plan for being a good one, and our guide is found in God’s Word. He has advice for older women to younger, children, employees, everyone!

Sunday some of the ladies of the church came over and helped me make some of the decorations for the kids classes. I made outlines of kids last week, so we just made them out of construction paper. When they first got there I said, “I have a rule, no one can say ‘I can’t!’” and even though they did say it, they all tried drawing the kids faces and clothes and everyone did a great job. Isn’t it exciting to find out you can do something you didn’t think you could!?

Oh, almost forgot to mention that our internet is dead again! Bother! It’s been out since Wednesday or so, and someone came out on Sunday, but it doesn’t look like anything got done about it. So, don’t expect speedy responses from us for email, as we are used to the comforts of home now, and don’t want to come to the internet cafe everyday!!

Please put Gabriel, Giovanni’s son, on your prayer list. He has kidney stones and general kidney problems and is going in tomorrow to do some tests to hopefully find the cause.

I’ve been working all day on the new decorations that we are going to use in the Bible classes for the 4th quarter. Last year, we redecorated in January, and with year end activities and all, it was a mess! Plus, each teacher did it individually. This year, we’re doing it early and all of the teachers (and other women of the church who want to help) are getting together to work on it all, and all of the classes will have the same theme. We’re doing acts of worship, so we’ll have walls with kids singing, praying, offering, studying the Bible, arriving for church services, and things like that. I tell you what, all those kids weren’t easy to draw!! But, since we’re starting early, we can go at it slowly and really do a good job. We also talked about painting the walls of the class in a theme once we get the little house fixed up so that we don’t have to worry about decorating each semester or year, and can spend more time on class things. My goal is to get everything done by October, meaning fix up the walls of the house, the plumbing, and decorate. We’ll see how we do.