Bogota Campaign, Part 2

The whole team was in town and ready to be picked up by the bus on Sunday morning.  Iglesia Bautista Videa Nueva, Bogota is no longer meeting in the Holiday Inn hotel, instead they have their own place and we were all excited to see it.  

It was a great time of worship with people from the church, Costa Ricans and Salvadorans.  Randy Adams preached and David translated.  

We even celebrated Father's Day with them!

Bogota Campaign, Part 1

Hayden, Stephen and I flew out Friday afternoon, June 17, arriving in Bogota at 7:30 p.m.  The temperature difference between San Salvador and Bogota is like night and day, so we bundled up for the 50 degree weather as best we could.  The hotel shuttle was there to pick us up and we were checked in and ready to eat dinner before 9:00 p.m.  We had a lazy Saturday morning, exploring the area around the hotel and walking to the mall for lunch.

Guillermo, Rodolfo and the team of 9 from Costa Rica picked us up at the hotel about 3:30 Saturday afternoon to go to the Alsacia neighborhood, even though the team from Blue Springs, Missouri, wasn't flyiing in until 11:00 p.m.  The schedule for the week was for us to hold a kid's club in the Alsacia neighborhood Sunday through Tuesday afternoons, so we sepnt Saturday night passing out invitations to everyone we saw.  The Costa Rica team set up face painting; there were balloon animals, popcorn  and the trampoline was there, as well.  Alex's wife and Karem had a registration table to enroll kids for the 3-night event.

A Week to Catch Up

We've been using this week to "catch up" after last weeks campaign and before next weeks campaign.  What things you say:

1) Finished a quilt wall hanging for Joel who is now three months old.  
2) Stephen with Hayden every morning
3) Reorganized several drawers
4) Finished all the laundry
5) Met with Guillermo about upcoming campaigns
6) Used up most of the food in the refrigerator
7) Read a book

Tomorrow we pack for Bogota--looks like I can leave my El Salvador clothes in El Salvador.  Please pray that the predicted rain doesn't negatively impact the campaign.   

By God's Grace Celebrating 25 Years

Yesterday Iglesia Bautista Vida Nueva celebrated its 25th anniversary.  More than 2000 people attended the service held in the ballroom of the Crowne Plaza Hotel.  It was so croweded, that they asked the kids between 13-18 to sit on the floor so there would be chairs available for the adults.  

There was special music, including the hymn, "Sembraré," which was sung at Vida Nueva's first service 25 years ago.  

Although, there were videos and pictures from the early days of the church, the most impactful part of the service was when four children told their story 25 years into the future.  

Pastor Steve and Julio challenged the church to continue moving forward to change the future of El Salvador for their children.  

Of course, there was a birthday cake and the happy birthday song.  The pastor's blew out the candles!

June Campaign, Sharing in the Schools

We were able to share in five different schools during the week.  Some of the schools were quite small, while others were large.  Four of the five were public K-11 schools, while one was a public vocational school.

The 30 people on the team were divided in to 8 groups.  The value lesson for the week was "Forgiveness."  There were close to 600 professions of faith across the five schools.  

Tuesday was a special day in the school, Canton Las Tunas.  This rural Aguilares schooll has only 190 students; half of them come in the morning and half in the afternoon.  Guillermo, Manuel, Hayden and I visited the school the previous week to see if we could schedule a visit.  The director was very excited to have us and invited all of the students and their parents to come during the morning.  It's always a special privilege to be able to share with the student's parents.  At the conclusion of the classes, we were able to distribute a gift bag full of clothes, school supplies and hygiene items.  The kids and the parents were so excited to receive the gift bags.

June Campaign, Day 2

In order for Pastor Steve to do the orientation for the week, the team went to the second service at our Lourdes church on Sunday morning.  We took the simultaneous translation equipment with us so they could understand Pastor Steve's sermon on Revelation.

Sunday afternoon we went to a neighborhood in Zacamil.  It was threatening to rain so we didn't unload the inflatable, but the team was able to go door to door at the apartments.  

As it started sprinkling, we set up the sound equipment, chairs and refreshment in the community room of the apartment complex.  Minutes later it was raining buckets upon buckets.  Some of the team were still out in the complex getting soaked.  Little did we know that there was a giant hole in the ceiling of the community room and the buckets and buckets of rain were coming inside.  The men quickly grabbed some buckets to catch what they could and then began sweeping the water out of the door as best they could.  It was quite a challenging night, but people still got saved!