We flew to California on Tuesday, September 13, and Daniel picked us up at SFO about 4:00 p.m. We had a quick dinner with the family before Daniel left for Bible Study Fellowship. Afterward we had some time to play with the grandkids.
Wednesday morning after breakfast we drove 3.5 hours to spend some time with William, Gilma and Amy Flores. We started by having lunch with William and Gilma at In-n-Out!
After lunch we followed them to Porterville and checked into our hotel. Once Amy was out of school, they picked us up and we went to Gilma's sister's restaurant for a Salvadoran snack--first time we've eaten "real" Salvadoran pupusas in the states and they were really tasty.
William and Stephen went to church early to set up for the Wednesday evening service. Gilma, Amy and I joined them just before the service started. It was a special praise/worship service with Stephen singing (in Spanish), William singing some of his original songs and then Stephen playing along with William for some congregational songs. It was like a little slice of Iglesia Bautista Vida Nueva! We ended the night with ice cream.
Thursday morning we had breakfast at Black Bear Diner. They had biscuits (the size of hamburger buns) and gravy which was a pleasant surprise for Stephen. After lunch we began our 4+ hour drive to Santa Cruz to spend the day/night with our son, Jon.
Yesterday was the final Koinonia (all four of our sites meet together) for 2016. The first Koinonia was a kick-off for the 25-anniversary of the church. The second Koinonia was the enormous anniversary celebration and this featured a concert by the Orquesta Sinfonica Cristiana (Christian Symphonic Orchestra) of El Salvador. The 80-person orchestra and 20 person chorus presented a program of ten songs, including Majesty, You are the Air I Breath, Agnus Dei, Amazing Grace, Oceans and Revelation Song.
The theme for the concert was "Alma y Verdad" (Truth for the Soul) and after all the beautiful praise music, Pastor Steve preached the message of salvation. The greatest blessing was the number of people who made professions of faith at the end of the service. Praise the Lord for a church that finds ways to reach the lost and is faithful to preach the gospel.
The women's ministry of Christ's Chapel Bible Church in Fort Worth, TX, has invited eight of the women's ministry leaders from Iglesia Bautista Vida Nueva to participate in leadership training at their church. I have the privilege of being one of the eight and am very excited about this opportunity.
The eight of us met last week for a pre-trip planning session, which included discussing cultural differences, making arrangements for airport drop-off and pickup, planning for the hostess gifts we will take and more. Groups of two will be staying in four different homes.
We will all fly into Fort Worth on Tuesday, September 27, and then return to El Salvador on Sunday, October 2.
Liseth Campos from Immigration arrived at our apartment about 9:30 this morning. She came in, picked up the paperwork we had collected, took a couple of pictures and that was it. Not sure what we were expecting, but thought it would be more involved.
When she left she was going to the church to pick up the final piece of documentation and conduct an interview with one of the pastors.
I asked if there was anything else we needed to do and she said we just need to wait until they call us to say our cards are ready OR if they don't call within a month, we can call to check on the status.
Thanks for praying us through this process!
