Women's Ministry Opportunity

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.  

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!

Remar Orphanage--CCBC

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, we spent a second day at the Remar Orphanage in La Libertad.  This time we brought the inflatable and lunch!  

The CCBC kids also lead a praise and preaching service for the older kids. The Salvadorans presented a drama and one of the CCBC leaders gave the gospel.  It was amazing to see them all worship together.

Lunch was the next challenge . . . we cooked 500 hotdogs!  The littlest kids were the first to eat.  Guillermo is leading them in the prayer.

Remar and Day 3 VBS--CCBC

On Wednesday morning we went to the Remar Orphanage in La Libertad, about an hour south of El Salvador.  They have a school on site, so seven of our classroom teams shared in the 4th through 9th grade classrooms.  

The rest of the students "played" with the younger kids.  Don't know who enjoyed it more  .. . the little ones or the big ones.

We spent less than two hours there because we were going to go back on Thursday and spend most of the day with them.

After a trip back to Lourdes and a quick lunch, we set up for the last day of VBS.  We had thirty women in our class (just not the same thirty.)  The kids enjoyed their final day of singing, dancing, crafting, playing and learning.

Giant Team

Our largest team of the year arrived Saturday night--almost 100 people from Christ's Chapel Bible Church high school ministry!  If you've ever worked with high school kids, you know there's a great deal of energy involved.  

Sunday morning they went to the second service at our church in Lourdes, as it was the only service that would accommodate 100 extra people.  Sunday afternoon, we had a futsal tournament, also in Lourdes.  It was quite a site to see 200+ people (gringos and Salvadorans) descend on the soccer fields.

Yesterday morning was our first day sharing in the schools.  The group is large, we have twenty classroom teams, so we sent half to one school and half to another.  In the afternoon, we also have two simultaneous activities.  One group is holding a three-day VBS while the other group is having kid's club in three different locations.  As you can imagine, it takes a lot of manpower to make everything happen.  

Several of the Hilo, Aguja ladies and I are working with the moms who come to VBS with their children.  We are teaching them to cross stitch while taking the opportunity to share the love of Jesus.  

More to come as the week progresses.