A team of 13 from First Baptist Church, Gulf Shores, Alabama, arrived on Friday afternoon and attended the Friday night service. They spent Saturday morning visiting the volcano and having lunch at La Pampa halfway down the mountain.
The team from Passage Community Church, in Missouri, was supposed to arrive in time to join the Gulf Shores group for orientation at 3:30, but their flight was delayed and when it did arrive, all of their luggage didn't. So, after a short orientation with Gulf Shores, we boarded the bus, went to the church to pick up the translators and then drove to a neighborhood on the outskirts of Lourdes. By the time we arrived, the park was full of people and the clowns were already at work. The youth of Lourdes performed a new drama before Pastor Lloyd shared the gospel.
This morning all three of the teams (Alabama, Missouri and Louisiana) were together at the 11:30 a.m. worship.
Sunday, March 2, our youngest son, Jon, celebrated his 32nd birthday. Can it really be 32 years ago since that Tuesday morning in 1982 when, at 10:45 a.m., we hugged our 10 pound, 4.5 ounce "big" baby boy for the first time. Where, oh where, does the time go? Unfortunately, there were no hugs today--only phone calls. Thankfully, we were able to spend some time with him when we were in California last month. We are proud to be his parents and the recipients of some of his great work!
We celebrated Jon's birthday with a mini-campaign in a Lourdes neighborhood. The Hord family from Ohio, faithful supporters of the work in Lourdes, are in town for a few days. We set up the inflatable and called out the clowns to help with a family festival in one of the parks in the neighborhoods of Los Arboledas. As you can see, God blessed our time there as several people prayed to receive Christ.
