A Trip to Hayward

One of the amazing things about cataract surgery is that the recovery period doesn't come with a lot of restrictions.  It's pretty much limited to don't press or rub your eyes and don't let shower water hit you directly in the eye.  Otherwise, he's free to do whatever he wants, including playing golf and running.  

We knew before we came to California that Pastor Julio and Patty were going to be in the area while we were here.  They are presenting a family conference in a Hispanic church in Hayward; so we told them we would come to one of the evening services.

Because the rush-hour traffic across the Dumbarton Bridge between Sunnyvale and Hayward can be crazy, we left about 3:00 p.m. and arrived with no major delays.  We were able to explore the city and walk through the rather quaint, but almost empty (more shops were out of business than were open) stores.  The city hall and other government buildings were quite impressive, though.

We also had time to drive to Garin Regional Park and do a bit of walking.  We weren't dressed for hiking, so we didn't wander far from the parking lot.  These two pictures don't do justice to the scenery--the rolling hills were much greener than they appear.  

Iglesia Bautista La Roca wasn't too far from the park so we were one of the first to arrive.  Pastor Julio and Patty are in the area all week talking about how to have strong marriages and families.

We felt right at home in the Hispanic service!  Pastor Julio even played the piano for one of the hymns we sang.

After the service we went out to eat with Pastor Carlos, his daughter, Rebeca, (his wife, Isa, is battling cancer and her counts were too low for her to come to the service), Pastor Julio and Patty.  Carlos and his wife are both Salvadorans who worshipped at our church in San Salvador before moving to California to plant their current church. 

Surgery and In-n-Out

Surgery was a success; Dr. Lee said it went as expected.  He had to fast since dinner last night so we stopped at In-n-Out on the way home.  He's now napping off the anesthesia.

He has a post-op appointment tomorrow morning, but afterwards he'll be free to resume his regular activities, minus swimming and weightlifting.  Our plans for an afternoon of playing with the grandkids.

Thanks for praying for him; please continue to pray for his recovery and the surgery on his right eye which will be next Tuesday, March 7.

Today is the day

Trusting God for a procedure without complications, a great outcome and a speedy recovery.  I'll update later this afternoon or tomorrow after his post-op appointment.  Thanks for praying for Stephen.

Time in California

Over the past several months, Stephen has been progressively having more difficulty with his vision, including double vision, blurriness and seeing halos around lights, especially at night.  He would ask me, "how many tail lights does that car have?"  My answer would be two or four, depending and he would then tell me he saw 12 to 16.  So, we decided to take advantage of the time between Judgment House and our March campaign to come to California to get his eyes examined.

The results of the exam with the opthamologist and the retinologist are that he has cataracts and they need to be removed.  He will be having surgery on his left eye next Tuesday, February 28; the date for surgery on the right eye has not been confirmed, but will probably be Tuesday, March 7.  

This will be his very first surgery (except for oral surgery for wisdom teeth removal) so, as you can imagine, he's a bit nervous about it all.  Please pray for a good result and a quick recovery.  We are scheduled to fly back to El Salvador on March 15.

Judgment House Wrap-up

Judgment House is over for 2017.  The final weekend was held at our Lourdes campus which meant that everything at our main church was taken down, loaded up and then set up at our church there.  Of course, the layout and configuration of the rooms is completely different so the set up isn't easy.  

Once again Pastors Steve and Julio were thrilled with the attendance and number of decisions across the seven days of performances (5 at the Miralvalle Campus and 2 at the Lourdes Campus.  Praise the Lord for the final results:

Attendance:  3,624

Professions of Faith:  387

Rededications:  283

Please continue to pray for the campus pastors as they start the follow-up process.  The first step is to invite those who made decisions to a breakfast or a dinner at the campus where they would be attending.  Here is a picture of the group that came for the first dinner at our Lourdes Campus.  

Judgment House, 2017

The last minute prep finished up on Wednesday afternoon and the work of "presenting" Judgment House began about 6:30 p.m.  Stephen's is playing the piano in the sanctuary where the groups await their turn to enter the presentation--he's at the very beginning.  I'm working at the very end--in counseling.  We see only those people who are ready to make a decision for Christ as a result of the presentation.  I'm on the computer, keeping track of all the names and compiling the results for Pastor Julio and Pastor Steve.

God has provided miraculous results over the past three nights (Wednesday through Friday.)  Here are some of the stats so far:

ATTENDANCE:  1,369

PROFESSIONS OF FAITH:  155

REDEDICATIONS:  124

 Praise the Lord for the lives that are being changed!

Judgment House Prep--2017

Stephen and I spent all day Monday and Tuesday at the church helping with construction and setup for Judgment House.  As last year, we spent most of our time turning the big room on the third floor into Heaven.  Here are some pictures of the process.

Getting started by blocking off the light from the windows

Covering the blue walls so everything will look white

Adding the celestial window and curtains to the room

Looking back at the entrance (in the middle of the two sets of gold curtains

Finished view looking into the room (Jesus in the back)

Another view of the back of the room (white floors and hanging branches with flowers and candles

Jesus with one one of the young girls in heaven

February isn't just for Valentines

Valentine's Day is celebrated here in El Salvador, but it's known here as the "Day of Love and Friendship."  As a result, the celebrations don't just focus on husband/wife or boyfriend/girlfriend relationships, but on all types of friendship.  To that end, the celebration is too big to fit on one single day; instead, friendship is celebrated throughout the month of February.

Our traditional to have a women's ministry "friendship breakfast" was held yesterday and more than 120 women attended.  Dr. Marta Colato shared the awesome friendship story between Jesus and Lazarus.  

Continuing computer issues

We are in the states and have the new hard drive for our laptop; however, we don't have anyone to repair it here.  So until we get back to El Salvador at the end of the year, I'm borrowing a laptop to do essential tasks and using my phone for everything else.

I sent out a simple email update in lieu of our regular newsletter.  If you didn't see it, you can find it on the blog homepage.

We finished two weeks in Kansas City and then flew to California on December 2.  We've enjoyed a piano recital, Christmas caroling, Sunday church and several other outings with Daniel and his family.  There's still plenty to look forward to as we prepare to celebrate our Lord's birth.  

I promise to catch up (or maybe just start over) in January when my laptop is up and running.

Laptop Problems

As you may have noticed, nearly the entire month of November has passed without a blog update.  This is what happens when you have a nearly dead and then completely dead laptop.  The laptop started acting crazy when I was in Texas at the beginning of October.  I limped along by running and repairing bad sectors on the hard drive.  When I had to do it a second time, I knew that it needed some "real" help.  I backed up as much as I could, including uploading our pictures to Google photos--the only glitch is that it takes forever to upload files when the computer is struggling to run.  

I took it to our residency missionary/tech, Ryan Blackstock, and he looked it over for me.  He kept it while we were gone to Guatemala (hence, no blogs about VBS) and we picked it up the day before we left for the states.  Unfortunately, he had to restore it to it's original settings (Windows 8) to get it to boot up; he also mentioned that the hard drive is failing so it's just a matter of time before it's completely useless.

We have ordered a new hard drive, but now that we're in the states, we haven't found anyone to install it.  So, I'm borrowing a computer for now and hoping that I can get mine up and running enough to do our December newsletter.  If not, I'll just send out an email update and worry about the laptop repair when I get back to El Salvador at the end of the year.

We seem to have the worst luck with laptops--there are three dead ones at our apartment and so the latest makes four.  Not sure if it's the hot weather, all the travel, the level of dust in the air or all of the above.  

Final El Salvador Campaign, 2016, Part 2

Here in El Salvador the school year wraps up at the end of October/beginning of November, so Guillermo was concerned that he wouldn't be able to go to schools during the campaign.  God had other plans and he was able to find schools for four of the five days during the week.  The team shared the lesson on respect--something that the kids here need to learn.  Here are some pictures of our week:

Final El Salvador Campaign of 2016

The final campaign of the year in El Salvador started on Saturday, October 8, with a trip to Los Planes for pupusas.  There were many new people on the trip so they were excited to experience this food of which they had heard so much; and, of course, it didn't disappoint.

We had orientation after church on Sunday morning and then went to Lourdes for the first campaign in the evening.