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.  

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.

Day 2--Apopa Schools and VBS in Lourdes

Tuesday morning we went to two schools in the Apopa area that are right next to each other.  One was for grades 1 through 9 and the other was the high school.  Stephen and I were with the group at the high school.  We had teams sharing in ten classrooms; there were several hundred professions of faith--praise God.  

VBS in Lourdes continued in the afternoon.  It was raining so instead of being outside like on Monday, we worked with the ladies in a small room at the community center.  Wow, was it hot!  There were thirty women on Tuesday (23 on Monday), so we were quite busy giving directions and passing out supplies to the newcomers.  I shared my testimony and the gospel about half-way and although there weren't any professions of faith, we did have the opportunity to have some good conversations . . . and some seeds were planted.  So glad to have lots of help from Maria Elena, Isabel, Carolina and Zuley.  

 The kids got their "Real Heroes" VBS shirts and made gospel bracelets for their craft.  The CCBC youth worked each of the five rotations, especially the games group who had to improvise because of the rain.

The other half of the CCBC group held a kid club/family festival at another location in the neighborhood and a basketball camp at a third location.  These kids were busy all the time!

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.

VBS in Guatemala

The VBS theme for this year was Agency D3:  Discover, Decide, Defend.  It was apologetics based, with lessons, Bible verses and songs that helped the kids discover the answers to the following questions:  

• Monday--Is Jesus really God's Son?
• Tuesday--Was Jesus more than just a good man?
• Wednesday--Was Jesus' death real?
• Thursday--Is Jesus alive?
• Friday--What do I do with the evidence about Jesus?

As always, the church did an excellent job with theme-based decorations.  

The kids loved the songs:

Stephen made a new friend.  Her name was Nicole and on Monday she was inconsolable, crying for her mom.  Stephen happened to walk by and she said, "Papa."  Once he took her she settled down and was his shadow the rest of the week.  We asked the friend who brought her if Stephen looked like her dad and she told us that her dad is mostly "absent," so we don't know why she was so taken by him.  She warmed up to a few other people during the week, but only if Stephen wasn't there or was busy.

 

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The group of mom's met each day for crafts and Bible study.

It was an awesome week and such a blessing to serve with teams from Oakland Baptist, Decatur Baptist, Valley Baptist and First Baptist, Murrells Inlet.  

Two Full Days

It's been two very full days of VBS preparation and we're done with some things, but not others.  We've just printed some documents that we need for the orientation tomorrow and are heading to "Kinkos" to get the copies made.  

I spent most of the day cutting fabric for the crafts which will be made by the mom's and grandma's who have signed up for the adult VBS class.  They are making a different Christmas craft every day and the adult teachers are preparing a kit for each women each day.  

Stephen spent time making buttons, helping wrap the props and decorations and loading them in Javier's truck and then unloading everything at Javier's house.  We also finished up the translator/gringo assignments and made the maps/visual aids which will be posted at the registration desk.

Among other things, yesterday we did shopping for the snacks and for the prizes which will be given away during the closing session each day.   

Today there were 14 people here for lunch and 8 of us at dinner time. So in the midst of all the work, Rosemary stops and makes lunch for everyone.  

It's amazing to work along with the people from the church here.  They have a heart for kids and VBS is a great way to reach children and their parents.

The team from Bakersfield arrives tonight; the rest fly in tomorrow.  The Salvadorans are leaving from the church in San Salvador at 8:30 in the morning.  Everyone should be here in time for orientation before the evening campaign tomorrow afternoon.

Prayer requests:

1.  Kids and parents to respond to the gospel message presented in the music, Bible verses and Bible stories in VBS.

2.  Endurance for the workers--it will be a tiring week

3.  Divine appointments during the evening campaign and an overwhelming response to the gospel that can only be explained by God's unmerited favor.

  

Say a quick prayer

We are driving to Guatemala tomorrow morning to help with last minute prep before the 35 team members arrive on Saturday.

If you have time, please say a quick prayer for us as this will be the first time we've taken the inflatable across the border in our pickup truck.  We're praying for an  uneventful crossing.  We have all of the paperwork, which has been duly signed and notarized, but you just never know what will happen at the borders.  

Looking forward to sharing pictures and stories from VBS next week!

Youth Trip

The mission trip with the high school students from Christ Chapel Bible Church started on Monday, July 14.  We spent the entire day working with Iglesia Bautista Vida Nueva in Nueva Conception.  Since there are almost 90 people (youth and chaperones) it takes awhile to move everyone around in three different buses.  

We formed 20 different groups and shared at three different schools.  

At noon, we all returned to the church for lunch and then in the afternoon all 130 of us went to the central park and played various soccer matches and basketball games with neighborhood kids.  We were supposed to have a concert, but there was a huge downpour so it was impossible to bring out the sound equipment.

On Tuesday we went to a school in San Salvador and half the team shared in the classrooms and the other half painted!  What a day!  There were more than 200 professions of faith in the classrooms.  

In the afternoon our three-day VBS started in a community center in Apopa.  There were about 70 kids on Tuesday.  The day included songs, drama, game time, Bible story time and craft time.