Saturday morning when Mark and I went to the street to check on our people, we found Mauel de Jesus, one of the men we had been checking on and concerned about, dead. Mark went and got the first responders while I sat with his girlfriend, Sonja, and comforted her. It was sad. We waited for them to come and investigate and then went to the morgue with one of the guys to find out what can be done about burial.
That night, Mark, Carlos (a good friend of ours), Alicia, Bailey, and I went to where they stay and had a memorial service for him. I made food and Mark and Carlos shared from the Bible Ps. 23. We prayed with 8 people to receive Christ! Then Carlos played music and led them in worship and praise while we prayed with others and did the medical things we've been doing for them.
They asked Mark and Carlos to come back and do Bible Study with them, so they are starting to plan once a week or so to go back and do praise and worship with them as well as Bible study.
Please pray as we begin this new phase of street church (something we've been wanting to do for a while!) that God would lead us. Also, pray for Sonja as she mourns Manuel's death.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Teen Challenge
Last Monday, we brought another man to a great Christian rehab in Guatemala City. Jaimie went into Teen Challenge and we are so thankful that he is taking the opportunity to grab hold of God's freedom for his life! Keep him in prayers!
Charlie, the man we brought to another Christian rehab in November, is doing amazing! We are so proud of him and his determination to stick with it even when it gets tough. He is growing in his relationship with the Lord and understanding freedom from alcohol and drugs.
Keep both Jaimie and Charlie in your prayers.
Charlie, the man we brought to another Christian rehab in November, is doing amazing! We are so proud of him and his determination to stick with it even when it gets tough. He is growing in his relationship with the Lord and understanding freedom from alcohol and drugs.
Keep both Jaimie and Charlie in your prayers.
Where do I begin?
I'm in awe of all the things that have been happening lately. It seems that all we have to do is talk about a dream or an idea and before we know it, it's reality. We haven't even had to pray before it's already answered! It's like God can't wait!!!
The first thing is our bus. Back in November Mark and I were talking about how great it would be if someday we could buy a minibus and renovate it into something to use for our homeless ministry and street evangelism. We talked about being able to cook on it, having a place for medical work (something that has come up a lot recently in our homeless ministry), and Mark even joked that it wouldn't be complete without a screen to show Christian movies like the Jesus film! We also wanted plenty of room to bring sound equipment and a place to store Christian literature to give away.
Just 2 weeks ago, we brought it home! We are in shock still!!!!
We started thinking about what to do to make it more streamlined for what we needed (neither of us are very mechanically inclined) and that we should start praying for someone to help us out with that when our friend Rusty Johnson showed up! Rusty just spent time last year gutting an RV and renovating it for he and his wife to use for traveling and ministry. He was looking for a project and we were looking for someone with skills to help us with it all! God is so awesome!!!
Next, we were talking about how we needed to get some medical supplies when someone from our church asked us if we ever needed medical supplies. I said we did and they gave us 3 boxes of left over supplies from a missions team! And wouldn't you know, it had just about everything we had listed as potential needs for the bus!
Then we were talking about how we needed to have someone look at our engine and do some body work on it. We have a potential trip coming up and Mark wanted to make sure all was in good condition. Mark was talking with a guy at church yesterday about it all to see if he knew someone who could help. Here's the funny part: HE'S WORKED ON THIS BUS BEFORE! He knows everything about it! He remembers all they've done to it in the last year and is able to get it all going well.
How great is God? He answers before we even ask!
The first thing is our bus. Back in November Mark and I were talking about how great it would be if someday we could buy a minibus and renovate it into something to use for our homeless ministry and street evangelism. We talked about being able to cook on it, having a place for medical work (something that has come up a lot recently in our homeless ministry), and Mark even joked that it wouldn't be complete without a screen to show Christian movies like the Jesus film! We also wanted plenty of room to bring sound equipment and a place to store Christian literature to give away.
Just 2 weeks ago, we brought it home! We are in shock still!!!!
We started thinking about what to do to make it more streamlined for what we needed (neither of us are very mechanically inclined) and that we should start praying for someone to help us out with that when our friend Rusty Johnson showed up! Rusty just spent time last year gutting an RV and renovating it for he and his wife to use for traveling and ministry. He was looking for a project and we were looking for someone with skills to help us with it all! God is so awesome!!!
Next, we were talking about how we needed to get some medical supplies when someone from our church asked us if we ever needed medical supplies. I said we did and they gave us 3 boxes of left over supplies from a missions team! And wouldn't you know, it had just about everything we had listed as potential needs for the bus!
Then we were talking about how we needed to have someone look at our engine and do some body work on it. We have a potential trip coming up and Mark wanted to make sure all was in good condition. Mark was talking with a guy at church yesterday about it all to see if he knew someone who could help. Here's the funny part: HE'S WORKED ON THIS BUS BEFORE! He knows everything about it! He remembers all they've done to it in the last year and is able to get it all going well.
How great is God? He answers before we even ask!
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
"God has sent you to me"
These are the words we heard from Victoria while Alicia was helping to clean her wound on her leg.
We first met Victoria about 6 months ago. I don't think I've ever met a more bitter and angry person. She told us that she didn't believe in God since her husband, mother, and sister all died within a few months of each other. She has been living on the streets, drinking rubbing alcohol for a while. She's so hardened.
We kept running into Victoria and even sang "Happy Birthday" to her on her birthday a few weeks ago while we were delivering soup. She smiled! It was good to see.
Victoria fell and hurt her leg badly about 2 weeks ago. She went to the hospital and got some stitches put in, but, she has been fighting a horrible infection for that long. Her leg was in bad shape. We've been going 2 times a day to the area where she lives (basically a dirt pile) to clean it, bandage it, and give her antibiotics. While we've been doing that, we've been seeing her soften. She greets us with a smile. She tells us thank you.
One evening while Alicia was cleaning it and putting on a new bandage, she said to Alicia, "I know now that God is real because He has sent you to me to take care of me." It made us all choke up to hear her say that. It was such a big step!
Mark and I went today to talk with her son--who is a doctor--to find out if he can make sure that there isn't more that needs to be done with her leg. She wants to get off the street and deal with her alcoholism. We told him that there is a program for her, but, she needs to be willing to do it for one year. He's going to talk with her today. Pray that she takes advantage of it!
We first met Victoria about 6 months ago. I don't think I've ever met a more bitter and angry person. She told us that she didn't believe in God since her husband, mother, and sister all died within a few months of each other. She has been living on the streets, drinking rubbing alcohol for a while. She's so hardened.
We kept running into Victoria and even sang "Happy Birthday" to her on her birthday a few weeks ago while we were delivering soup. She smiled! It was good to see.
Victoria fell and hurt her leg badly about 2 weeks ago. She went to the hospital and got some stitches put in, but, she has been fighting a horrible infection for that long. Her leg was in bad shape. We've been going 2 times a day to the area where she lives (basically a dirt pile) to clean it, bandage it, and give her antibiotics. While we've been doing that, we've been seeing her soften. She greets us with a smile. She tells us thank you.
One evening while Alicia was cleaning it and putting on a new bandage, she said to Alicia, "I know now that God is real because He has sent you to me to take care of me." It made us all choke up to hear her say that. It was such a big step!
Mark and I went today to talk with her son--who is a doctor--to find out if he can make sure that there isn't more that needs to be done with her leg. She wants to get off the street and deal with her alcoholism. We told him that there is a program for her, but, she needs to be willing to do it for one year. He's going to talk with her today. Pray that she takes advantage of it!
The Way Things Often Work
One thing you can count on is that you can't really count on anything happening the way you would expect it to! In the last few weeks we have seen this truth lived out in our lives in a way we would never have expected.
Many of you remember that in November of 2009 we started a ministry to the homeless in Antigua and called it "Soup Run". It was kind of born out of frustration a little--I'm just being honest. We had been noticing a LOT of people in the streets just passed out drunk. It was frustrating to try to help them and have absolutely nothing work. We tried even buying them food from a tienda (store) and had seen at least one of them return the food for the money. So, we decided that if we made something and brought it to them they wouldn't be able to return it. We could also start to build relationships with these people and try to minister to their needs.
How could we know that this would become something so big in our lives? It never started out that way.
We have been doing soup run now for over a year and we feed roughly 50 people a week with it. It's also become a medical situation because of many injuries and sicknesses that the homeless suffer. We've been dispensing antibiotics (if they have a doctor's prescription), tylenol for pain, bandaging wounds, cleaning sores, and trying to fight off infection in many instances.
All of this has helped us to build relationships with these people. This morning, while we were cleaning some wounds and replacing bandages, they told us that they pray for us and our family every morning. They also spend time every morning reading the New Testament we were able to bring them and discussing it before they head off for their day. Many of them work--surprising, but, true. They don't make enough to afford a house or apartment, so they live on the street.
We've talked about Charlie in the past. He is doing well, living in rehab and getting his life straightened out. There is another man, Kuka, who wants to go to rehab and we will be taking him to Teen Challenge on Monday. These are lives who are coming off the streets and learning to walk in faith and allowing God to heal them. It's exciting to see.
Tomorrow, we are picking up the ministry bus that will help us to be more effective and serve more people. It's a mini bus that has been renovated into a functioning clinic with room for a small kitchen area to make food and a movie screen to show Christian videos. We were blessed by friends with the money to purchase the bus, insure it, and money to keep it running for one year! God is so good!
We have the opportunity to use this bus in other areas around our valley to minister to more homeless and needy people. There is so much need! We will be needing support to keep it stocked with the equipment we need to meet those needs--medical supplies, food, clothing, material needs, evangelistic materials (bibles, tracts, videos...).
Will you pray about partnering with us?
Many of you remember that in November of 2009 we started a ministry to the homeless in Antigua and called it "Soup Run". It was kind of born out of frustration a little--I'm just being honest. We had been noticing a LOT of people in the streets just passed out drunk. It was frustrating to try to help them and have absolutely nothing work. We tried even buying them food from a tienda (store) and had seen at least one of them return the food for the money. So, we decided that if we made something and brought it to them they wouldn't be able to return it. We could also start to build relationships with these people and try to minister to their needs.
How could we know that this would become something so big in our lives? It never started out that way.
We have been doing soup run now for over a year and we feed roughly 50 people a week with it. It's also become a medical situation because of many injuries and sicknesses that the homeless suffer. We've been dispensing antibiotics (if they have a doctor's prescription), tylenol for pain, bandaging wounds, cleaning sores, and trying to fight off infection in many instances.
All of this has helped us to build relationships with these people. This morning, while we were cleaning some wounds and replacing bandages, they told us that they pray for us and our family every morning. They also spend time every morning reading the New Testament we were able to bring them and discussing it before they head off for their day. Many of them work--surprising, but, true. They don't make enough to afford a house or apartment, so they live on the street.
We've talked about Charlie in the past. He is doing well, living in rehab and getting his life straightened out. There is another man, Kuka, who wants to go to rehab and we will be taking him to Teen Challenge on Monday. These are lives who are coming off the streets and learning to walk in faith and allowing God to heal them. It's exciting to see.
Tomorrow, we are picking up the ministry bus that will help us to be more effective and serve more people. It's a mini bus that has been renovated into a functioning clinic with room for a small kitchen area to make food and a movie screen to show Christian videos. We were blessed by friends with the money to purchase the bus, insure it, and money to keep it running for one year! God is so good!
We have the opportunity to use this bus in other areas around our valley to minister to more homeless and needy people. There is so much need! We will be needing support to keep it stocked with the equipment we need to meet those needs--medical supplies, food, clothing, material needs, evangelistic materials (bibles, tracts, videos...).
Will you pray about partnering with us?
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