A Great Welcome

As we often do at our leader's meetings, we went to a new area to build homes. Upon our arrival to this community called, New Hope (Nueva Esperanza), there were people waiting to greet us. They held two signs, one in spanish and one in english. This community is one that you would walk through and you would likely say without too much effort that they were poor - but only if you measured poverty in terms of material possessions. They were rich in hospitality - not just in welcoming but in caring for our team as we worked. It was hot today - real hot, and we definitely had people struggle with the heat. The ground was so hard for our two houses (we built six total), which somehow makes the sun seem even hotter. Just as we finally finished digging the holes and getting the walls of the house up, our hosts came to our worksite. This time they were carrying cans of Coca-Cola covered in ice and they had a bag of chips for each of us. None of us had ever experienced this before! Even though we might consider them materially poor; they sacrificially provided this extremely welcome refreshing snack at just the right time - it was a richness of generosity that I have rarely seen.

There are several stories from today that will be important to share. They come from the people that we met, spent time with and listened to. If time allows over the next couple of days, I may share them in this space. If not, please feel free to ask me about the little girl with down-syndrome or the man with kidney failure.

We serve a God who continually welcomes us into His Kingdom work, sometimes in the most unlikely places...I am so thankful for that.

Good night,

Deve

Picture It

A typical first Sunday in El Salvador means that we meet the families that will be receiving new homes. Today we met the 8 families. Some of them had a married couple, some of them had single moms, some of them had inspiring stories of hard work, some of them had tragic stories of illness, abandonment or worse, loss of hope. What purpose does this serve? Is it worth it? Those are always good questions to ask.

In the late afternoon we attended church in San Vincente. It had actually been a two or three years since I have had the opportunity to join together with these brothers and sisters on a Sunday. The message was on Numbers 6: 26-27 (I think), the benediction or blessing. Pastor Oscar gave an excellent and inspirational message - encouraged me all the more to keep up our use of benedictions.
He then transitioned into a time of giving thanks and blessing to the team leaders, 30 of us. He spoke of the importance of long term relationships and how the presence of the team leaders and the teams throughout the year give encouragement and inspiration to their church family. How it has compelled them to be more intentional in their own mission endeavours, in fact they have changed their name, from Templo Christiano, to Templo Missionaro. They want to be about mission, all the time.

The best part is the music we sing here at this church. They make a point of singing two or three songs, that Canadians know, and doing them at very high enthusiastic volume. It's actually incredibly powerful to sing songs of worship to our Lord in one Spirit, though in different languages. Today songs like: God of Wonders, Agnus Dei, Free to Live - all very powerful and all a reminder that one day we will sing these songs together in Eternity. But for now, we're given a little glimpse of what it could be like. Can you picture it?

Thanks for praying.

Deve

Always New

It shouldn't surprise yet somehow it always does.  As familiar as our trips to ask Salvador should be the Lord has something new for us to discover.  Today it was a conversation with the person beside me on the airplane (not Aynsley, the other side). I had just put the book I was reading in the magazine rack in front of me. Entitled, "When God Talks Back", it obviously caught his attention because he took it out and started to look at it and then proceeded to ask me questions about it.  Turns out that my new friend 's name is Jerome and he heads a mission team that also works in El Salvador.  Our discussion about how we've seen God reveal himself over the years was quite interesting and encouraging. Then he decided that I should talk to one his team members so they switched seats and I had the chance to share a little bit with Nancy. In the course of conversation she mentioned another team member Doug who, if I'm talking to God, could I talk to God about Doug. Doug's adult son died tragically about a year ago and Doug has struggled since that time. A couple months ago while on Vacation he had enough and shouted to God that he didn't want to go on like that anymore and wanted his life to count for something. That's when some friends connected him with Jerome and got him involved with this mission team.  Over the next 12 days would you pray for Doug, that he would find healing in Jesus and come to a place where he enters into relationship with Him. That was my promise to this team that we would pray. 

Well it's been a long day of travel and my little traveling buddy is gone to sleep. Tomorrow is a new day of meeting the families for whom we will be building houses. Thanks for your prayer and partnership.