Trust (and flexibility!)

The days continue to blur together and fly by. Saturday already? That means that our planes depart in about 48 hours!

Yesterday half of the group spent the afternoon at the Impacto church building, doing some cleaning and work projects. We painted over grafetti on two of the buildings that make the entry way to the church building, we helped clean and organize the office area, we painted trim inside the building and also retiled the stairs.

We were also expecting around 15 high school and college age folks to show up for the Friday night lesson and devotional time. I had been told that I would have a chance to share whatever was on my heart with the students at that time. As it turned out, only two showed up! So instead of going over the lesson on being a "team" that we have been working our way through back home at Kairos, we just did the trust falls instead with those that were there (including the pastor Jorge as well!).

We had been talking with Leymar, and I asked her if she trusted us. She responded "yes!" Then when we told her we wanted her to do a "trust fall," she told us she "trusted us in theory!" :) But when it came right down to it she demonstrated great faith by having a bunch of gringos catch her in the trust fall.

Leymar is a great girl. Just 15 years old and only having been a Christian for a few months (her family started coming to the church recently and I think I understood that her, her mom and her grandma were all just recently baptized), she is definitely ON FIRE for Jesus. She helped lots at the VBS time last weekend, in fact she is the one with the clown nose on in most of the pictures. What a great example of what Christ is ready to do with those who are ready to live for Him!

God is still good.
-Wade

Embassy...Sweet

Hello from Venezuela! Time sure is flying by for us in South America, we only have a weekend left and it seems every minute is already scheduled. Before you know it we’ll be back home and this will all be a memory.




Yesterday Shannon left off we were on the way to a Rehab Center where we had a worship time with about 30 residents. Steve opened in prayer then introduced and interpreted for Walt as he shared his testimony. It was an incredible reminder of just how good God is and how He works in our lives no matter where we meet Him.

From 07222010

After the meeting we went to a hilltop in Caracas to take pictures of the city – just so happens we were able to see the American Embassy in the background. Look for the American flag in the picture. Caracas is unlike any city in the United States. The population is 7,000,000 – luckily we don’t have to deal with the traffic- which reminds me of Ethiopia.

From 07222010

Today we’re on our way to the top of El Avila, Caracas’ Pikes Peak. We’ll be riding the 8 person gondola while gaining a mile in elevation. Not the Rockies but it’s the best we could find. The next person writing will fill you in on that trip.



See you soon,

Diane

More Photos

Buenos dias a todos!  Good morning everyone!  Right now we're eating breakfast in the Dye's apartment. Yesterday was another workday.  Some of us worked on cleaning the apartment, and another crew painted the room where the church meets.  Carol worked very hard organizing the office area, while Dara, Diane, Alison and Amy dusted trim work and washed the walls. The men fixed drawers, glued chairs back together, worked on fixing the toilet, and were generally handy handymen. Some ladies from church came and spent hours making us a wonderful lunch. They made consume (sp?), some sort of  baked plantains, roasted tomato slices with parmesan cheese and oregano, a tasty chicken, and rice.  It was hard to concentrate on cleaning because it  smelled so great cooking.

In the evening, we enjoyed sharing with some of our Venezuelan brothers and sisters in the Wednesday prayer time.  Wade shared his thoughts about how God answers our prayers, and Amy and Lew shared their testimonies.

Right now we're getting ready to go visit a rehab center.  I better get in line for el bano.

(Mom, don't forget to pick up Meg!)

Thank you so much for your prayers!

With love from Caracas,

Shannon

Work Days and Walt

We have had two great days of work here. Tuesday we went to the church camp to work on extending a retaining wall to keep the mud from sliding down the hill.  Mud had covered the foundation for this section since it was poured by Johnny Dye, Steve's brother.  We had to clear off the mud before we could start laying the base layer of the wall.   Walt proved at 53, he still has it.  A group of Pentecostals were having camp in the building above us and saw Walt.  They asked Walt to put his shirt back on because he was showing too much skin.  Pentecostal men do not go shirtless.

And then let's not forget the women of the group.  The Pentecostals also prayed for our women who wore pants.  I believe the verse is in 2 Lew 3 verses 1 and 2.  (We will be getting back to Lew in a second.)  Pentecost women wear skirts.  Actually, it brings attention to the fact of how careful you need to be in other countries and easy it is to offend other cultures without intending to do so.  Just ask the group about giving another Venezuelan the OK sign.  In Venezuela, that is calling a person a homosexual.

Squirrel! (Up movie reference). Back to camp.  The ladies sifted sand for the concrete.  Levi wheelbarrowed  the sand down to the concrete slab for us to mix up. After mixing the sand we hauled two buckets of concrete at a time to the wall.  I understand this isn't the way they always make the concrete, but it is not an uncommon way to do it.  Man, I have never sweat like I did Tuesday.  I now understand what it means to say I built this wall with my sweat as sweat poured off of my body into the concrete.

We broke for lunch and the rain came to cool us off.  The rain felt great.  I am sure to everyone else we looked like little kids playing in the rain.  It was incredibly refreshing.  It is amazing the amount of rain that pours down in a short amount of time.

And then the rains came.  Johnny mentioned that we are getting a taste of what they are up against when they are doing building projects.  In the morning, we had a great start to getting the first row of bricks done.

Did I mention the rain?  The rain washed mud back on top of our foundation and we had to remove that as well as irrigate the water away from our wall.  At the end of the afternoon, we did manage to finish about 2/3s of the wall.  We were all exhausted by the end of the day, but we managed to get in a great day of work.  Here is how we started the day...

...and how we finished.

 Did I mention Lew?

Did I mention Lew?  

Thank you for your prayers and support.  We still need to catch you up with yesterday's work around the Dye's place and complex and Walt eating 236 white glue thinking it was like Elmers.  

Choa (Ciao in Italian),

Ralph

Downtime

Buenos Dias a todos! Good morning everyone!
I just had my first opportunity to sit down and read what others have already written about the weekend, and I'm glad that they've kept you up to date. I'll tell you a little bit about our free day yesterday. We were all told to sleep in and meet at Steve's apartment at 9 am, and then left for breakfast. We ate "Arepas" (sp?), which is kind of like a pita with eggs, ham, and things like that (and to my family, yes, I did eat a little egg).

We took the subway to the mall and that was quite an experience! We were all told to have a partner that we were not to loose track of no matter what, and let me tell you sometimes it was all you could do to stay right by that one person. The subway pulls to a stop and there's a whole mess of people trying to get on and off and you end up packed in like sardines.  Then when you get to your exit you grab hands and push your way to the door and hope you all get off. Which thankfully we did.
The mall was very interesting- four floors. The food court had places like McDonald's, Church's Chicken and a Cinnabun. We opted for Sushi. If we haven't mentioned the money system yet, the name of their bills is a long B word so it is often just shortened to B's. One U.S. dollar is worth about 8 B's, so it was interesting paying 48 B's for lunch. While we were eating I saw a poster advertising the mall that said on the bottom, in spanish, follow us on Twitter. I had to get a picture.
So we did some shopping at the mall, and then came back to Steve's apartment. Then we went to a store across town that has more souvenir type stuff. We had pizza for dinner and our friend Isaac pointed to a lizard up by a light (we were eating outside) and told me that's what he ordered on his pizza. Then when the waitress returned he told me that he asked her to put it on mine as well. They have quite the sense of humor down here and have been making us laugh so much.
Well, we are about to leave for our work day (we'll be painting and I'm not sure what else) so I have to close this. God bless you all, we love and miss you!

-Amy

Fellowship in Venezuela

Yesterday we worshiped with our church family in Venezuela.  For me personally, the songs we sang while living in Honduras found their way here into my heart once again.  We got to see first hand the great leadership Steve and his team have developed.  Yesterday was also "Children's day".  We celebrated with the balloons, face painting and candy.  I think we were all exhausted, but "Children's Day" was celebrated Venezuela style.  The contentment felt while worshiping and celebrating our Savior as well as the children He created has made the day a special one in my memory.  Please continue to pray for our group as we try to bless the people here.  Thank you!  Carol

Photos from Saturday

Videos:
Kids Song they sang for the adults after VBS
We Taught the Venezuelans how to play 4-Square

Kids are Kids No Matter Where You Are

Yes I am!!! (A kid!) 

The VBS yesterday was really a great experience, for us, for the Venezuelans and for the kids as well. We went through craft times, story times and game times. I don't know whose idea it was, but the craft was to color in a precut "frame," then photos were taken of each of the kids. Then in the evening Ralph and Russ did all the work of getting the photos ready to print, so that today we are going to be able to pass them back out! How cool will that be?!?!?

We brought some playground balls (standard equipment in the US) and were surprised that the kids did not seem to be too familiar with them. Then we were even more surprised when they had never heard of 4-square!!! So, after putting the sidewalk chalk to use, we were ready to play. Once they got the hang of the rules, they were all over it! Amy and I noticed later in the day that the kids went over and initiated a game without any of the "gringos" being around to help keep it going. Success!

It was also a huge blessing to see the local church people working so hard to make the whole VBS a success. Wow - they were all so willing to jump in and serve and make a difference. This church is indeed going to make an impact (That is the name of the chuch - "Impacto").

Wifi doesn't always work like it does in the US, so it's not always easy to get pictures into the blog. But we will do our best!

Thanks for the prayers.

-Wade

Videos:

Kids learning a song at VBS View Video