Ladies Meeting

This past Saturday we had the first Ladies Meeting in over a year. During my pregnancy we had to cancel almost everything I was involved in. We had a special potluck meeting at our house. We invited 20 ladies and of those 20, 16 actually came. We had Becky Jackson come and give a devotional on the right kind of love.

For our game that day, we had the ladies pair up in groups of two (non-family members) for a Bible scavenger hunt. First they had to find what to look for by looking up a specific Bible reference and then they had to go out and find that item. I had Jason hide all of the items for me so I couldn't help anyone. It was amazing what some ladies found that was not part of the scavenger hunt. One of the references mentioned nails and one of the ladies brought back a log with a bunch of nails in it. Many things were buried in the yard and were from the last tenant of this house.

We made woven heart baskets from construction paper for a craft. I thought they would get it, but I ended up doing a great majority of the baskets for people. I guess the next time I will have to find something much easier.

The puppies that our dog had 6 weeks ago kept getting into the house. I announced that we were still trying to give one of them away. I had two girls instantly say, "I want one." The only problem was that there was only one left. The other two were already promised. Thankfully both girls wanted a different puppy and we talked to one of the people who had wanted one and he was glad to give it to someone else as "he really wanted a male".

The next day in church, Karina, brought her new puppy to church. It was dressed up in a ribbon and sweater. She even showed us pictures on her cell phone of the bed she made for the dog. It is actually a bed with four posters. It was really cute. She told me that she would not bring the dog to church next week. I hope this is true as I had to watch nursery along with the puppy.

Matthew is crying now. That nap was way too short. At least you all know that we are still alive.

Catch-up

Today is the first time I have been able to update my blog in over a week. What a week we have had. Last Sunday we had a baptismal service. We had four people baptized. Tonita, Kenia, Reina, and Karina.

Tonita is in her late 50's. She works as a street sweeper and walks 6 1/2 miles every day with a broom and wheelbarrow sweeping the street off. She is tiny and so very sweet. She started coming to our church about a year and a half. Almost a year ago she started attending faithfully. She really struggled with her salvation for the first year she attended. She would raise her hand for salvation every service. We tried to explain to her time and time again that the Bible teaches that once you make a decision for Christ then you are always saved. Finally about six months ago it clicked. She finally realized that the decision she had made many years ago did not need to be repeated. Even though her husband will not let her come in the evenings anymore, he did not forbid her from getting baptized and she was so excited to finally take the step of obedience in baptism. She is legally married (a rarity in this country) and is so excited to be able to serve in the church. We were teasing her on the way home from church that she needed to be ready to teach Sunday school the next week and to be sure to have at least two songs ready to sing for a special.

Kenia and Reina are two preteen girls that live in the same area. They mentioned a few weeks back that they wanted to be baptized. Jason talked to them both in the presence of their parents and they both gave a clear salvation testimony. Both girls' parents gave them permission to be baptized. Kenia's mom was under conviction and had many questions after the talk. Bro. Ernesto, who was with Jason at that time, was able to answer her questions and she received Jesus as her personal Saviour.

Karina, is a very sweet girl who is 15 years old. She is almost albino her skin and hair is so light. Her family started coming to church as a result of a ride that they got from Bro. Javier. He gave them a ride one day and invited them to church. They had been saved in a church in a town called Guinope, but had recently moved. She had not yet been baptized and was excited to make that step of obedience. Please pray for Angi, her younger sister, she was going to get baptized with her sister, but got scared and didn't make that step. She said that she wants to be baptized next time we have a baptismal service.

Monday evening Jason and Alan Jackson started a new session of Bible Institute. This time we are having classes two nights a week to help the students get done faster. Living closer to the work has helped us to be able to do this.

Thursday was Jason's birthday and we had a special dinner of Spaghetti. We had invited Ernesto and Nelly to come and celebrate with us, but their bus got here late so we had to celebrate after church.

Unfortunately, since our truck is still in the shop from the accident, I didn't get to go into town to buy him his birthday presents. We still had our big green Ford F-250, but it is big and the parking spaces in Teguc are small so I don't drive it there if I have to park it. I felt bad to not have a gift for Jason to open.

Friday, we went into Teguc to get Jason's birthday gifts. We were late getting started as Alan Jackson called us to take some teens home from a teen meeting. They had the pickup full of teens they were dropping off and some ladies they were picking up for the Ladies Meeting. One of the teenage boys was sitting in the truck bed with his legs hanging over the side. Becky, who was driving, went over a bump and he fell out. In the process he managed to grab another boy and drug him to the ground with him. They were both fine, but the one who wouldn't get all the way in the truck bed pretended to be unconscious. They took him to the hospital that is near and Becky explained to the doctor what had happened and how she thought he was faking. The doctor examined him and also conclued that he was faking too. To snap the kid out of his "unconciousness" he gave him an injection in the behind. He was instantly cured.

We managed to get into town about 15 minutes before the stores closed. Thankfully I knew what I was going to get him and managed to get everything just before the stores closed. We all got back into the car and started home. About five miles from where we used to live in Tegucigalpa, the ABS light came on in the truck. A few minutes later the stereo stopped playing, then the lights dimmed and went off. Finally about two miles later the truck stopped as we came up to a gas station. We were able to pull in and called for Alan Jackson to come pick us up. We then called our old neighbors, who have a car, and they came and towed the truck to their house. If we had left it there, it would have been all taken apart and gone by the time we got back. God worked everything out, but Friday night at 8:00 pm is not when you want to break down. We figured it was the alternator that fried and are having our mechanic fix the problem.

Since we didn't have transportation we had to cancel Saturday's activities. Saturday afternoon we tried to get our small gray truck from the body shop to be able to go to church on Sunday. We got it back late Saturday night, but on Sunday morning when we went to start it up, it wouldn't start. For a few months we have been having trouble getting it to start. We have know the glow plugs (spark plugs for diesel motors) were going out, but when you don't have money to change them you wait until they are gone before you do the work. Well, Sunday morning they were gone. Jason had to call Ernesto and have him run the service and we went to Alan Jackson's church. We were encouraged when we called Ernesto after church and found out that we had over 20 adults that came to church. Several took the bus to be there since we couldn't pick them up.

Please pray with us about a matter with our gray truck. Both the motor mounts are bad in it. I am sure they were getting bad when Jason was in the accident. We hadn't had a problem with them though. After Jason was hit there was a rattling sound whenever the truck was turned on. After they have repaired most of the body damage and all of the damage to the muffler the truck is still making the same sound. We are trying to get the man that hit us to replace the motor mounts as we are sure this is what is causing the vibrations and noises. Frankly we don't have the money to do this ourselves and since we didn't have this problem before we were hit, we don't think we should have to pay for this. Please pray with us as we talk to the man who hit us that he would be willing to pay for this repair.