Yesterday Will, Alba, Joel (a new friend), all the kids, and myself headed out to the village to do some sharing of the Word, playing games, and filling a swimming pool!
One of the biggest goals we have with the village is to get them to change their mindsets and the way they view everything going on in their lives. For example, here in Honduras nobody, and I mean nobody, starts anything on time. However, we've worked very hard attempting to explain to them that if they want different results in their lives they must make some changes and the first one is punctuality! Our Sunday meetings are to begin at 3:00 p.m. and now when I show up at 2:45 they are there and waiting for me! This is so huge; I'm sure you can't understand the big deal of it, but here it's absolutely unheard of! I don't mean most of them are there; I mean all of them! It's awesome and it's a beginning!
I arrived yesterday expecting to conduct a meeting to elect a committee to oversee their electric and water strategies. Everyone in the community has to pay an initial fee to have the poles installed and as you might expect some are resistant to the idea; thus the need for a governing committee within the community. Upon my arrival I was thrilled to see they were already conducting the election without any input from me...they were taking charge of their own situation, which is another change from their previous mindsets. With that process out of the way we went directly to sharing the Word. Again, we're going very, very slowly trying to build a firm foundation for their faith, trying convince them that they're important in God's eyes. When you live in a dirt floor shack all of your life and everyone looks down on you and talks down to you, it's difficult to believe that God, Himself, could see you as important.
A couple of months ago Joyce bought the village a large blow-up swimming pool and yesterday they decided they wanted to set it up and use it again. All of our kids had a blast helping to get that underway. Then after the message we set out to take some more 'before' pictures of families who will soon be getting a new home. (one of the things required is a picture of the family and the land beforehand, and then one of the family and the new home afterwards) While we were walking from site to site a storm rolled in and we all got soaked; in truth it felt pretty good when contrasted against the terrific heat of the day.
Please continue to pray for the people of El Doradito; we believe God has a very special plan for them!!!
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