Worship and Mango Trees

Beloved Family and Friends in Christ,

God's face indeed shined upon each of us today! What a wonderful experience it was to join the faithful at the Iglesia Evangelica Luterana Confesional de Honduras, where their deacon in training, Alfredo, helped lead the worship liturgy for the first time. His nervousness was clear to see, but the trust Pastor Micah and Pastor Edmund placed on him bolstered him as he placed his trust on God. 

Pastor Micah, with our MOST team, gave a wonderful sermon based on Matthew 28:16-20 and the historical actions of the Holy Spirit recorded in Acts 2:1-13. Three questions were given for us to ponder:

(1) What is missions?

(2) What is the role of the Holy Spirit?

(3) What is the right message to share in missions?

These are questions we will be pondering, exploring, seeking Scripture and our surroundings for the answers. We invite you, beloved family and friends, to do the same as you encounter multiple opportunities to share the Gospel with those around you, known and unknown. 

What a joy it was to meet the team of Kingdom workers at this beautiful church of faithful believers! Several of the young adults who are helping with Sunday school for the little children (2 years old and younger) were they themselves Sunday school little children. There are two women who are working through their third class of their first year of deaconess training. 

The teaching of the Gospel and Lutheran doctrine is one taken very seriously by these church leaders, and it is a joy to see the women supporting the two men who are within their church, Alfredo and Axel. Please pray for these men, for their faith to be strengthened, for encouragement to flow from the women who partner with them, for their hearts to be bolstered by the faithfulness of our God, through our Savior Jesus Christ.

Lunch was a "Plato Tipico" which means a typical plate of food in Honduras. It was truly delicious and made with care and love by Norma, the cook who helps provide meals for the teams who partner with the church. Conversations were plentiful, and laughter was present throughout the meal. What a joy to fellowship together!


After the meal, we all worked together to clean up and set up the church for tomorrow's eyeglass clinic. The teamwork that happened even with the language barrier was amazing to see. What was also amazing to see was Pipi scrambling up the mango tree to get mangoes for us...he's quite the tree monkey! 

We had the joy of trying not yet ripe mangoes with coarse salt, which they call "salzones" and it was good. Majority of us walked away with a mango and the advice to wrap it in a t-shirt and place it in our luggage for the next two days for it to fully ripen. So looking forward to that mango for Wednesday!


The rest of our afternoon/evening once we returned to the hotel was spent in various ways of rest -naps, a trip to the nearby coffee shop, reading by the poolside on the hammock, meeting for a bit more training on the education part of the clinic, heading to the mall...dinner is in thirty minutes and we're all ready to get our minds, hearts, and soul set into sync with the will of our Father, and like the power of the Rushing Wind, we are preparing to open ourselves up to be mightily empowered and used by the Holy Spirit.

May your day tomorrow be mightily empowered by the Holy Spirit, too, beloved family of Christ.

"Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus directed them. And when they saw Him they worshiped Him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.'" ~Matthew 28:16-20









































Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It's Not Easy Being Green!

Image
Beloved Family and Friends, Today was our "Cultural Experience" day, and after we discussed last night the options of Parque La Tigra or the City of Angels, we all came to a consensus that hiking Parque La Tigra, also referred to as Cloud Forest, was a once in a lifetime experience we would regret not taking. Breakfast was delicious and plentiful, and our one-hour drive to La Tigra was...uphill and swervy is the best way to describe it.  We drove by the US Embassy, saw amazing city landscapes, colorful houses built alongside the mountain sides, and watched the many motorcyclists as they zigged and zagged their way around vehicles.  La Tigra is about 6,275 feet above sea level. For some of our team members, this was like being home, but for others, the elevation coupled with the humidity was going to make the hike a bit of a challenge.  There was a small eco museum several of the members walked through, while others made use of the "playground", with swings, a balanc...
Read more

Give Thanks

Image
Beloved Family and Friends, What a joy it is to be back with you! Right now, every one of our MOST team members is home, reunited with family, sharing their experiences serving the people in Comayagua, Honduras. This will be the last blog post to share about the last full day of eyeglass clinic, which was Thursday.  It was a good day, with several rain showers on and off, and every one of our team was aware it was the last day. We arrived before nine in the morning, as usual, and had a wonderful devotion on our identity in Christ before we got started. How amazingly applicable the devotion was by the end of our day! We saw over 100 people, and by four pm as we were cleaning up, a couple of people came in to be seen. Our team did not turn away a single person. After four days of eyeglass clinics, we gave away 769 prescription glasses and 740 sunglasses to a total of 554 men, women, teenagers and children. What an amazing blessing they were to us all! What was humbling for each of us...
Read more

Finally Here!

Image
To Our Dearest Families, Friends, and Congregations, This has been a trip nine months in the making, and much like the joy of receiving a newborn child, we are in awe of everything we have seen, and are excited for what we will be seeing in the coming days.  All initial flights went smoothly -team members flew in from Colorado, Texas, Montana, and Michigan-and we all met at Gate C44 at the Houston Airport twenty minutes before boarding began. It was an uneventful flight that led to figuring out the on-line customs form to fill out before checking in with passports, which we all made sure were stamped, because hey...that's the poi nt of passports, right? Going through customs and getting all of those bags with eyeglasses checked, and paperwork looked over, was a bit nerve wracking, but praise be to God!  We did not have to pay a single lempira for what we were bringing with us for the eyeglass clinics! We headed to Hotel Del Angel for a delicious lunch of chicken, rice, and veg...
Read more