Stories From Our Ladies Outreach In Santa Rita

What we have really appreciated about this team so far is how much preparation they put into this trip ahead of time. They brought down so many ideas and resources to use in the outreaches this week. It makes a difference!

Wednesday afternoon we held a ladies outreach in Santa Rita. What we have learned is that when you make something open to everyone in the village they end up inviting their relatives from all over and instead of having just the ladies from the community you end up with 100's of strangers from towns all over that you will never see again. So we try to keep things small and work with people we already have some type of connection to and then build from there. We want to be able to follow up on every person that comes so that this will be profitable and not just an exercise of numbers.

So we went around Wednesday and personally invited those that either come to our Bible study or have husbands or children who come. We ended up with 28 ladies and 12 of those do not attend our Bible study. Each one has a story and I wish I had time to share all of them. I want to share a few in hopes that you would pray for them, that one day soon they will come to have a personal relationship with God.

The one in the white on the left is Consuelo. I just adore her! She is the lady who recently lost her 2 youngest sons in a drunk driving accident. Her husband and son attend, but she does not.

The first lady in pink on the left is Maria. She has 3 teenage daughters who just started attending Jimmy's Bible study... which made the teenage boys who attend very happy. (What better place to meet your mate!) She also has 3 younger children who attend my Bible study. All started coming as a direct result of the Easter drama (thank you Amy!).

The woman in black in the back started coming since the drama too. Her son, Ermando, was one of the narrators. I haven't been to the adult Bible study in a while, so unfortunately I do not know her name and did not ask Wednesday... oops. I need to spend some time getting to know her.

The lady I am helping in this picture is Cantalaria. She just started attending with her husband Jorge. Her kids had been attending my Bible study since the beginning. Her son is sort of known to be a trouble maker. He gets picked on a lot... most of the time he instigates it, but he has some communication/learning issues. The kids say he's crazy. I wish I knew more about this kind of thing to help him. Becca really helped when she was here. She took the time to start communicating with him. Before that he would just grunt at us. Now we really try to spend a little more time with him which is what he needs. His parents have really notice.

The older woman in the light pink is Cantalaria's mom. Jimmy met her yesterday in the Kekchi inner sanctum... haha! She saw Silas and wanted to hold him.

Jimmy asked her and her family if they believed in God. They said, "Yes, since birth." They couldn't explain anything else they believed beyond that. Wanting to know more, Jimmy asked what they would describe themselves as... Catholic, Evangelical. They replied, "No, we are nothing." That's a great place to start!

These are her other 2 daughters on the left, Albina and Manuela. They came to the Kekchi movie night too.

Rosa in the center was the first person we met in Santa Rita. She is in charge of the elementary school and her husband is the mayor. She is very nice and really takes pride in everything she does. I have a lot of respect for her. Her son Carlos comes to my Bible study. He is sharp! He's one of my favorites (shhh!) This is the first time she has been to our building for anything!

Vilma is a fireball. Everyone calls her Colocha (curly head)... which she hates! Her, her dad and her brother come to the Bibles study. I went by her house to invite her mom, but she said that she had to make tortillas. I was very surprised when she showed up!

The ladies made necklaces and keychains with their photos inside. Lots wanted their picture to be with the boys... so sweet! Here is Jonah with a wet rag on his head. They don't know that some gringos turn red when they get hot and Jonah turns bright red... it scares everyone!

Wednesday was so much fun! I am so thankful for God blessing this outreach and for all the ladies on the team who put this together! Please pray as we follow up. Thanks!