Friday, January 28, 2011

A Church Raising!

About 3 months after beginning the Bible Studies in Santa Rita, Lesbia, a friend of ours from New Horizon, told us we could borrow her empty house that she had in Santa Rita. We received permission from the town council and started fixing it up.
{Before}
We added more onto the outside roof, poured a cement floor and built a bamboo wall around the outside portion. She said we could stay there rent-free in exchange for fixing it up for 2 years.
{After}
Well those 2 years are up this February. We hadn't really thought about it until Jesús mentioned it to us the other day. We hoped that since nothing had been said that maybe we would be able to use the house longer, we had no other options. Three days after that conversation Fabio told us that he wanted to give us half of his land permanently for our Bible study.
{The day Fabio told us about the land}
Right after that Lesbia came to talk to us to tell us that she wanted her house back for her son to use. "No problem!" We told her about Fabio and asked her if she would let us stay just until we had a new building done and she thought that would be fine.
This is the land! It is on a busy road in the community which is more accessible to all rather than in the very back corner of the village where we are currently at.

So enter our God-timed teams: Andy and his church have been planning a trip for a while now to come and work on our house. They've had plenty of time to do that, but we also put them to work on the new Bible Study building. They are getting everything ready for another team from Topeka, KS who will be here at the end of February to hopefully help us finish the new building.

Andy, his two sons Joseph and Samuel, Robbie and Larry came to help us this week. Robbie has a lot of experience as a backhoe operator so Andy asked if we could rent one. It just so happens that we have some missionary friends, Arlen and Keturah King, who loaned us one at cost, so we got the Santa Rita digging done in less than two hours what would have taken a week by hand.
Before that the guys had to clear off the forest that Fabio, who is 71 years old, had spent the last month cutting down with his machete.
{Fabio}
While Robbie and Arlen's operator were working on that, the rest of us (with José and Domingo too) went to our land to load 500 block in the dump truck that brought the back-hoe.
{Domingo & José, we are so thankful for their support}
We found out that it is a long way from our back fence to our front door, especially when you have to make 40 trips carrying two blocks each time!
{Pastor Andy}
We had some surplus block from our wall that we won't be using on our house and it is the perfect amount for the base of the new building and it's outhouses.
By the time we got back the tractor was done and it was time to unload. After the long day everybody was ready to call it a day and head into Flores for a big meal at La Luna!

4 comments:

  1. Super Exciting!! This summer won't come soon enough!

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  2. I know those guys!!! Glad it is all working out well. Robbie must be feeling better - sure glad!

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  3. That's great! Don't you love it when God confirms His hand in your life with His perfect timing!

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  4. I always love the stories about Fabio, 71 years old and still serving strong.

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