Just the Beginning of the Story

Since we live in a developing country we are surrounded by those in need. It is tough to know when to help and who could benefit the most by the resources with which we have been entrusted. We take these decisions very seriously, because poor decisions in this area can really hurt your ministry. Good intentions alone don't always lead to happy endings.

Before Christmas we were presented with a need in Santa Rita. Their county government, I guess you could say, laid down gravel on all of their previously mud dirt roads.

Their roads were so bad before that during the rainy season we could not pass them in our micro. By foot was completely disgusting. It was sticky mud that made you taller with each step. We chiseled mud off of our shoes regularly.

The added height of these new roads caused flooding problems in people's dirt floor houses. I cannot even imagine what living in that would be like on a daily basis... a swamp. They have been reorganizing the government in Santa Rita so I don't know an English equivalent for this committee, but one day a sort of community development committee came to us with a solution to this problem. They needed to purchase concrete pipes to provide drainage throughout the village. This part right here is why we have a lot of respect for Santa Rita, they said that they already had the concrete and men to do the work, they just didn't have enough money to buy the pipes.

Jimmy did not make any commitments that day, but later when we could talk about it alone we both were sort of reluctant to tell the other that we really wanted to help with this project. We took the fact that God led both of us separately to the same conclusion, as a green light.

We invested a couple months of any of the extra funds we could scrape together into this and then one of our supporting churches in KS (who is coming in Feb) went in with us for the other half.

Here is what they look like installed... and they fixed the problem! It effects people's lives in a positive way on an almost daily basis.

There are no secrets in this town. Everyone immediately new that we had helped with the pipes. One day when we were visiting Maria she told us how thankful she was for those pipes. She is a personal friend, so that meant the world to me that God gave us this opportunity to help her.

God orchestrates everything so beautifully. This happened at the same time that a man who attends our Bible studies announced he was giving us land for a permanent place for a "prayer house." (That is what he called it.) The whole community knew about it before we did really. This committee that came to us with the need ended up telling us when all was said and done that they wanted to support us being in the community openly. (That is a big step in case you haven't picked up on that!) We thought it was just some pipes, but this was a turning point I believe in our future there. There is so much more to the story... I cannot wait to share!