Villages Ready for the Gospel

Update on David: He is recuperating well. He came to church Thursday night and looked really good! He's still moving slow obviously, but we are so thankful for everyone who prayed for him!

Last week we (our whole family, Domingo, and Nick) went to the village of Monte de Olivos. 

A Christian family has just moved there and they had asked for someone to come pray for their village. 

There are about 200 families in Monte de Olivos and counting this family there seems to be a total of 5 families that have accepted Christ. 

There is a small mission without a pastor. (I hope you are realizing there are a lot of these... thus the need for KBI.)

Of course they made us a wonderful meal. It had steamed cabbage as one of the sides. I LOVE cabbage! It was delicious.

Here are the men praying afterwards:

Our next stop that day was on the other side of Petén. 

It was the village of La Bendición (The Blessing). There is a small mission there that a pastor from a village down the road is trying to start.

 One family has accepted Christ so far in this village. That family served us supper! 

Jonah and Silas have the drill down by now. Before you eat someone usually brings a small bowl of water over to you to wash your hands. The water runs over your hands onto the dirt floor. Jonah and Silas stick out their hands waiting for this cultural norm. They are so cute. They will probably expect their grandmas to do this too, so have your bowls ready!

Afterwards we headed over to a thatched roof structure that the pastor and the Christian family had built to start their church under. You can see in the photo below where the pastor's wife had landscaped with flower beds (here it's colorful plant beds) and white rocks. I thought it was really beautiful! I know it took a lot of work and it was on a steep hill.

Here is the pastor's daughter. She was so sweet to Eden!

Here are more people coming for the movie.

There was a really great turnout. The Jesus Film played for 45 minutes...

and then the generator went out. We were so disappointed. It had just been repaired so we were excited to be able to use it again. It is the perfect size to travel with and it is super quiet for when you need it to play a film. It had gotten rained on when we had used it last and broke. Anyway we are still not sure what happened to it this time. 

The people were very kind about it. We have plans to return the first of the year to this village to show a film in it's entirety. Domingo preaches after films giving a clear presentation of the Gospel. Please pray for the village of La Bendición, for this new mission, and that more people will come to put their faith in Christ! Domingo said that anytime you go somewhere unreached, Satan is always fighting harder than ever. I think this was a good sign that God has plans for La Bendición! 

CRAZY ITEM OF THE DAY: 

I had come down the hill to the road to help Jonah. (If anyone has any ideas on what to do with a very modest 3 year old who has to "bop" when there are no bathrooms or even outhouses for miles, let me know!) He was in distress. While I was trying to help Jonah with his problem a teenage girl was kindly holding Eden for me. A car with tinted windows was driving by with 2 guys inside (front window down). I noticed they had stopped to talk to this girl that had E. That made me nervous, but I was already very committed to Jonah's problem... if you know what I mean. I knew Jimmy was still up on the hill preoccupied with setting things up because I had just looked up at him trying to get his attention to let him know about Jonah and I with no luck. So I'm bent over helping Jonah, but closely watching this car next to my daughter about 25 feet in front of me. I then see one of the guys in the car reach out to take Eden inside the car. At that point I was willing to make a scene in order to protect E. I lunge forward about to yell at the top of my lungs and just as I'm forming the words in swoops Jimmy out of nowhere. I have no idea how he got down the hill that fast, but he grabbed E from the guy's grasp just as she was passing through the window! Who knows what would have happened, but I was very thankful for an observant Daddy. He was my hero!! It kind of made up for this gaffe. I was shaking pretty badly and VERY thankful that God had protected Eden and that it all took place without disturbing those who had already arrived for the film.