Sitting to God's glory

Last week with the group we went out to Talanga first to do some paperwork with the mayor’s office and to see the Church building and to stop by the TV station to find Jose Luis doing his program again, discussing more of the physical needs of the mission/Church/TV station there. After a time consuming, but extremely successful time at the mayor’s office (God’s provision...no doubt there) we moved to Cantaranas to work with Jonathan distributing corn, talking with him about how things are going with the baby on the way, about how they have taken three, and now four, more people into their household, and about the physical needs of the Church there...it struck me that in the midst of constantly trying to address everything in the mission, get things where they need to be, built, etc. and how overwhelming that can be...that almost exclusively when I am talking to these guys they never address their own personal needs first, if at all, when asking for help.

Things like...a guitar to not have to do worship a cappella, amps, speakers (the list for music ministry...is unfortunately quite long) battery back up for computer protection in Channel 15, more programming for the TV station (where do you get Spanish Christian videos to use?) and the list continues. 

We also got to see some coffee sorting in Cantaranas...being done to use these beans as seeds for more future plants. It takes longer to do it that way (minimum another six months for the seedling to be ready to plant in the ground)...but when you can get the beans for free, it is certainly cheaper. We won't rely on this method to get all our coffee property planted...but every little bit helps. 

And we saw again that sitting in the car while the group distributes food still provides you plenty of opportunities to get to know people and talk at length. The people though tend to be of smaller stature, but not all the time. 

What you can’t see in this picture is the equal or greater number of kids on the other side of the truck. They were chatty...wanting to know everything from where the corn was from, to talking about school and Jonathan the pastor, to question how every piece of plastic or bump in the Ford was used (turns out that if you have never seen an air vent before, you think it has something to do with changing the gears.)  Good times. 

No matter where you go...you minister....whether just asking for a guitar instead of seeking personal gain, sitting in the truck, doing paperwork, or sorting coffee beans.  Scary and reassuring at the same time.