Friday, May 1, 2015

Beauty in different forms

So, what else is new?  It often seems easier to talk about what is not changing or new, but here are a few tidbits:

Our poor farm in Cantaranas has been a back burner item for a while now.  No money and with some administrative issues, we have been content to just leave it for now and see what God would do. 

(Note...that "contentment" is not happiness, and being content here was scratching our heads, not understanding and finally leaving it alone, while still asking God what we are supposed to do from time to time.)

So it was with quite a bit of joy to hear that Jonathan, Jose Luis, and some other pastors and individuals from the Churches in the area were asking permission to take the initiative and clear the land to use it for at least a season, to help themselves financially, as well as tithe back to the mission.

It will take months to see how it goes, but it was encouraging to see them step up to the plate, always encouraging to see people try to use some down the road vision and planning, and to work together.  Seeing the picture of a clean slate, ready to plant...a beautiful thing. 
 

I forgot to post about a group from the US that sent down shoeboxes of gifts for the Milk Project kids.  They did it around Christmas time in the US, but that meant we got the boxes in March. You can probably imagine how excited the kids were, especially since it was a total surprise for them. 

The boxes were excellent...hand made/decorated, packed with great and useful gifts, as well as fun toys and other items, and all personalized for each child.  Pretty amazing stuff.   To see the kids also eager to take much of what they just received, given what they can call their own is very little, and to be excitedly talking about what they were going to share with their brothers, sisters, and parents is so nice.  

Speaking of the Milk Project, we had the group from Outlook Christian Church here in April, and seeing one of the previous posts about kids that have had to leave the project...they had the idea of inviting all the kids for a special time to come back.

In the future when we get sponsorship for all the kids currently in the project (we are at 30 of 50 right now) Maria really wants to have at least one day a week these kids can come as well.  Love her vision and desire to continue to pour into these young people's lives for Christ.

It was a different dynamic with teenagers than giddy little kids, but it was deemed a hit...especially when we invited 30 and wondered if half would come...and in the end there was something like 35-40 that came.  What that says about what the project does, and what it represents...humbling. 

In my time here I have only seen it hail twice. The second time was Tuesday, our first rain of the coming rainy season.  It was a gully washer, with the hail, tons of lightning (more in that storm than in many years of living here combined), and quite a bit of rain for the hour or so it lasted.  The hail was harmless (unless you were out walking I would imagine) but made for a pretty sight...as close to snow covering the ground here that we are every likely to see.  It never blanketed the ground, but was closer by the end of the storm than in this early picture.  

 


Seeing only feet (look closely...above the container on the right above Jorge) means the plumbing is going in on the third floor, one step (or shimmy in this case) closer to finishing by the end of May at the latest, and that is also a great thing to see. 
 

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