The team arrived in the afternoon of Tuesday, Jan 8. Yay! There were some familiar faces and some new ones! It’s all guys (construction) and Buster seemed happy! They will be building a structure for the church at Tomas Borgé (the old Dump). It’s our biggest Feeding Center and Pastor Bryan is doing a great job with the church.
The team brought all kinds of tools and supplies for building this week. They also brought some stuff for the ministry. I helped to sort and organize the stuff. It always feels like Christmas when we receive things from the states!
Mike got the chance to talk one on one with many of the team. That doesn’t always get to happen when there are bigger teams. We took the guys to get ice cream and came back to the team house and hung around and chatted. So much fun! It’s good to have them here. I can tell they are full of God’s love for the people here and happy to be on this trip to put up a church structure! What a blessing to me to get to be here with them.
The first 2 days were slow and kind of frustrating because of equipment problems and such. But the team had a good attitude and God made ways to get things done! The team generously bought a new generator for the ministry when our old one bit the dust for the last time!
The guys came home for lunch and then went back out each afternoon. It was very hot work. Some of them were wearing long pants and long sleeves, depending on their assigned task (2 were welders) and I felt so sorry for them in the heat! They always had great attitudes, though!
Some of them went street witnessing while the others worked on the building. Since we have been in the community so much, many are Christians, but there were still some who God appointed to accept Christ that week!
I had made some banners last fall that the churches use for special events in the churches. I needed some dowels for hanging and carrying them. Saturnino took on the project of making these dowel rods for me. Now, I would have just went and bought some broom handles (available, but expensive), but Saturnino bought a piece of wood, cut it into 2” strips (with the circular saw we received from the team), whittled the strips into round dowels. What a worker!
One of the guys on the team has a hobby/ministry of making plaques and such. Their website is “God’s Word in Wood”. He had made some neat wooden plaques for the church celebration. I had been looking for a logo for our Iglesia Pan de Vida churches and Richard’s artwork was just perfect! I’ll be using his artwork for my banners and make one for each of our churches. I’m excited!
The Iglesia Pan de Vida at Tomas Borgé community now has a large structure (steel posts and tin roof) that will hold many, many people underneath its shelter. It will provide shade during the dry season and keep the people dry during the raining season. What an awesome blessing from God!
I couldn’t tell the team enough how blessed I was to have them here with us. It was very tranquil and relaxing each night. They ate like North American men, which was how Erika, our cook, described it. She was happy that they liked her food and they told her often how great it was.
The guys were so sweet to the workers and pleasant to be around. They came in each day and washed their own dirty work clothes and were pretty low maintenance for us. What a dream team! Ha!
We had another team overlap in their time here. The Medical group from Eastside Baptist in Paragould AR came in on Saturday and spent Sunday with all of us and then left early on Monday morning.
Sunday church services were in 3 different churches. San Jacinto (also a stop at La Quimera), Monte Horeb, and Anución Celestial (a new connection for VOH). I enjoyed getting to hear the team share testimonies and messages. I’m always blessed by the teams and our Nica churches. God is so good to let us experience His love in many different ways.
The celebration service was awesome. The VOH Praise Band played and I always love hearing them. I got to stand off to myself and have my own time of praise and worship. The team was interspersed throughout the group of people (standing room only, I might add). There was singing and dancing and praying and praising and it was awesome.
The 2 teams (Crosslife Construction and Eastside Medical) were all guys. Miss Mary would be so jealous that she missed being here with all these guys! Lol Buster was in heaven with all the males, though.
The teams spent their Sunday evening (after churches) having a time of sharing and praising together. I went to my room to let the ‘guys’ have their special time. I could hear them laugh every once in a while and I could hear them singing. It was nice.
I love seeing God bring together His servants, even if it’s for just a few days in a different country. We’ll all be together in Heaven one day and we will already know each other!
The Medical team left at 5:30am on Monday for their remote mission. The Crosslife team went out and did Fiestas on Monday morning and afternoon. They had a wonderful time! I stayed at the team house to teach my classes, so I missed out on the dinner at Suyapa on the beach with the team. But I got to spend time with them in the evening. They blessed me so much with their presence this week. I don’t think the teams realize how much they are ministering to us as well as to the Nica people. God sends us just what we need.
There were 205 people who accepted Christ as God worked through the Crosslife Construction Team. And many people will be drawn to and blessed by the church in Tomas Borgé. All are parts to the puzzle that God has planned for this world of His.
Can’t wait to have the Crosslife Construction team back again in a couple of months!
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