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| "Oh, the weather outside is frightful..." The 'street' outside Fundación Totaí yesterday afternoon |
There had been a few opening skirmishes in
October and November, but rainy season left no-one in doubt as to its arrival
yesterday, with a full-blown tropical rainstorm battering Trinidad for about 8
hours. Given that there have been some premature storms this year, the
foundations are ripe for an especially brutal season over the next few months
for the many thousands whose homes simply aren’t built to cope with it. Watch
this space.
But this weekend our attentions are turning
to a deluge of a far happier kind. On Sunday, our church will be having its
first baptism service for a few years and we’re excited to see a small group of
young people in the church take a very public stand for their faith,
particularly as a few are not from believing households. Paulo, with whom I
meet as part of the discipleship programme, is one, while Amanda’s Sunday
School assistant, Elisabet, will also be baptised.
Amanda and Elisabet had the teenage girls
from the Sunday School class at the house for lunch last Sunday. I was out for
a big chunk of it, as I had to pick up various culinary items (for which my
eardrums are eternally grateful – that Uno championship they played was getting
nasty) but they all had a great time.
This week we also went on the record with a
couple of work decisions we’d been considering and praying about for some time.
When we arrived here nearly two years ago, the Foundation took up the lion’s
share of our focus, while the church work was very much a side dish. But our
work in the church has increased significantly over the past couple of years
(and naturally enough – we are missionaries, after all) and now dominates our
weekends to the extent that we do not have a free day to ourselves as a family.
So from January 2012, we’ll be taking Mondays off, to help us re-charge the
batteries a little better. We also hope it will make us more available to
people during the week as we shouldn’t be so desperately pursuing a few hours
of peace and quiet.
Additionally, Amanda informed her health
colleagues that she will be scaling back her audiology work in 2012 to half-days, in
order that she can start a programme of one-on-one ministry with the
Foundation’s nurses. Currently, only one of the Foundation’s six Bolivian
nurses is a believer. However, from regular conversations with them, it is
clear there is a genuine thirst for truth there; many of the Bibles we have
given away in the last few weeks have gone to the nurses. Amanda is aiming to
find a weekly time with each nurse to meet, study the Bible and pray together.
With a growing church and increasing
opportunities for ministry, we’re really excited about what God has in store
for us in 2012. We just pray we’ll be good stewards of his blessings.
Prayer
- On Tuesday, Craig met with Jorge, a teenager in the church, for the first time. Like Paulo (see above) he will be meeting with Craig for a weekly one-on-one discipleship session. Pray for Jorge as he seeks to grow in faith while living in a secular household.
- Pray for the changes we’ve made to our work schedule, that God would be glorified in all of them.
Praise
- For the joy of seeing young people in the church declare their faith publicly as they are baptised this weekend.
- For Amanda’s year with the Sunday School class, for the relationships developed and for the personal spiritual growth of those girls.
¡Que Dios les bendiga!
Craig & Amanda
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