I’m starting this in May, just before midnight my time, so it’s already June for most of you.
This is the committee I work with on evangelistic events. At the far end is Rafael, the pastor and one of the founders of the El Faro church. Cony, in pink, and her family have been there a few years, but the others are fairly new to the church. Ana Rita and Bernardo, beside Cony, came to the Marriage Conference and have been faithfully attending El Faro ever since. They just shared the news that they’ll be getting married and want their wedding to be an evangelistic event! There will probably be at least one other couple (who never had a church wedding) and maybe those who want to renew their vows. We have our October event!
The men of the church organized the Mother’s Day celebration and a delicious meal. You can see photos on the church Facebook page under the sermon Agar e Ismael: https://www.facebook.com/iglesiaelfarolapaz/
Ana Rita, Cony with her two kids and I helped out making bookmarks and preparing the flowers for the mothers. We’re already working on the decorations for Father’s Day. We also have another evangelistic event this Saturday. The kids and youth are invited to come and bring unsaved friends to make felt bears and learn about how God created each of them uniquely. Please cover these events with your prayers.
I’ve been teaching at the ladies’ group this month and will finish the lesson next week. I also had the opportunity to teach one of the Wednesday night studies. I enjoy teaching! On the discouraging side, María Luisa started working and hasn’t had time to continue to meet. Please continue to pray for her and her marriage.
Last week a group on a Vision Trip came. They were adults who feel the Lord leading them into missions. They were going kayaking one morning and I tagged along. More about that a little later. Now the point is that Tammie was one of the ladies on that trip. (Her hand is on her hat.) She was wanting to stay on after the group left, so I’ve been coordinating that aspect. She just returned to La Paz this afternoon and will be here until June 12th. She will be teaching at Saturday’s event, helping me with some multimedia projects for El Faro, working a lot with Transformados (a TEAM sports ministry), and attending some of El Faro’s meetings. Please pray that she would sense the Lord’s direction for her life while she’s here and that she would be blessed and be a blessing in all the activities.
While they went across the inlet, I went exploring back in the mangroves. As I drifted through the narrow areas, it was fun to watch all the Mangrove Root Crabs scurry up the branches, but I was also hoping that none of them fell onto the kayak!
On the way in I saw these adult and juvenile Yellow-crowned Night-herons, but what I was really hoping to see was the Green Heron. While I was able pass by several birds without them even ruffling a feather, the Green Heron is a scaredy cat. I would catch glimpses of it flying away. Moments after I took the mangrove photo above, it flew into the branches straight ahead of me…
I was able to get a couple of photos with it’s neck stretched before it flew away with me in pursuit. I was pleased to get a photo of it in its more typical stance before it took off again.
Birding, kayaking and skin diving are all relaxing and refreshing activities for me… and I’ll need to do a lot of them in the next little while to offset the stress of learning a new program. Martin came with the Vision Trip and brought Susie’s old computer. It’s better than the little computer we’ve been using for the PowerPoint presentations for church activities, BUT we’re switching to using the Google suite on it. I’ve watched some tutorials and have experimented a bit and hope to be able to start using the new (to us) computer and program this Sunday. Please pray for me to be able to learn quickly. I welcome all the advice and help you could send!
As always, I’m deeply grateful for your prayers and emails. I still need to try to get caught up, but other activities have taken precedent and I don’t have much hope to be able to dedicate time to it in the near future. Please consider this to be an answer to those unanswered letters.
May the Lord bless you and keep you,
Brenda
