We Have a Building!

Thanks to the grace of God through Los Altos Church, Calvary Chapel Apple Valley and Calvary Chapel Big Bear we have a church building at the river colony.  That's not including thanks to all the people that contributed to the prep work so that a building could be built!  Our thanks to everyone who contributed to purchasing dirt to level the property, laying a foundation frame, funding the footings for the building to be built on and much more.  

Today was a day of celebration in the river colony at Dios Me Ve.  A friend from GVCC Placerville contributed to pop up tents to give us much needed shade today, GVCC Watsonville left us their carnival games that they had used for the carnival they presented at Door of Faith Orphanage and Apple Valley brought face paints for the kids too!  

While Apple Valley continued to finish cutting out the front doors and windows to the church building, over 400 people were fed hotdogs, chips, bananas and oranges.  But before they even were fed, they were playing numerous carnival games and having their faces painted.  Many were even asking for their pictures to be taken.

I met a young man this weekend that used to sell drugs on the Dios Me Ve property previous to us purchasing it.  He came to check us out.  When asked what he thought of what had happened to his old space, he was glad for what we were doing.  He thought it was good and ended up helping for three days straight!  He was given a Bible and one of the Americans that came to build the church building, befriended him and shared Christ with him.

On Friday, two men were apparently on their way to buy drugs and again a visiting American that came to build, stopped the two men and with the help of an interpreter ended up praying with these two men to receive Christ!

Please continue to pray for us as we prepare for Bible classes to begin discipling people so that they understand why they need a Savior and so they understand Jesus came to give them abundant life here and eternal life as well.  

We will be trusting God to give us tables and chairs, the curriculum for Firm Foundations and complete NIV Bibles in Spanish.  

We are excited about all God has done and is continuing to do in this colony.  The Light of Jesus has come to a very dark place.  God is bringing beauty for ashes and hope for despair.  Continue to pray as we move forward in the grace that God is providing.

Progress Continues

The latest.... I was at Dios Me Ve today in Ensenada to check on the progress.  When I got there I saw a man with his two sons finishing up the footings that will hold up the building that is going up on Friday.  It was quite the site to behold, when you look back and up to the present, just to think of how far God has brought us. 

When I pulled up to the property, there was a man and two sons working.  I asked Hector who the man was.  He was someone from Hector and Maribel's church that Hector used to work with in the past.  He had agreed to do the work for the price of his son's tuition for school.

It continues to amaze me the investment that different people have put into this little dirt lot on the corner of a forgotten community.  It's as if the words "Dios Me Ve" (God Sees Me) have been realized. 

I have no doubt that in the very near future there is going to be a harvest of souls.  I look forward to the Light of God's love continuing to push back the darkness.

God Sent Me an Intersessor

Sometimes God sends you a gift that you are not expecting, desperately need, when you think you need something else.  This weekend, I got reacquainted with someone that has been coming to La Mision with her husband for quite some time.  Her name was easy to remember, because it was the same as mine.  But this weekend, when I had been asking God for more funds for purchasing food, He sent me an intercessor instead.  I wasn't able to purchase as much food as before because of a change in my income.  I kept asking the LORD to supply what I needed, but what I needed was not more money.  What I needed was someone that was going to intercede for me in prayer on my behalf.  Someone to cover me as I move forward in the plans God planned in advance for me to do.

It's interesting, sometimes how we pray for what we believe we need and find out that we didn't need it at all.  I brought my new friend Robin, to the colony on Sunday.  I also brought Cesar from the orphanage, because Tyler was home feeling ill.  Luis, from church, followed us to the colony too.  I brought lots of people to help and so did Hector and Maribel.  I was feeling a little sad about not being able to buy as much dispensas for the families of the colony.  

All the time and energy I spent on trying to figure out how to have more money for dispensas  had been totally unnecessary.  What I needed was an intercessor.  

When we started passing out the food we noticed that only about 1/2 of the people came that day.  Someone had spread a rumor that we had said that we weren't coming back with food anymore.  We actually had plenty of dispensas left over.  Please don't misunderstand.  The food will never go to waste for there is so much need wherever we go.  But I found it interesting how I brought Robin on a day that there were only half the people.  I wanted her to see the many people that come, but God had other plans.

You see, on the way to the colony, Robin shared with me that God had put me on her heart to pray for me.  She also felt she was supposed to come to the colony that day.  Then she told me that she was an intercessor for various people and ministries here in Baja.  

I am so very grateful that I serve a God that loves me enough to give me what I really need and not necessarily what I "think" I need.  I look forward to a wonderful friendship with my new friend, Robin. I love how God has weaved our paths in life together.  Then again, He's awesome like that.