Today was our last day in Namasigue, and my last day working with our dear friends in this great community.
Evangelism – This was another special day today working with the evangelism team. Joseth was our translator, and he did a fantastic job. He is a medical student in Tegucigalpa who has been working with our group this week. It was a pleasure to work with him out in the community. Here are a few of the highlights from our day:
- We visited with three families who are members of the local church to encourage and pray with them. One of them had a 6-month-old baby girl that had the sweetest little cheeks I’ve ever seen.
- The team studied with two different ladies that had never visited the local church, and had never been through Bible studies. We studied with each for about an hour, and both said they would be very interested in continuing to study with the local evangelists.
- Every day this week we have attempted to go to one particular house that is fairly difficult to get to even in a four-wheel-drive truck, and every time the lady we wanted to visit wasn’t at home. Today we started in that same direction, and I began to think about what a pain it is to get up to that house and how unlikely it was that anyone would be home again. Well when we got there, sure enough, there wasn’t anyone at the house. However, someone came running up the hill and said that the lady was just down the road in another home and would be coming back very soon. We waited on her and ended up having a very long bible study with her. She ultimately decided to be baptized into Christ. I’m very thankful that the local evangelism team was persistent in their attempts to reach out to her, and not impatient like me.
Getting ready to baptize Sara into Christ…This visit was also special because her name is Sara just like my youngest daughter. Because of this I asked if I could be the one to baptize her in the river. I was able to show her pictures of my daughter and I promised her that I would tell her about the Sara I visited with and baptized in Namasigue. After the baptism she seemed genuinely happy to be a part of God’s family.
It is always a bittersweet moment to leave our friends in Namasigue. It was awesome to work this week with Javier, Marlon, Janier, Ricardo, Ariel and Erminio. I love these men, and ask that you continue to pray for them as they spread God’s Word in Namasigue.
From left…Erminio, Wayne, Marlon, me, Janier, Joseth, Ricardo, Joe
Tomorrow we visit a new village called Las Tremintinas, which is a community without an established local church. We will be working with a preacher who has never taught alongside Americans (with an interpreter) before, so it should be an interesting experience. Please pray for our efforts tomorrow.
Clinic – I honestly don’t know a lot about what happened in the clinic today, but I do know that Javier told the entire group about what an incredible impact that are having on Namasigue. It has obviously been a great blessing to this community.
Tomorrow these talented men and women will be setting up a full clinic in Las Tremintinas. It sounds like this will be a big challenge since the village is so remote, and because they will have to operate without electricity.
Closing out the Day
After we finished our day in Namasigue, most of the group went on a brief walking tour of the Mission Lazarus Refuge with Rebecca. Even though I’ve been on several tours of the refuge, it was great to get an update on the awesome work they are doing.
Once we finished the tour, I went on another 5-mile run around the ranch with Dan and Blake, who will be running his first half marathon next weekend. My legs are really feeling the effects of so much hill running, but it is always good to get in some miles.
For the devotional after dinner, I shared with the group some thoughts on personal evangelism along with one of my favorite stories from the book of Acts.
Looking forward to a new experience in Las Tremintinas tomorrow.