The magic of a projector

This will probably be a bit incoherent, but I don't have a lot of time...

We have been blessed with the ministry finances to purchase a projector for our computer.  In our opinion, it has already "paid for itself" in the response that it has gotten!  

We began working with the Quechua church in Chilca this week.  The pastor asked us to begin helping with their children's ministry - they have several things going on with children and they are pretty overwhelmed with kids!  On Wednesday nights, they have a children's worship service. On Sunday mornings, they have Sunday School from 10-12 and they have so many children that they cannot hold adult services in the same building (adults meet in the evening). This same church also administers the Compassion International children's program in this area, dealing with 200+ children on MWF for bible study, school tutoring, and feeding them lunch.  We will be helping out with the Compassion kids, too.

We started helping out during this past week.  On Wednesday night, we took the new projector to the children's worship and showed the first half of The Prince of Egypt (story of Moses).  Over 250 children showed up to see the movie, and many more children and adults walked in off the street to see what was going on.  We will show the second half this Wednesday and the church is wondering just how many will come this week!!!  They say that the 250 last week was a low number of children, since it was storming outside and everyone has to walk to get to church.

It was such a hit that the pastor asked us to preach this week (Thursday night service) and show the movie "La Esperanza" (The Hope) - an overview of the entire bible and it's application to our lives.  Then the Compassion International administrator asked if we would show it again on Saturday night to the Compassion families, since the majority of them are not Christians and the church wants to reach out to them.  

This morning, we attended the Sunday School class - 200 children packed the little sanctuary and approximately 20 volunteer adults led them in singing, lessons, a drama about sexual abuse, more singing, and serving snacks.  It was an amazing morning!  Again, we are told that the number was low today because there was a regional church "anniversary" program that took many of the families away this weekend to attend the program.  

This week proves to be very busy for us - we have a leadership training workshop set to begin in 15 minutes (AAAHHH!!!), we show the movie on Wednesday, we preach in Chilca Thursday, Billy preaches in another Chilca church Sunday, Thanksgiving (we are going to try to celebrate as well as possible), ... all of this on top of our normal schedule of teaching and leading bible studies.  Pray for stamina this week!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Amazing!

The title for this week's post is probably the word that I have used most often during the course of the week... AMAZING!  

• In an uncertain economy, when everyone seems to be cutting back and pinching pennies, our supporters did exactly the opposite and sent in MORE support funds than usual!  Amazing!
• And, of course, the USA elections were amazing.  I'm not about to debate politics here... Suffice to say that as a teacher who has spent the past 15 years in classrooms filled with underprivileged children and children of color & other races  who don't think that they will ever amount to anything because of their skin or their parent's place in life, I was so happy to see the USA turn this page in history.  Putting all of politics aside, this is a big step for the USA.  I hope that my former students are perking up and taking notice that they DO have opportunities and hope.  I sat and cried as I watched the final election counts roll in, mostly because I was thinking of a couple of my former students... Karina (probably the smartest child I ever had in my classes) told me one time that she really wanted to be a doctor, but "I'm hispanic and I'm a girl - it won't ever happen".  And Luis, who wanted to be a scientist, but "I'll probably just end up working on a farm, because that's all that us Mexicans can do."  
• During our morning quiet time, Billy was talking about how he really wanted to work with a certain pastor here in Peru, and how he really still felt called to work with children - especially street children and underprivileged kids.  And he was praying for that to happen someday.  That same afternoon, that EXACT pastor stopped by the house and asked Billy if we could come minister on Wednesday nights to a group of children at their church.  AND, as though that weren't amazing enough, he also asked us to help with their Compassion International kids during the week.  AMAZING!!!
• We took a hike with some of our bible study group and walked along the original Huanca trail (pre-Inca).  It made me think a lot about the paths that the people of the Bible walked - primitive, rocky paths on the sides of mountains.  The view was spectacular!  We were hiking along the ridge at the top of one mountain and looking out over the valleys on both sides.  And across the valley we could see Huatapallana and the snowcapped peaks of the Andes.  The sky was incredible, the fields were beautiful... it was amazing!  And I don't think I'll ever get tired of seeing real shepherds herding their sheep, or of donkeys carrying loads of harvest on their backs, or of Quechua women carrying giant bundles of fresh cut flowers on their backs.  AMAZING!

Hope you see some of God's amazing work this week... it's there!  Just look for it!