Outreach opportunities!

We have been learning about all different types of outreach this past week. Wednesday is community service day at the school. We came to town with Salim, another missionary, and Limbert, a 3rd year student to sell granola to the community in Guayara. We go knocking door to door and tell people we have a new product that we make at the school that is healthy and ready to eat as is. The people do not know what granola is so we have to bring a sample for them to try. We tell them all the health benefits and most people wanted some. We sold 10 kilos of granola and had people asking for more. Salim has colporteured before and taught us a lot about the skill of selling your product. We asked the people if they would be interested in other vegetarian/healthy food in the future and many were interested. We asked if they would be interested in a cooking class and many of the them were. We are hoping to spread a message of healthy living to the community and build relationships that will hopefully lead to Bible studies. Saturday we did outreach in the community of Yata. Jason and I have a group of 8 students who every other week go to town and visit 8 different families. The way the villages are set up here you can just walk up to people’s house and everything is so open you just yell good afternoon and people will show up. You are practically in their house but they don’t care and they just invite you in or bring seats for you to sit on. We pray with them, sing hymns and share something from the Bible. This week we talked about the story of creation and brought felts along to show what was created each day. We showed them how creation happened in a literal 7 days with the last day, Saturday, being set aside as a day to rest with our Creator. One house we went to was out along a long dirt path and when we got there we yelled good afternoon but no one responded. We had seen the daughter on the way out and she had said her parents were waiting on us so we knew they had to be there. We looked around and accidently found them bathing in the river. The man was just in his underwear. He said hold on a minute. So we waited and a few minutes later they passed by in only their towels to go change in the house. A few minutes later they came out and we shared with them our message and had a nice conversation with them. Another house that Jason went to the mom was sitting in the hammock with her child when the child began to cry. The lady leaned over and started to let the baby breast feed. Jason and Javier, another student, were getting ready to leave and shake her hand so she sat-up shook hands and then leaned back over to continue feeding her child. Each house is an experience! We have also been participating in outreach right here on campus as we help teach the Sabbath school class for the kids that know the least about the Bible and for the community members that come each week. The past weeks we have been studying Romans which is a little difficult to teach to people who don’t have a clue what justification, righteousness or sanctification are. We are still learning what they mean ourselves. This past week we were trying to teach them the difference between being slaves to sin under the law and freely serving God which results in keeping the law. We used a rope to tie up one student and blindfolded him and put sticky notes all over him with all our sinful actions that keep us under the law and slaves to our sinful nature, such as lying, saying unkind things, thinking things we shouldn’t, etc. We said this is what it is like to be under the law and living according to your sinful nature, you become a prisoner. But when we give our lives to God He frees us and helps us live according to His nature and then we will produce fruit for His kingdom. We proceeded to free the student and put sticky notes with good actions that come from a life filled with the Holy Spirit. We can only pray that examples such as these will leave a lasting impression on the students. Jason preached this past week as well sharing about how we have a special message to share with the world. We are to be like Daniel in Babylon and Joseph in Egypt prepared for the difficult times because we have been faithful in the little things. We should be able to interpret the signs of the times and give a solution like Joseph to survive the crisis. We have been working a lot in the garden lately, because Jason and I along with Tara are now in charge of the garden. We have been trying to plant lots of new things so that we can get more food from our garden, food that will be ready before November when everyone leaves. We have been working alongside the students to prepare the ground, the plants to transplant and to sow new seeds. Jason has dug 300 post holes for the tomato plants. We have planted carrots, radishes, cucumbers, beans, zucchini and are transplanting eggplant and tomatoes that have already been growing in smaller bags. During this time we have the opportunity to talk with the students. One day this past week I was working with a student, Lizeth, and we were pruning the young tomato plants and all of a sudden in the midst of 100 tomato plants we saw one that did not seem to fit in. As we looked closer at it we realized it was not a tomato plant. Somehow it got mixed in with the tomato plants and no one realized. I don’t know what plant it was, but it made me think of a parable that I had just read. It is found in Matthew 22:1-14. It is a parable of a wedding feast that many are invited to, but when the servants of the king throwing the feast go out to get the people invited they do not want to come. So he finally sends out his servants to get anyone who is in the street who wants to come and they fill the banquet hall, but as the king walks among his guests he notices one guest who is not dressed appropriately. The rest of the guests were given a new robe, but this guest was not wearing the robe that was given and had no excuse for being different. He was thrown out. The parable is talking about the wedding feast in heaven and we must be clothed in His righteousness to be able to go. All we have to do is accept his free gift of righteousness. I was able to share this parable with Lizeth and this led to many other questions about Heaven, about what happens when you die and many others. I was able to explain to her what I have learned and others began to listen and ask questions as well. Praise God for opportunities to share our faith! Our whole lives should be an outreach to others; we should constantly be using opportunities to share our faith with others. School has been going pretty well. I enjoy teaching the math and science classes; although at times I wish I had a bigger vocabulary. The students have such a hard time thinking on their own. We are talking about the scientific method and I think they enjoy the students have several “study halls” when they really should be receiving history and health classes. Jason’s first English class went well. The students were able to answer questions in English and they are going to be learning how to pray in English. We received a stove this past week from some missionaries who are going to be gone until November, so we will be able to cook some food and supplement our diet with a few more vegetables and little less rice. God has provided money for the food for this week! But since we have been a little short on money, rice has been the main component of almost every meal. Rice three times a day is just a little too much. Jason has learned how to read music this week and is practicing with all the Spanish hymns. Max, a 4th year student, taught him. Another cold front came in this week and has brought cold weather at night, but luckily it still warms up during the day. We have lots of colds going around campus right now. The past week and a half we have had a week of prayer teaching us about the signs of the times and how we can prepare our faith to withstand trials that may come in the future. We have been so busy lately we have not had a lot of time to wash clothes. The girls love to ask you if they can wash your clothes. You give them 12 pairs of clothes and pay them 8 Bolivianos which is like $1.12. They get some money and you get clean clothes…it’s a nice trade when you are running low on clothes and running low on time. Well the solar panels are working good and we have had electricity all the time, although we do have to run the generator every now and then. Money has been given to develop the spring on campus so all the water that comes into the homes is from the spring. Right now you have to walk a quarter of a mile into the jungle to fill your 5 gallon container and haul it back to your house to have drinking water. Count your blessings for they are many!