October is almost here and it is hot!!

Hola familia y amigos! Another week has gone by with a few highlights to share. This past Saturday evening the whole school loaded up in the back of the extra long truck to go to town for a music festival that was being held at the church in town. The kids were performing in the program. The voice choir, hand bell choir, and recorder choir all performed, as well as some special music’s by different students. The students did very well. We learned more about Bolivian culture while being there. First off we got there at 4:30 to prepare and the program was supposed to start at 5:30. At 5:30 they started singing as a group, while they waited to start the program at 6:00. Everybody is late in Bolivia. Finally at 6:00 the program began and they said it would last for two hours, but they had scheduled 30 different songs. We were just getting to the middle of the group at 7:30. At about 7:00, the bugs started coming out so thick you could hardly breathe, or maybe that was because there were so many people stuffed into the church with no ventilation. It was like an oven and literally bugs were falling out of the sky onto your head, face, body, everywhere. It made me think of the plagues that were sent on Egypt. It didn’t help that we had not eaten anything since lunch. The program did not end until 9:00pm. To top it off the performances were not very good. We did not end up getting home until 11:00pm, sweaty, dusty, and tired. The next day everything was delayed an hour, because when you are used to going to bed at 9:00pm and getting up at 4:30, going to bed at 11pm is really late! Another interesting experience we had this week was in Yata, the nearby town. The church is having an evangelistic series there and the students are helping put it together and the pastor from Guayara is preaching. The first night, the students got there and prepared everything and went out to invite people and had 19 people come. They were singing and waiting for the pastor to arrive and when it began to get late, they realized the pastor was not going to show up but the show must go on. So Keila, one of the other missionaries here, got up and let the Holy Spirit use her. She spoke about Elijah and at the end the people told her they wished she was going to share each night! We must always be open to be used by God and He will give us the words or strength or courage or whatever it is we need when we need it. The next night we went with the kids to town to help set-up the meeting. It is being held in the school there in town as we do not yet have a church building there. As we were preparing, the lights were not turning on. The energy for lights for the whole town comes from a generator and it was not on. We kept waiting and waiting and the lights never came on. We prayed that God would either turn the lights on or bring the people anyway. God decided to bring the people and even though we had not light 29 people came out. The students love to go out when we get there and invite people. They eagerly go door to door inviting the people to the meetings. Imagine that!! It is so neat to see them helping in God’s work like that. The pastor made it this night and gave a very nice, simple, but applicable sermon. It was very neat because as you looked up into the sky you could see thousands, millions of stars, even the Milky Way Galaxy and for me I would rather not have lights when I can look up and ponder God’s greatness right there. The meetings go for another 3 nights so we will see what other challenges Satan tries to throw at us that God will overcome! We have had at least one request to start Bible studies. Pray that God will work in the hearts of the people in Yata.