Wonderful Wednesday

Eduardo and Clara's house

Beautiful orchids on the farm (wild)

Plantain flowers

More orchids. Columbia has more than 150 species of orchid

Jairo and Rick in discussion before lunch

Dries, Clara, Eduardo and Christine

We apologize for being a bit late with Wednesday's blog post. We had difficulty finding a good WiFi signal and were unable to log on the whole day.

On Wednesday we started the day with devotion and prayer.  Some of the men then continued to work in the new church office to finish the dry-walling and painting. This is not completely done yet and some work is still left to do.
While Rick and Dries worked on their presentation for the evening class of ESL, the women went for a walk to the city centre square of Sabaneta.
At 11:30 we were picked up by bus to go to the finca (small farm) of Eduardo and Clara, two dear and wonderful people who has walked a long road with God. Both came from deep rooted Catholic backgrounds, but felt a deep need and emptiness in their hearts. Many years ago first Clara gave her heart to Jesus and then later Eduardo. Before Eduardo came to Christ this causes much division in their house. Clara demonstrated extraordinary faith by saying to God that Eduardo is His problem, not her's. God saved her husband eventually. Their initial contact with Evangelical Christians is what brought them to Christ, and these were missionaries from Canada. This is why they wanted to entertain us at their farm. They have a deep appreciation for the Canadians that helped them to come to the Lord.

The farm itself is very beautiful with many flowers, orchids, fruit trees. Lunch was excellent as well.

By about 4PM we were back and preparing for the evening's ESL, which started at 7PM. The ESL went really well and we had around 160 students. Dianne shared her life story, with God bringing her back from near death when she was ill. At the tables the students had the opportunity to discuss whether they believe in miracles. We also discussed what miracles we would ask for if we could choose any. We are noticing that many of the students are starting to open up and are starting to discuss deep personal things. It is wonderful to see God working in the hearts and minds of the people.

Prayer Requests:
1. Please pray for God to continue working in the hearts of everybody. Pray that they will be open to discussing spiritual things.
2. For Rick, who is preparing a sermon for Sunday. He has been invited to preach the very first sermon in the new church here in Sabaneta.
3. For the team members who are working to try and finish the work on the new church office. This office is located right here in the Aves Maria Mall. It used to be a store. Drywall divisions has to be installed and finished. This will be the primary area of contact for anybody that is interested to visit the new congregation.
4. Continue to pray for renewed energy and healthy for the team.
5. Pray for Jairo, Jennifer, Diego and Claudia as they prepare to be the new leaders of this new church of El Redil here in Sabaneta.
6. Pray for Friday night's ESL, as we are planning to present the Gospel of Christ to all the students in a concise format, using a Billy Graham Ministries folding tract.