“But having seen them and greeted
them from afar” This phrase is from Heb. 11:13 and certainly applies to our
bitter sweet Thanksgiving day this year.
Through the wonder of Skype we got to be with our family who were
gathered at Caleb and Della's house for the big lunch, getting to talk with
them all for a while and even getting to see the delicious desert but it was
still hard not getting to be with them.
November started here with The Day of the Dead which is a really big
event in El Salvador. Workers spent most
of the month of October cleaning the large cemetery here and then on Nov. 2nd
most of the people in all of Juayua visit there. We tried to visit some of our scheduled studies
but without much success. One of those
was behind the cemetery and it was amazing how many people were there in almost
every corner. At least they were just
taking flowers and visiting with each other around the graves. Some of our members asked us what we thought
about all this. We said that we visit
the graves of our loved ones sometimes and take flowers so as long as you were
just remembering them that was not wrong but we got the sense that perhaps it
is something more significant here. We
did have a good study with Douglas and Sonja, a couple we began studying with
during October and since we ended about lunch time and three more people
arrived we just had a big last minute lunch for everyone. We also got invitations passed out for the
ladies event on the first Saturday of Nov.
We did have a little smaller turn out but it went well. Charlotte taught on the parable of the sower
and made her patented chocolate cupcakes complete with pudding and oreo
crumbles soil on top with a gummy worm.
We also got a weekend visit from some brothers from the US on the first
weekend of Nov. They arrived on
Thursday and we got to meet them at the airport and have lunch together then
Thursday night we got to have the weekly in home gathering in our house with most
of the brothers visiting also. Jim
Norville stayed with us and we enjoyed his visit. On Friday night there was a
big dinner with everyone who came and several preachers here and their families
to discuss some issues facing the churches here in El Salvador in relation to
marriage. Saturday Jim and I got to
visit with some of our members that he has become good friends with and on
Sunday Jim led our Lord's Supper devotionals in Juayua and Salcoatitan. We rounded out the weekend with a big dinner
out with everyone. We spent the early
part of Nov getting organized for our “summer school” classes to begin at the
end of the month. We kicked off the
classes with a visiting teacher from here in Juayua who has won national
recognition for his classes. He taught
about robotics. The classes will run for
three weeks with two classes each week in Juayua and two in Salcoatitan so this
will take up our mornings. We had 22
students here in Juayua for the first classes and 11 in Salcoatitan. We hope that with having a big closeout
breakfast at the end to get to know some of the parents and invite them to
study or to services. We are already
getting to know some because all of the kids we invited live near the church
location and several moms walk their children to the building and pick them up
afterwards. On Nov. 9th we
had a new birth in our family, Miguel, a young man of 16 who lives around the
corner from our location was baptized.
He wanted to go to the pool in Ataco rather than just use our plastic
pool. Some of his family went and we
also are studying with several other members of his family. We also had a huge area wide Sunday service
at an event center in Salcoatitan and had a total of about 900 people. Charlotte taught a children's class even
though she had a cold and throat problems.
We also got to have a new family over for dinner that we have been
studying with and they have visited 3 services so we are very encouraged about
them at this point. I feel that this has
been somewhat of a hodgepodge but as you can tell we are managing to keep
busy. Keep Charlotte in your prayers as
she has had a rough month health wise. Also, she has been having a lot of pain
with a shoulder injury she got from lifting heavy furniture when she worked at
Encore so we are coming back in mid-January for a Dr. consult. So we will miss the Christmas holidays there
but we will see you all soon.
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