Grease. Girlpower. Grace.

Words for the Day.

Girlpower

Grease. Girl Power. And Grace.

Grease because our team needed a bunch of sun tan lotion today. It was a hot day here and several of us have some sun burn. So lotion was used liberally and often.  Fortunately by the end of the day we were all still in good spirits and no one had their sun burn get worse. Grease is also a word for the day because our team worked like a well oiled machine. We worked hard, we worked efficiently and at times  during the day every single person on our team was active and working. It almost looked like a bunch of ants scurrying about.

Praying for strength

Today was a BIG work day. We put up the four walls of the house we are building.  This involved metal studs , drill guns and plenty of screws.  Which brings us to the second word for the day “Girlpower”. The girls on our team are truly amazing workers. They were working together  and built the back wall… all on their own. Liz is the queen of the screw gun. Laura was the team captain. Linda was the measure expert. Lenuta, Amanda, Esther,  and Kelly were the super-duper stud holders.  They did a fantastic job putting together the wall, which is no easy task.

The second wall going up

While much of our team built the walls, the rest of us spent the day pulling nails.  We took all the wood from the dinkonated house and pulled all the nails out so the family could use it to build other structures or give it away. Building materials here are hard to come by, so pulling nails is a simple way for our team to serve Claudia and her family. As a thank you to our team Claudia bought and prepared dinner for us tonight… barbecued chicken and rice!

Grace was an important word today.  Remember how we mentioned yesterday that a family we met had been deported from the United States last year? Let us tell you part of that story now.

Art and Heather were living in Washington, USA, with their daughter Sarah. Then unexpectedly Art was deported, and so Heather and Sarah moved with him to San Luis, Mexico. While this might seem like a bad turn of events, the truth is that they were in God’s hands and He intended to use their new circumstances to draw them closer to Him and bring both healing and freedom to their lives.  You see their lives were filled with pain, frustration and addiction. Heather suffered from depression and diabetes and Art was an alcoholic. After arriving in San Luis they started to attend church here at Inglesia Ismachias and meeting with Pastor Enrique. Over the last 12 months God has transformed their lives. Art has been sober for a year and Heather’s blood sugar has been normal.  Art told us that being deported was the best thing that could have happened to his family. Heather said that although the house they live in does not have water or electric, she is happier then she has ever been. For the first time, her life seems calm. Not having a TV allows her and Art to talk and for her to be quiet and pray. God’s grace has been miraculous in their lives.

Mike Suit and Art

Today we needed to install some windows and doors in the walls we were building, but we couldn’t get the right wood and so we had no frames. Bob Ray asked a family to let us use ones that were to be installed in their home next week. By giving us the frames they probably wouldn’t get windows for another month.  The family Bob asked were Art and Heather. They said of course you can have the frames. God has been so good to us how could we say no? And then Art volunteered to join our team and help out. So today we painted the frames that we will install tomorrow, and Art worked with us all day long.
We have been working through Philippians chapter 2. Today we talked about verses 5-7.  “Have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had”… even though He was God  He laid down  divine privileges and served us, because He was humble. Today our team worked on having this same attitude – To lay down our rights in order to serve others.  And today we truly did live this out. It was an amazing day.