Packing Night

We packed our team bags tonight and had a wonderful time. Please join me in thanking the Lord for Al & Mary Mendenhall, Bill & Sue Brody and Bob Devine for their help tonight. You guys and gals have been a great blessing to us all. Below Mary giving a quick farming lesson to Al, apparently a lesson with a bit of humor.

And Bill and Sue seem to be quite shocked at the numbers on the scale. Of course there's more humor because I'm the one being weighed.

Notice Bob in the background. In every picture Bob is working away taking care of all the details. Hard work and deep thought must go together.

Of course it wasn't all hard work. There was time for promoting a fine American product - Jell-O. I think Shelly is putting on the full-court sales pitch and Homer isn't buying. So much for her sales abilities.

I wonder how many U.S. citizens really think about Jell-O no-bake mixes. I can trot off to the local grocery store and pick up just about any food imaginable, including Jell-O no-bake mixes. Shoot most of the time I can have someone else cook dinner for me and even deliver it to my home. But this isn't the way most of the world lives. We complain and clamor about equality and lift this up as a great virtue, but do we really see world-wide equality in the 21st century?

I have so much, I need so little and yet dog gone it all if I don't horde for myself and fail to really live out world-wide equity. Thank you, thank you, thank you to all of our supporters who have sacrificially given so that we may inch closer to real equity in this world. I have been deeply touched by your generosity. You have brought the words, "that now at this time your abundance may supply their lack, that their abundance also may supply your lack" closer to home. Isn't it a simple yet profound truth that the right thing to do is for those with abundance to supply those who lack? I need to give Jell-O a little more thought.

Thankfully everything fit in the allotted containers and now we trust that it will arrive safely in Trinidad and on time. Here is what we started with just for the nursery:

So again, thanks to everyone who helped out tonight. Many hands made light work and each item was tenderly packed with loving care. You guys and gals are great. Be blessed.

Obstacle...

Well, we’ve hit our first obstacle in this great adventure. LAB has cancelled our flight from Miami to Santa Cruz, Bolivia. LAB very graciously offered to fly us down a day earlier, but unfortunately there are not enough available seats to get us from Minneapolis (and Portland) to Miami. So, we’ll leave on July 3rd instead of July 1st.

One of the wonderful things about our great God is that He permits (or causes) changes in our plans to bring about a better plan. There is something very special in knowing that God is God and we are not.

As I think about the heartbreak of this team waiting an additional two days to meet and be re-united with the wonderful people of Bolivia I’m reminded of Proverbs 13.12:

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
But when the desire comes, it is a tree of life.”

Doesn’t that sum up the Christian experience? We long to be with the One we love – and our hope is deferred for a brief moment in time. But hope deferred is not hope that disappoints; it is hope that ultimately becomes a tree of life. So we press on and pray on with confident expectation (hope).

Bolivia Team 2006

Bolivia Team 2006
Hi Everyone!
Alicia here, I'm new at this so we'll see how this works.
If you have read the previous posts you already know a little about what we are doing and where we are going. Please continue to pray for us as the mad scramble to get all our luggage and anything else together by Saturday, July 1st begins.
Anywho, I don't have much to say, so type at ya later!
Alicia

Here is the team from Minneapolis at our last team meeting. We're missing our teammates from Iowa, Colorado and Oregon.

Demos Gracias al Señor

Demos gracias al Señor
Demos gracias
Demos gracias por su amor

Demos gracias al Señor
Demos gracias
Demos gracias por su amor

Por las mañanas las aves cantan
las alabanzas de nuestro Salvador
y los cristianos también cantamos
las alabanzas a nuestro Salvador

English version:

We give thanks to the Lord
We give thanks
We give thanks for His love

We give thanks to the Lord
We give thanks
We give thanks for His love

In the morning the birds sing
the praises of our Saviour
And the Christians also sing
praises to our Saviour

Cristo Mi Salvador

Cristo mi Salvador me guardará
Me guardará
Me guardará

Cristo mi Salvador me guardará
Siempre me guardará

English version:

Christ my Saviour, He will guard me
He will guard me
He will guard me

Christ my Saviour, He will guard me
He will always guard me