Make me a Servant.....Thursday

It is our last day for the gospel campaign at Purral church of Christ.  With each day we have grown closer and closer to our brothers and sisters here.

Today  Diane had planned a surprise for our sisters here in Costa Rica.  We started the ladies' class by singing "Make Me a Servant" and then Diane said we would be studying about Serving.  She then read, 

Matthew 20:26-28

27 and whoever wants to be first must be your slave-- 

28just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

Then Diane said something like,  "You have served us this week with humbleness and love and now we want to serve you.  We want to treat you with a spa day."

We set up stations and we spent the next 2 hours pampering the ladies who had done so much for us during the week.

We had:

Foot wash/Sugar scrub

Rinse/Massage with special foot gel

Shoulder/Head Massage

Manicure/Pedicure

I had also brought some of my Doterra essential oil blends.  I had Kris our translator (the preacher's sister) explain how they worked.  I had them each smell Elevation, Serenity, and Balance.  They picked the one that "spoke" to them.  I put some on their neck, as well put a drop on their hands.  They rubbed their hands together and smelled it.  

Everyone loved the spa day.  All of our ladies participated, both young and old.  I did the oils and then was just running around helping as I was needed.  As you know, coffee is very big here.  There's is always a huge pot brewed at the church.  I then got the idea to get coffee and cookies for the ladies.  They loved that too!  As we were finishing and cleaning up, Teresa Denney shared a poem she had read before:

(I actually think she may have combined several things.)

Several of the CR women were moved to tears as they expressed the gratitude.  It was a touching and humbling experience.  It is amazing out love and emotion can be communicated even with a language barrier.  (Of course, we did have a translator.  Believe it or not, the more you are around people that are speaking Spanish, the more you can understand.)

After lunch, we again had our afternoon work.  (VBS at the children's home, painting & door knocking) I decided I would go door knocking for a third time.  We got out as a group, but split up in smaller teams.  I worked with Byron, a young but mature Christian.  It was great working with him and getting to know him better.  He is planning to marry the preacher's sister and eventually take over preaching at the church when the current preacher leaves for TX.  (He is going to a 2 year Bible college.)

I'm running out of time & we are heading for a Bible retreat at a local Bible camp.  I'm not sure if we will have wifi.  I may not be able to post this weekend.

Door knocking & Bible studies

Leydi & Michelle, my beautiful sisters, let me take a selfie with them!!

Today was another great day in Costa Rica!!  Our schedule was the same as the last few days.  I helped Diane in the Ladies’ Bible class again and her lesson was about prayer.

 

Do you remember how yesterday four of the ladies got a free gift from me, but I misplaced the earrings I was going to give them?  Well, I just knew I would find them in the hotel room, but I didn’t.  After I had looked all over everything in my hotel room, I said, “They must have been stolen.”  I didn’t really believe they were, I was just repeating the joke.  We go down to the load the bus and low and behold the bag that held the earrings was sitting on one of the seats.  So, it worked!!!

 

Terry, our leader, and Jessica Nivens, from the Keys, are enjoying popcorn and M&Ms during the reception time.

 

 

 

I told that story to our sisters in Bible class and let the four ladies choose the earrings they wanted.

 

 

 

You may remember how she bought nice Spanish Bibles and had the ladies of her church write a prayer request in the Bible.  Diane then took the ladies’ pictures and taped them in the Bibles.  Diane had already done this lesson with the church in Choluteca and the ladies who worked at Mololoa.  She had enough Bibles for the ladies of Purral Church of Christ.  These ladies also wrote cards for their new “prayer sisters” and we took pictures to put with the cards.

 

 

We ended the class by having a prayer chain.  About 25 ladies held hands in a circle and each person would say a prayer in English or Spanish.  As each person finish, they squeezed the next person’s hand.  This went on for about 15 minutes and it was a powerful way to end the class!

 

 

We had lunch and some fellowship and around 2 pm, the VBS class for children began.  The rest of us went door knocking to invite people to the rest of our classes.  We went to a new area that seemed even poorer than where I had been the day before yesterday.  Diane, Kim, Bev and I headed out with Diego.  Diego is a Costa Rican youth minister from another city.  I knew him because he worked as an interpreter with us a few days last year in Honduras.

 

The new area that we door knocked. 

 

We had only been to maybe 1-2 houses, when we went to a door where an older lady lived.  (I say older, by US standards she appeared to be in her late 60s or 70s.  By Latin American standards, she could possibly have been younger than me!!)

This little dog that looks like it is part Cocker Spaniel, is so sweet.  It follows it's "children" everywhere they go, even into the church building.  Today they shut the door, see her looking in and waiting!!

 

Diego starts starting to her and then he tells us that she had turned off her stove and she wanted to have a Bible study.  All of us go into her house and the room we were in was about the size of a closet.  Diego gets out his Bible and starts sharing the word with her.  She explains that had not been to church in a long time, but she had been praying to God and reading her Bible.  She had many children and one was in jail and the other lived on the streets.  She said that she was thankful for her home and her life.  We gave her contact information and she said she would come.  It was an amazing experience and I was very impressed with how talented Diego was at sharing the word!!

 

 

 

We had some time to spend having dinner and fellowshipping.  Some of our group had discovered a pulperia around the block that made homemade bread.  I walked with the group and we all bought and shared the bread.  The best that I tried had cream cheese and coconut on it!!

The famous pulperia with delicious bread!!  Chase interpreted for us.

 

Here was the men at the Bible Study today.  There is a women's group picture too, but I'll have to wait until someone posts it on FB.


 

Evening services started at 6:30 and guess who came???  The lady we studied with!!  Everyone from our Bible study greeted her and gave her hugs.  At our reception tonight, we served popcorn, M&Ms and cookies.  Tomorrow will be our last day here and I know there will be many sad hearts.  The minister, Christian, has already started talking about coming back next year!! 

This is Dennis, he always has a smile on his face!

Jenga in CR during fellowship, this was a legendary tower!!


 

 

The lady in hot pink is Gendry, she is the preacher's wife.  The lady in green is Crystal, the preacher's sister, she translated for us.



Thad, Terry, and Steve decided to choose another form of evangelism!!

Hasta luego!!

 

PJ  xoxo