Go to the street coners and invite anyone you find!

Please be in prayer for Carlos – he is fighting a cold/flu and we want him to heal quickly!

Today is a day that will be difficult to put into words to say the least.  Thank you, once again, so much for your prayers – God was really moving in and through us throughout the day. 

We began this morning the same as almost every other since our arrival – at the local college – listening this time to the business manager of the school share a lecture centered on the country we are visiting and our relationship to it.  It reaffirmed once again signs that God is at work here and the importance of the work He is allowing us to do here this week.

We then walked to the train station and board a train headed about 20 miles down the coast where we met up with a local ministry leader and graduate to the college we are here supporting.  He then took us to his ministry center and shared with us about what led him to starting his ministry and the different phases it had been through and where he finds it today – mainly working with drug addicts and prostitutes but also to an ever increasing number of refugees living in the area.   We were introduced to ministry partner and two men who have been a part of the ministry and are now free from their drug addictions. 

The team then split into several groups and performed several tasks – talking with people on the street and inviting them to this afternoon’s meeting/fellowship dinner, going to the market to shop and then cooking for the dinner, and organizing the clothing closet they keep on-site.  After a couple hours of this work the meeting began – and it was moving to say the least.  There are a couple members of our team who have personal testimonies that involve being delivered from drug/alcohol addiction and they were able to share their stories (through a translator) with those attending the meeting, Mike then presented the Gospel message to those present.  Following the meeting the chairs were pushed back, tables were brought in and we re-settled ourselves around the tables and partook of a meal and many good conversations together. 

Today we saw two passages of Scripture come to life right before our eyes…

Matthew 22:8-10 – “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not come.  So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.”

Matthew 25:34-36 –“ For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” 

Following our time at the ministry we boarded our train and headed back up the coast.  We did a bit of souvenir shopping, ate dinner, and now are crashing for the night. 

Tomorrow we will begin our day with a brief meeting at the college and then board a train and head back up north to the same city we were in Sunday.  Our plan at the time of this typing includes working with a retirement home and painting a couple single moms’ homes.