Little boy going to church. How cute is that?
Matthew 6:26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?
I caught this mama bird giving these babies their food. It was quite interesting as she kept swooping in and out throughout the entire church service. She didn't care if we were singing or praying or preaching. All she cared about was giving her babies their food. What was even more interesting is that the people in the church weren't bothered one bit by their chirping or her swooping above their heads. So neat!
Inside of the church before many had arrived.
I taught the children the same story Greg taught and then they colored a picture of Jonah and the whale.
Afterward we went to someone's home to eat and this precious lady was doing laundry. She allowed me to take this picture so you could see how her washer works! ;o) What you don't see is that it that it had just hailed and the water was freezing!
The walk from church to where we were going to eat lunch.
We all laughed as we sat down to eat and it started to hail. The hail was falling through holes in the roof and bouncing on the table. The kids thought it was awesome as they tried to catch each ball of hail. I tried to capture the moment, but the hail was too small for my camera to see.
Sunday lunch, fried eggs, salsa and chicken, fried fish and salsa, yum!
This is the family I mention below.
The couple on the right is the pastor of the church we attended and his wife.
Hello everyone! Today we visited a church in another village to say good~bye to them. It was a great visit and we were very encouraged. Greg told the story of Jonah. It always amazes us that most of them have never heard the story of Jonah. Afterward we were so blessed when one man came up to Greg and said he has felt called to be a pastor but wasn't sure what to do. After hearing this story he said he knew he had to accept this call and he was ready to go to a seminary so that he could study to become a pastor. He asked me if I could encourage his wife as she wasn't very excited about his decision. I told her I wasn't very excited about the calling to be a missionary at first but once I realized that all God ever really wants is our obedience, I was okay with that decision. Obedience is never an easy thing to learn! By the end of lunch and hearing many of our stories of how God has alwasy provided for our needs and how He has never left us, she too was excited about her husband being a pastor. Really great day!
Okay, now to answer Amy's question. Do we have to leave? Yes. Why do we have to leave? Because. :o) No, just kidding. We work for the International Mission Board and they require us to take a respit from the field after being on the field for 3 or 4 years. We chose to stay for a 4 year term. The amount of time we take in the states can be different, however we are able to take up to a year if we have been on the field for 4 years. Greg is required to take some seminary classes and because of that we needed the full year for him to be able to complete his studies.
We are also required to go to different Southern Baptist churches and share with them what we have been doing the past 4 years so that we can raise support for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. This is an offering that is taken up in Southern Baptist churches once a year at Christmas time to support all of the IMB missionaries all over the world.
Our plan is to return to the same house we are in right now, to the same village and continue our work here after our time in the states is over. We have arranged with the owner of our house to leave our furniture and all of our things and pay to store our things for the year. Hope this answers your question.
