Some time later Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us go back and visit the believers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.” Acts15:36
August 8, 2019
Bocas del Toro -
The trip up the two rivers started after a difficult ride at sea. I had never experience the sea so upset. The first group departed from the mainland port 40 mits before we did, but I am sure got to taste some of the sea waves. The thing is that is better to sail before noon, we went out after 12:0pm and sure enough we encounter the waves, wind and the high tide coming in, bad combination. God gave us good boat drivers and they took us close to shore until we reached one of the river branches, some of our team had to jump out the boat in order to help push and pull the boat, but finally we made it to our destinations. Our way out was by road and the road has changed so much that soon it will be a breeze to reach Guabal, for the road is almost paved.
Report from the three areas:
Dayra:
Mateo and disciples as well as the North American team have been coming to this area for almost 4 yrs, Mateo has done it more times. There is a group meeting as Elvira’s home, a lady the I thought would never come to Christ but Praise Jesus she did. The team served in the mornings at the school with the kids and at the afternoon the women and the men’s meeting took place, as well as the hut to hut visitations. On the last day which was Sunday, we had a good activity with the kids were many said the verse of the week and told some of the stories they learned during the week, at the end a nice meal was shared with them and they all ate plenty.
The school organized a day for cleaning and mowing the school surroundings, part of the team (men) participated with the mowing using “machetes” and it was a wonderful opportunity to have a men’s meeting at the end of the cleaning day and extend the invitation for the meeting that night.
At the end of the week we saw how the women’s group grew from 7 to 15, and 3 POF; nice was to see some of the teachers participate with us. I had the privilege of starting discipleship with one of the teachers that only needed a little push to receive the Lord and so she did. 3 were baptized and 9 homes visited, keep in mind that homes are at a distance from each other.
Tula and Chalite:
The team arrived well and usually we stay at the schools but in this occasion a house was assigned to them and it was a nice house. These two areas are totally new areas, therefore the reception to the Gospel is still in process but the results by the end of the week were good. Between the two areas there were 3 POF, 8 homes visited, 148 kids with whom the Gospel was shared, 14 on the men’s meeting and 16 at the women’s meeting, and 1 baptism from these two areas.
I mentioned that 5 got baptized, 2 from the areas and the other 3 from Guabal, and in the moment of baptism 1 person decided to trust Jesus. One sad thing happened that same day, normally our last day before departing the mountains the team meets at Guabal for baptism and spend one night together, it happens that the day in which all the teams arrived at Guabal, rained in the afternoon up in the mountains making the Dayra River to go up. It happened suddenly, nobody was aware of what was about to happen; the (head of water) that flooded the area, took by surprise several people and that same day 5 people passed away, they were found down river. A day in which the line between death and life was drawn.
One thing we can say, we prayed to see God at work and so we did. Our hearts had a mixture of feelings but at the end we can say “God had everything under control”.
We thank you for praying, investing and coming. May our Lord keep on blessing you until His return and that His Word may run and bring glory to Him.
In Him and until He comes back again. For His glory,
Talsy and David
“Mission starts with You”
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