I spent the entire last week on the border of Mexico with about 30 people from FBC Mabank. I know some of you might be thinking that it is sketchy, and I never should have gone because I might have been raped or murdered. Well, I wasn’t just in case you were wondering.
It was a great week. We had the opportunity to build some Sunday School rooms for a smaller church in the San Juan border town of Texas. We built during the day and hosted a revival during the night. I will just give you a short preview of what we did.
The church has been meeting in this sanctuary, it has about 10 older pews and parts of the church were unfinished. When we arrived we were greeted by the pastor, Jose. He spoke a little bit of English and there were a couple of younger ladies that were very fluent.
We started building on Monday and by the end of the day we had the foundation, the walls up, the trusses in place, and the plywood on the top. We were ready for the shingles to go on after Day 1.
Needless to say, we were cruising right along with no headaches… except for Clint who my dad hit in the head with a board.
Day 3 we put up the interior walls up, finished painting the outside, trimmed out the windows on the inside, hung ceiling fans and lights inside their santuary as well as the new building, built the porches and painted all of the inside walls.
Their santuary did not pass inspection, so they had been doing church without steady electricity for a couple of years. We were able to get it up to code so that they can now get electricity hooked up permenantly.
I want you to scroll back up to the first picture and take a look at the 10’x15′ metal frame and tarp sitting next to their building. This had been their Sunday school classrooms since the church has started. There was an old pew that was unbalanced, cousions ripped, sandy and barely under shade. This is where they had been doing their morning bible study.
As we were building the porches we had to move this shade around so that we could put them in the correct place. Once we got done, we asked the pastor, “Would you like us to move this into the middle for you?”
His face brightened up, “I don’t need that anymore.”
The look on his face when he said that words cannot describe. He was truely thankful. He didn’t need that rusted frame anymore because he had this new building. God had blessed him with a building for him for his church.
God blessed me by being able to see each and every one of the people’s excitement for their new building.
I love Jose. I pray that God will bless this new building and his ministry there at Centro Familiar Cristiano Emanuel.
This was my first year with the missionaries but they go every year and build buildings for churches in these communities here. I was able to meet the pastor from the previous church. His name is Manuel.
Manuel is such an awesome brother in Christ. As I spoke to him about the World Race he was very excited for the things that God was doing. I could tell that he was Kingdom focused right from the get-go. He was quite the jokester. We would be talking about how we could barely understand any of the Spanish and he would laugh and say, “Yeah, me too.” It was great. I was able to hear his testimony from my dad and I would like to share that with you.
Manuel has been a pastor here and he was bouncing from building to building with his church. They were renting and were constantly having to move the church as a lease would expire. One day the Lord gave him a vision. He would receive a church at no cost and it would have lots of land so that he could grow his church. He was very excited about the vision the Lord had given him and he happened to be going to a pastors conference that day. He told the pastors there and they laughed at him. The next day he received a phone call. He was given his church along with 5 acres.
God speaks to his people. He wants a relationship with you. He doesn’t want you stuck in servanthood, he desires your friendship.
He quickily out grew that building and was in need of additional space so the team last year built him a new building.
When asked how the new building was doing. He calmly said, “Oh well, we have only doubled.” Their church doubled in size! That is exciting. His daughter has also been doing her own mission work throughout the world. This is encouraging to me to know that people from all cultures of Christianity are sacrificing their comfort to allow God to use them.
Manuel and his wife are very sweet people. Manuel is also subscribed to my blog. Thank you Manuel for the work the Lord is doing in your life. Thank you for your passion and allowing the Lord to use you. Continute to trust his Spirit’s calling on your life.
I want to challenge each of you this week. Pray for God to show you one person each day that you can minister to. Listen to God’s voice, he will provide you with the person in need. Will you minister to them?
