First week in Peurto Barrios
Sweat is had been the theme of this week. The temps hasn’t dropped below 80 even at night and are above 90 in the day. And the humidity has been above 80 the hole time as well.
Once we arrived we met our contact Paul who runs a christian radio station called Shofar Ministries. They have several Radio stations. The one here sends its signal up to a mountain via UHF where it is then repeated all over Guatemala. There signal actually reaches all of Guatemala and into the edges of Honduras and Belize. They are not affiliated with any church in particular so they are able to work with many churches here in Puerto Barrios. Which makes him really easy to work with and gives us so many different options . So we have been doing all kinds of stuff this week so we can decide what to focus on for the rest of the month. After a hot and almost sleep less night we had the day to settle in and we went to one of the local churches Sunday night. It was awesome to just hangout and worship with them even though we didn’t know the songs we were able to just enter into worship and dance our hearts out with this small congregation. It is great to see how different cultures do church differently. They welcomed us in and where so happy to have us there.
Monday we dove rite into ministry and down at some of the local “Bars” which are just small building made of cinder blocks with tin roofs, small plastic tables and chairs maybe a TV, and dirt floors. The men that drink there aren’t there to have a couple beers and relax. They are almost all alcoholics and are only there to get drunk and stumble home if they have a home. It is really sad to see these men drunk on a Monday at 11:00 in the morning. We just hung out outside for a few minutes and some of them came outside to see what we were doing. I just started praying for a guy in English because I know very little Spanish and translator was already talking to someone else. As I began to pray that the Lord would just speak directly to his heart and show him how much he is loved. The man just began to cry I continued praying for a couple minutes and when I stopped he just looked up and me and we hugged. Then we went over and started talking to one of the local guys that was showing us around who speaks Spanish but no English. But it was just so awesome to see the Lord work through me to meet this man and show him love in a new way. Then a man came out of the Bar with a Seattle Mariners hat on so I tried to ask him if he had been to Seattle. And he actually spoke some English. Although he hadn’t been to Seattle he use to pick oranges in Bakersfield California. But was replaced by machines that do it automatically. We talked for a few minutes and then I prayed for him and we talked about Jesus. After a little while we ended our conversation and he wandered around for a bit before he came back over and told me that hes was done drinking and that Jesus was in his heart. I don’t know where he started out at before we talked or if he really will quit drinking but I will keep praying for him. Other people had similar experiences all around me we where only there for about and hour but God really moved and met those men where they where at. That night we went to one of the local parks, prayed over it and played some basket ball with the local kids that hangout there. I was able to play for over an hour running back and forth down the court without using my inhaler once. A far cry from last week when I was having a hard time breathing all day. So keep praying for complete healing of my asthma and allergies. But it was really cool to see how something as simple as a ball can bring people together.
To be continued….
