Adventures WorldRace SethBarnes Sponsorship Giving

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We are done with our first week.  It seems like we just got here…but on the other hand, it feels like we have been here a long time.  Our ministry is split between working at a farm near town and going into the mountains to two village (one has a newly planted church and the other is in the beginning stages of the church plant process).  
 
The farm:  

We are working SO hard.  However, I always use to say I was born too late because I loved all the old ways of doing things.  Well, I wasn't born too late…I had just never been to a place like this.  They farm like people did back in the 1800s.  We do everything by hand.  We clear the ground by hand with pickaxes.  We are watering with irrigation ditches that we are digging by hand.  Also, on this property they are going to build a septic tank (The missionary who will live here forever is going to build a house at the farm.)  So we are digging a hole for the septic tank….you guessed it…by hand.  AND it is the rainy season…so we have emptied the equivalent of a small swimming pool by hand with buckets.  The hole is currently about 8 feet across by about 15 feet long by about 5 feet deep.  It was half full of water…so you can do the math on how much we had to bucket.   Now that the water is out we are digging the entire hole to about 6 1/2 feet deep and about 20 feet long.  We come home every day covered in mud and looking like the creature from the black lagoon.  However, it is worth it because the food from this farm will be used to feed the people in the neighboring communities.


 

The Churches:

 
Several days a week, we drive into the most beautiful mountains you can even dream about to go to the church plants.  These are people who had not heard the gospel until our contact came a few years ago.  The first village we go to is called Cavito and the church is only about 25 people who meet under the banana trees.  We are working to start a children's program and and women's ministry.  The guys are working with the teenage boys. I love this village.  The boys there want to know more about the Bible and they are so fun to be around.  We laughed for a long time on Sunday as I tried to pronounce the Spanish names for all the books of the Bible.  The sad part is that these people live in such extreme poverty.  Their way of living has not changed much since Christopher Columbus set foot here.  They live by the machete and farm by hand to feed their families.  They are extremely hospitable and insist that we sit down and drink coffee.  We were told we could drink the coffee because it is boiled.  They grow their own coffee, roast the beans by the fire and grind the beans.  It is amazing.  People in the states would pay a fortune to drink coffee this good.  They put homegrown raw sugar in it which gives it a very unique taste. 
 

 

The second village we go to is Batey Chaquita.  There is not a church there yet, but our contact is working to get a foothold for Christ and start a church.  It is hard to go to Batey Chaquita.  Witchcraft and idol worship is still predominant and there is a darkness about the village.  I can't really explain the feeling, but you can feel the darkness and evil.  Some of the people have a hollow look like I have never seen before.  I have never really been to a place where I could feel Satan so present.  Our team always talks about the heaviness in the air there.  It may be my mind playing tricks on me, but it feels like the sun dims when we are there and the houses are a shade darker.  All that being said, the light of Christ is making headway.  We have met several villagers that have been freed by Christ and they have incredible joy.  I believe that in the next few weeks a breakthrough will occur and the people of Batey Chaquita will turn to the Lord.  I hope we are here to see it.  

Please keep praying for us.  We love you all!  God bless.