Monday

The group left early Monday morning for a village over an hour away.  We met one of the pastors in the area, who took us into where the people were.  The pastor had a small service and introduced us to the people.  Mateo was able to do a skit on the good Samaritan and had some of the children participate.  We then broke into groups and worked with the children.  They loved the puppets and music and the coloring and games.  We were able to present the gospel through one of the puppet skits.  Austin Norton and Wendell Sheffield did an amazing job!  At the end, Daniel Gilliland did a terrific job of witnessing with the children's EvangeCube.  Before leaving, we were able to pass food bags to each family that attended.  The people were shy and standoffish, but were all smiles and would talk to us through the interpreters if we reached out to them.  

Once we left the village, we stopped on the side of the road and had the lunch that Jose and Alejandra's church made for us.  Once back on the road, our interpreters surprised us with a detour to a beautiful lake that sat at the base of the volcanoes.  It was an absolutely stunning area!  We were able to spend some time there and fellowship with each other and the people.  Elizabeth Sheffield met a lady there that was born in Dothan, spent some time working in Birmingham and currently lives in New Orleans.  She is a children's social worker for Covenant House and mentioned how the Alabama Baptist had just given them a huge grant that is helping to continue their work.  What an appointment from God that was to meet her!  

We had about a two hour drive back to Antigua.  This gave us the opportunity to share our day's events and plan for the next day.  We also got into some pretty deep theological discussions.  You can only imagine how intense they were with Mateo and Wendell being in the mix!  :)  Once back in Antigua, we grabbed a quick dinner at Monoloco and then hit the sack.  We were all exhausted!  

Thanks for the continued prayers!  The Holy Spirit has been moving and working through us.  Our prayer is that seeds have been planted in the people we've encountered and that we've been a living sacrifice for our Lord.  

The village children...

Our Group

The lake where we stopped...