VBS: "Faith comes by hearing..."

Bible lessons, memory verses, missionary stories, object lessons and gospel puppet plays made last week a great week for our towns children to hear and respond to good news of the gospel!

VBS: Food!

Mmmmm......Cup Cakes!

VBS: Fruit!

I preached, Paula, a missionary helper, taught, Tina, Leann, the Twins and church members worked hard all week long. But the fruit of decision's made for eternity made it labor and time well spent.

Vacation Bible School Underway!

Lots of practice, rehearsals, crafts, Bible memory, object lessons, bible stories, cookies, Kool-Aid and hard work, but well worth it! Thanks to some good helpers like Leann DeWeese, Tina, Sarah and Kristin,

we are having a great VBS!

Happy to Have Help

The gas shortage and truckers strike left us without some helpers, but we drafted a grandma and got a few people onboard who didn't know they were going to be in a VBS until today! Surprise! It turned out to be a good surprise for us, to have such good helpers on such short notice!

One by One

I visited in the home of this young girl Saturday. She is being raised by her grandmother because her mother died from drug abuse and her father, a former pre-med student, lives on the street begging for money. I have visited her home often, and seldom seen her smile and I can't remember her ever coming to church before. Well, here she is in church and smiling! God has a better life for her and we are happy to be here so we can help her find it and enjoy it!

VBS: Singing!

We have a good reason to sing! And not just because we survived the Gas Shortage that threatened to leave us without kids, helpers or supplies! God is good, whatever the circumstances!

Hot Evangelism!

Today was a real cooker. We are behind on our visitation because of the gas strike here on the island, so I did some extra visitation. Walking and visiting between about 10:30 and 4 o'clock today was a blessing but one of those blessing that I was happy to see end. The gas strike has everybody confused about how to organize their week, so our Vacation Bible School is in a kind of "up in the air" status. We are going to have it anyway, 9:30 am-12 starting this Monday, but we don't know if we will have helpers, kids attending or be able to get the things we need from town or from other churches. A key helper, the song sheets and the puppet stage for the puppet show we advertised are all in other places and hopefully will all come together this week for a successfully VBS.

Out of Gas!?!? A Panic Pushes our Pause Button.

A trucker's strike started a panic today. We had to postpone promoting our Vacation Bible school for a few hours today because everyone panicked at the rumor of a gas shortage and gas stations quickly sold out all they had. One of our workers had to wait a few hours to get gas and never did show up for visitation today. Tina dropped me off at a government housing project in a poor area of our town so I could visit and found an open gas station. She waited 30 min. to top off our tank and was able to join me in time to help us visit a lot of kids. Leann helped also by passing out flyers and posting signs around the neighborhood.

We are not sure if there will be gas tomorrow. Hopefully we will have enough to visit, shop for VBS supplies, go on the church picnic, drop the twins off at a sleep-over at a friends house, go get the puppet stage, etc, and all those many small things that become important when you can't do them. We had a good day of visitation anyway. Maybe more will come if they can't leave town for the beach!

Happy Birthday to Sarah and Kristin!

Our Twins Sarah and Kristin turned 13 Sunday! Teenagers! Happy birthday to two great missionary kids!

Can't get enough Summer Camp Photos?

Well, I just posted about 68 of them on the Kodak web site that you can see as an album or a slide show. Just ignore the frog in the photo and click on this link or copy and paste the following directly into your browser:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=j89cq5l.aju7l5s5&x=0&y=-a41eyr

I hope you can feel the fun in these photos of our 2005 Kids Summer Camp!

We Were Missed by Two Hurricanes but Have a Whirlwind of Activities!

Dennis and Emily just missed us, but the hurricane season is just beginning. We often have to cancel programs during the season because of fear that a storm may make land-fall close to a scheduled event. But we are planning a Vacation Bible School anyway! Please pray as we pass out invitations all next week for our VBS July 25-29.

Training is Draining but We're Not Complaining!

We keep breaking records at Puerto Rico Baptist College! We may have more than 60 students enrolled this fall! My classes are getting larger too. 14 students have signed up for my Spanish Chemistry class and 10-12 for the English Chemistry class. Our summer Biology class is progressing well, but we are looking ahead to the new semester that begins the second week of August. There is a lot of work to do before we start the school year, like searching high and low to find to find just the right text books for our Chemistry and Greek classes. I having a hard time getting chemicals. The new chemistry sets in stores are too "safe" (ie: wimpy) and only the state schools have access to materials we would like to use at Puerto Rico Baptist College. I am trying to get some Sulfur, etc through eBay, so we'll have to see how that all works out.

We are working on improving our Bible college in many ways. I hope to use our students contributions to make our school better in the future. I have a Biology student who has an engineering degree from Columbia and I have asked him to help me create an on-line Biology course for Spanish-speaking students. I am trying to have the assignments written by our students add up to enough material so we can make a web site. That way we can eventually offer classes on the internet to students in 22 countries where Spanish is spoken.

We are confident the time invested in these young lives is time well spent. As our students they return to their home countries, with Gods' help, they will multiply the ministry through evangelism, church planting and Christian education. We hope to see churches planted and our students teaching others through Bible schools in their own countries.

Coffee Socks!

The other day the coffee pot that fits into our coffee maker broke. In the meantime we are using a traditional Puerto Rican method of making coffee. It really is simple, no paper filters to buy, is reusable and a lot cheaper. Just put the coffee in the sock and pour the hot water into it. It makes me think that maybe we are not really better off for all the cost and complexity of our modern technology. Maybe the best progress comes from realizing its time to take a step backwards and simplify our life.

Calling All Campers!

33 Kids came to Summer Camp and what a blessing it was! I had many new object lessons I hoped would bring home some important lessons and the campers responded well to them. Here I am blowing a Conch shell, showing how God can make beautiful music out of the life of a humble creature. It was a fun week, but I am sure glad to be home again!

Chinese Water Torture? 

No, just Leann and other councelors trying to figure out how to get about twenty heads of hair washed in time for dinner.

Proud Pastor!

Leann and I tried hard to bring up the quality of the camp music program this year, and it went so much better than I had even hoped for! Leann is a piano major in college, but besides her, we had the Violin teacher from Maranatha college and two former campers, who are majoring in guitar and clarinet in colleges here in Puerto Rico. The Clarinetist, Elizabeth, has always been a star camper and now is one of our best camp counselors. She has just been accepted into the Puerto Rico Philharmonic Orchestra, our top classical music group on the island. Thanks to all these quality people giving their time and talents, many lives were touched and I believe that the Lord was honored by their service. I am proud of you all!

Hurricane Dennis

150mph Dennis missed us and hit Cuba. But it is headed to Pensacola, Florida where Bethany and Rachel are working at Pensacola Christian College. Please pray for our family, as we are all in Hurricane Alley. 

Big Job on a Small Island

Puerto Rico measures 113 miles from East to West and 35 miles from North to South. In this small space, we have 4 million people, giving Puerto Rico one of the highest population densities in the world. The jungle fools you and makes you think some parts are not populated much, but there always seems to be a home or hut around every clump of bamboo. The road conditions and traffic conspire to make the island seem so much longer. It is geographically small. But the job we have to do, the difficulties involved and the opportunities for success are all very great. We know that God can and does enable us, through his people and their support, to get the job done.  

Camp Crazy. After our Sunday morning service, we came straight home and started packing for our five days of camp. I will be preaching and doing object lessons during the week, sleeping in a crowded dorm with snoring men and fun stuff like that. Leann has made a bunch of song sheets and we hope to have a quality music program thanks to her efforts. It is very hot this week. Please pray for us, for the children at camp and my wife Tina who will stay behind and mind the fort.