Mission Trip Stories from Pastor Dave

July 15: Field Day 2: Our water filter team visited Carmen Rayna, Justo Guillermo’s mother. Justo was both song leader each day in worship and my water filter team leader to the families receiving them in Quince de Julio. We visited his aunts and his mother and two cousins to give them water filters. Carmen thanked God she could walk until she was 16. She thanked God for Justo sharing his songs on the keyboard at New Jerusalem Lutheran Church and having 10 of the Christian hymns he composed recorded on a CD. She thanked God for Him using her to bring Christ to a number of her relatives and for them coming to faith in Jesus. She thanked God for Him bringing her back to life when she was close to death twice, just like Jesus was raised from the dead. Carmen is a shining gospel light for her entire church and village and the three of us visiting with her.

Speaking of praying for the families I visited, there was one woman I prayed with and for during the Health Assessment last year that I wanted to visit again this year. I was looking for her all week, and she was right in front of my eyes the whole time. Last year I prayed with and for Aurelia Chavarria. She said she prayed for God who is the “Keeper of all things and people” to keep her 27 children and grandchildren healthy and close to Jesus. I had been praying each week all year long for Jen, who is really Aurelia. Also Pastor Silvio said she had 40 children and grandchildren to care for, not 27. WOW!

July 17: Field Day 4: After our last water filter, Pastor Silvio and myself and our water filter team stopped by her house to see if it was the one I remembered since I had her name wrong. It was her house, with the 6 other homes of her children and grandchildren around hers. Many of her grandchildren came running out to greet us!

Another God-moment: When the children and adults were mostly done hugging us after the Jonah drama took place Thursday afternoon that I narrated and Andrea, Cindy, Bill and Bob portrayed, I asked Jose, my translator during the field days, where Aurelia was. Pastor Silvio told him which woman she was. She was the woman sweeping the dirt area between the church and school all of our field days this year and last year. She was right before my eyes all week long! I shared Psalm 121:5a:  “The Lord is your keeper” and explained how I had been praying for her and her 27 (really 40, but God knew) children and grandchildren and great grandchildren each week for the past year and would continue to pray for God to keep her and them close to Him, to “be their keeper.” I gave her a big hug, and she gave me a hug. God had planned that grand closure all week long!