Last nights meeting went so amazing! The church that helped us out, turned out to be a relatively good number. Mr. Jarvis (director) instructed each American that came on the mission field to line up. We numbered of, from 1 to 6, then divided into six groups. A Mexican church member was assigned to each group and we headed off to invite the neighborhood to come to our meeting in an hour.

The community homes are SO close together, the pictures can't explain it well enough to show how crammed all the hundreds of houses are. Not to mention the small space!

  I grabbed a stack of John/Roman booklets, and stuck a tract in each one. Ruth, Justin, and I, were to follow Carmen from the Baptist church in Mexico. We only could say a 'pequeno' of Spanish and the same with Carmen for English. When she introduced herself to us, we had a trouble trying to explain Ruth's name. Justin's was easy, and the Spanish name that is closest to Joy, it Josefina ( !I have adored and LOVED that name since I was young, so you can't imagine my excitement when I found this out!! ). But Ruth's name is very difficult since the R is rolled and there is no TH. HMMMMMM.

We did our best to explain, but Carmen seemed confused. We continued on the rough sidewalk, when it dawned on me that she had her Spanish bible. OF COURSE! I could show her the book of Ruth! It is awesome to communicate with people, have them understand, and not say a word :)

 

 Anyways, about the meeting.   We had walked into the neighborhood with time to spend before we started. Some of the Mexican ladies brought face painting supplies to give the people something to do if they came early.  I wasn't planning on having anything on painted on me, but when I saw the enthusiasm in Carmen's determined, joyful expression, I couldn't turn the Mexican people down.

The Meeting started with Brother Hector speaking an asking the children questions about this and that. Then the Americano group sang a song in Spanish with Ruth on her mandolin, Justin on his guitar, and me on the violin.

It went ok, considering that the pronunciation was different from the usual "Lord I lift Your name on high".

Another person from the Ohio group, whose name is Anne, played a song with me, I on the violin, Anne of the flute.

Brother Hector asked the kids what language we  should play in. Chinese? Spanish? French? NO! The children wanted INGLES!!!!! OK, we will... :)

 Day by day was our chosen song before going on to the puppets. This is what brings all the children, PUPPETS!

We are working on making the performance better, but the children still like it very much!
When the puppet show was finished, Ruth and I were invited to play something else, this song was not preplanned, just on the spot! I was quiet nervous, but I relied on the Lord to use these hands as He has always done, to make the music. Before playing the song, I really wanted to make the children laugh, so I screeched notes that certainly not make a 'joyful noise!' . Finally, Hector said to the children, "I can fix it". So I handed it over to him, he then raised it up, HIGH in the air to bang it down hard on the ground ( all in joking manner of course ), I made a terrified response to rescue my treasured item ( I knew he would never do it for real, but it was sure fun to be in the action! ). Well, all of a sudden my violin worked pretty good, so we played, 'I'll fly away". This song fit the moment, as many were familiar to it.

While we were playing, the guys behind us got the chalk easel up and ready to go. Chalk talks are so neat, they have a ministry all to themselves!

This night, seemed even more special. During the chalk talk, clouds built up, threatening to bring rain, but God held it back! In fact, right at the time of showing the black light of choosing which way we need to chose. The well worn wide road? Or the thin narrow path? Rachel was just about to put the backlight on to show glorious Heaven and destructive Hell at the end of each path, when a brilliant sunbeam came out of the sky, shining upward right in the middle of the picture!   Only God could be the planner of that!
So many people gave their heart to the Lord that night. Something in the air was so Holy, the presence of God was there.

How could I not come? How could I not see that the people were hungry for the Word of God, that even a motorcyclist had to stop and see the peace of his decision to give God his life.

How could I live a life and never grasp the opportunity to do something eternal?

   Go into all the world and tell the good news.