Amazing (and humbling) day at Santa Teresa. From the time Ben forwarded the pastor’s letter requesting help from ROW I have sensed the need to do whatever I can do to help. To borrow from Paul Harvey, today I got the rest of the story. I will be sharing this with my ROW Friends List and Prayer Partners a little later, but I know each of you will want to know asap and you will be some of the first to contact others and say to them, “Let’s go help!”
We drove up and found a crew working on the church. Pastor Juan Ishim was among them and very glad to see us. I was glad to learn his real name (I think email translation got it to us in a slightly different form) and greet him on behalf of a great big ROW family. He shared with me what had led up to our conversation today. Some months ago the church had begun a time a prayer about their building. They currently meet in the pastor’s home. They had been saving/raising money for about 15 years. They knew the costs to build the building and that info was in our earlier email. However, after their prayer efforts they decided to start building with the funds they had on hand. That prayer time also led to Pastor Juan contacting ROW/Charlie Joe. Today was the last day the men would be able to work with the materials they had purchased. They were going to use up the concrete that had been purchased and level out the floors. There was nothing left to do. It always amazes and humbles me when I see the prayers of God’s people close the loop. They had prayed months ago and today ran out of their own supply. Representing so many, and in answer to their prayers and the prayers of our folks, I showed up and said, “How can ROW help?” They were encouraged, I was encouraged, and it only seemed right that we pray together and look forward to being able to get teams in there and finish that church. So, we prayed to see the loop closed with teams coming back to finish the roof, windows, walls, etc. For those of you with construction knowledge/background, notice the picture of the rafters the men of the church have cut. They went in the jungle and cut the mahogany trees and milled those rafters. They are sitting there waiting on installers! I’ll get more pics up on Facebook and more for ROW website when I get home. Working on contacting Crique Sarco for tomorrow.
Blessings all!!!
Keith
ROW Collection Note Cards