Church Projects Finished Up

Sorry blogging hasn't been done very regularly!  These are some pictures of improvements made on the church.  It is now completely painted inside and out.  We were blessed to have a couple stay a while. While here the painted the inside, build cabinets for both classrooms and stained the wooden things in the church.  What a blessing to wrap up all the church projects.

Small classroom

Larger classroom used as the main classroom right now.

This is what the kitchen looked like during the painting process.  It is now complete and functional.

We were also able to add concrete stairs on the hill down to Antioch house.  This is the view up from the house.  The brown building at the top is the church.

This shows the view from the top of the stairs by the church toward Antioch house. The stairs make coming and going much easier, especially in the rainy season when things get muddy and slick.  We are entering into the rainy season now.  Pray for a good one so the things around here start growing again. Blessings!

New Year's Blessings

The new year started off with the blessing of a new calf on the farm.  We were blessed with a female and look forward to raising her as a future milker. We are blessed to have fresh farm milk once again and the kids love spending time with the calf!

Here is a picture of Esperanza (Hope) at a day old.

Here she is in a recent picture.  She is growing great, healthy and sassy!

Christmas Program

Our new church building has been such a blessing!  We were able to hold a Christmas outreach program this year with the help of the youth of the church.  There was singing of carols, a play depicting Christ's birth and a clearly presented gospel message.  Afterwards we were able to pass out small gifts, thanks to a local business who donated them, and traditional hot chocolate and bunueloes for a snack.  What a great time of fellowship.  We pray next year will be even more fruitful. 

The kids were led in worshiping our Lord in the singing of traditional Christmas carols.

The youth of the church did a drama telling the story of Christ's birth.

Pastor's Conference

We were blessed to hold our second pastoral conference at the end of last year.  What a blessing to be able to teach the body of Christ sound doctrine.  We were especially blessed to have 13 Wayu pastors come all the way from La Guajira for the teaching!

There were blessed times of worshiping our Lord. We also held 6 different teaching sessions. Luis Fernando Gomez, Josh Harpole, Rick Riffle and Mike Riffle all shared in the preaching.

Mike preaching on the Gospel of the Glory of God.

Josh preaching on Election.

Building Update

We have been blessed to finish the tile and paint in the main sanctuary of the church. Since the last update we have also installed the fans making it much more comfortable in the warm weather.

The kitchen has been finished and is being used this weekend to prepare the food for a pastors conference this weekend.  Please pray for this conference as we have pastors coming form many parts of Colombia to learn of the holiness of God.  We will try to update you soon on the conference.

With new chairs the place is looking good!

We are in the process of adding a walkway to the front of the church and hope to have new pictures to show soon.

Church Building Update

The church building has changed much in the last month.  We are so excited to be using it.  Here is a photo update of the progress.

Mike, Luis, Dillon and some friends were able to work hard and get the roof on.

The day the roof finished the doors and windows arrived and we were able to have them installed.

With the completion of the roof, doors and windows we were able to hold our first church service in the building.  Though far from complete it was really nice to hold a service there.

This week all the plaster on the inside and outside of the church was completed.  Now we are working on the final electrical then will move on to tile.

Ministry in Ballesta

For the past month we have been blessed with the opportunity of ministering in the town of Ballesta (pronounced Bi-yesta with the long i sound).  It is a little town 20 minutes outside Turbana the city about 1 mile from where we are.  The people there are in desperate need of Christ.  We are able to send a team out to evangelize and run a children's sport program every other week.  In the off weeks we hold a Bible study for interested members of the church. The class is covering the 5 solas of the reformation by Ligonier ministries and a study by Steve Lawson on the doctrines of grace in the book of John.

One part of the ministry is to the kids.  People from the church go and play soccer or volleyball and teach a message from the Bible.  The plan is to start teaching the ABC's of God, a program by Desiring God.  Others minister to the adults in the area by sharing the gospel.