Once more our friend Kathy is visiting us this year from the Seattle area. She is an experienced Christian family counselor who has worked with families all over the world. Her work in China with families and children is especially interesting. We decided to focus on setting up individual counseling sessions with families connected with our missions and also with the community day care programs and elder programs with which we collaborate. With us also is Deaconess Intern, Ellee, who is working with the Center for Hispanic Studies in St. Louis. We read an Easter devotional written by Dr. Loren Kramer translated into Spanish for some 100 elderly. We distributed small crosses to each and Ellie gathered small groups of elderly to read from God’s word and pray with them. Since doing mission work in Guatemala, it was a good opportunity for her to brush up on her Spanish. She also led the exercise class with the elderly which was lots of fun I heard. Kathy and I were cloistered in a back room with women and their children who wanted to seek Kathy’s counsel on various matters. We heard stories of tragedy after tragedy. Kathy shared words of encouragement from God’s Word and we prayed with each of the families. We were able to offer booklets of various family topics which they were so happy to receive. We asked many of them if they had a Bible at home and they said they did not but would like one. We are going to have to step up our requests for bibles since we only have one box of bibles. Especially as we begin our new outreach in small groups next week we will have to provide our group leaders bibles for their groups studies.
We also visited Pastor Gilberto. We were walking by the church and happened to see a gentleman we had gotten to know through the elderly outreach and he mentioned his wife has been very ill and we asked if we could come in to pray for her. The gentleman mentioned to his wife how CPTLN has been supportive of the elderly in their community and we had an opportunity to say we work closely with Pastor Gilberto. Pastor led prayer as we gathered around Doña Francisco to pray for her. An excellent moment to ask God to meet the needs of that family, an opportunity to make a connection to a local ministry. This is exactly how it is supposed to work. Please pray for Pastor Gilberto who has had some health issues, especially with his eyes.
After that visit we returned for more counseling sessions with women whose work schedule was over at 6pm (after their 12 hour day). It was wonderful to see the women walk a little taller and more confident, calmer and more peaceful when prayer was over and they stood up to leave. That is what God can do.
Tuesday was a day similar to today and tomorrow more sessions are scheduled and Friday also. Saturday we have a larger workshop. Please keep us in prayer….this week is a heavy schedule…..full of many opportunities.
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How wonderful the way the Lord is working! Our prayers are with all of you as you continue to reach out into community and share Christ’s love… just as he would if He were with us today!
I’m somewhat sad that we can’t be there this time, but it’s clear the Lord is acomplishing some very specific things that might not have otherwise happened had there been a larger group. His timing and ways are PERFECT! As I read your post, I continue to be reminded how we must be yielded to Him, always flexible and ready to respond quickly when He presents us with opportunities to minister & serve His children!
In Christ for the lost
Ron