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It's Hot!

 


Lately, it's been just plain hot.  Many days top 100F.  It's that time of the year in our part of Northern Bahia - the hot time.  It's the time when all the old people say things like, It has to get hot to rain, or It's so hot it's going to rain soon.  And it has rained once or twice over the past month.  Farmers get excited and start to prepare their fields, but it isn't quite time yet.

Sometimes it's feels like we have been preparing the "field" of our ministry for a long time.  It has been nine years since we made our survey trip all around the region, and eight years since we started weekly visits to our main focus community.  

We started with one-day trips, visits, the Jesus film and evangelistic outreaches.  Now, we spend the whole weekend from Friday to Monday.  We host two church services in a rented building.  Byron runs a soccer ministry.  We have home Bible studies with two families.  We make stops along our route to visit with families coming and going.

But, we need some "rain." By that I mean to say that we need to see growth - growth in actual salvation decisions and true involvement of those we say they already are.  It seems we need a nudge of something to push our little congregation forward.

October was a rather discouraging month with low attendance partially due to elections and holidays.  Added to that our absence in September seemed to prove that the leaders we had been hoping would step up to the plate didn't do all that we had hoped. I have to admit I have wondered a lot about what the future of our work looks like over the past few weeks.  

Added to all that, it's hot!  And I felt that our trip to the States in September wasn't enough.  I didn't have enough time.  I didn't even buy some of the things I needed to bring back.  Time just ran out.  Discouragement can really warp reality.  But, I can be thankful for the words of several friends that encourage me to "stick it out a little longer."  

Hebrews 10:23 from the Amplified Bible says this:  Let us seize and hold tightly the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is reliable and trustworthy and faithful to His word.  I think I'm still wavering, but I am looking towards the future and trying to stay cool!

Today I cleaned out my clothes closet and found a little gadget my mother gave me a long time ago.  It's a cooling neck scarf.  You put it in cool water.  It absorbs the water with some sort of little beads inside and maintains the temperature for a good while.  I wore it all day long.  I found my old Frogg Togg cooling towel. too, and took a nap with it wrapped around me.  

Guess I'll stick with it a little longer and find the hope to look to the future.

Giving out free cold water on Election Day last month.



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