This past week has been full of all kinds of work, but we have been happy to help our supervisors. We started the week by planting some trees at the home of a local pastor. At first, we were skeptical of using a hoe (instead of a shovel) to dig, but it surprisingly proved to be quite effective! Armed with only with a giant iron spike, a couple hoes, and some elbow grease, were we able to dig through the rock-solid soil and get the trees planted!
We then moved on to working on the parsonage of the church in the village. Over the course of 2 days, we moved an absurd amount of dirt by hand (using only 2 hoes, 2 empty feed sacks, and a glorified dustpan) to make a porch for the building. We then mixed and spread concrete using only our hoes and trowels. Coming from 2 engineering students who are used to precision in everything, it was quite a shock to simply eyeball the amount of materials needed! That is OK, though; I believe God is teaching us to be more flexible in life!
Besides the nitty-gritty work, we also played soccer (sorry, football) with the some of the local youth. It was a lot of fun (Josh and I both scored!), and it is a great way to build relationships with the young people. The young people are the most open to us, and they could really knock the doors wide open in this village.
Please Pray:
- For opportunities to share the Gospel! Our chances to share eternal truth have been quite rare as very few people speak English.
- That we would not get discouraged by our circumstances. It can be quite discouraging to see other NT teams talk about preaching to hundreds of people and seeing dozens or more come to know Christ, when it seems that all we have done is learn information and perform some basic construction work.
- For the work that we will be doing over the next few weeks. Pray that God would open doors we never could have imagined so that we can share the Gospel. The hearts of the Lahu are so hard, but we believe God can call them to salvation. A suggested passage to pray for us is Colossians 4:2-4.
- The continued teamwork and health of this team. It can be exhausting working outside all day! And Josh and I are still learning how to be effective ministry partners!
To God be all glory and honor!!!