Friday April 17th ~ Juarez Project Day 5

                    Our final day of the trip! It is amazing how quickly a week goes!
                    This morning we had to have our morning meeting in the bus
                    because the conference room was set up for someone else! After
                    our meeting & breakfast we went back to the plaza to hand out as
                    many John/Romans as we could! And as busy as it was it didn't take
                    long!
          

               We all gathered back to the central plaza at 1 for a time of preaching &
               singing. The man who allowed us to use his sound system told us to come
               back and use it again! This time Pastor Campana preached and some of
               the workers sang some songs with Pastor Marty.

               After that we had to head back to Pastor Sosa's church for lunch BUT.....
               we didn't use the bus to get to the plaza since there wasn't a good place to
               park it, so we all got there in different vans & cars. Well, too many people
               left without taking more people so we ended up putting 21 people in a 15
              passenger van WITHOUT the back seat! Can I tell you it was a little crowded?

The back of the van....some are hidden in the very back...

The front.... Liv had to sit on a cooler in between the seats!

                         We made it safely to Pastor Sosa's church and had a great lunch &
                         time of fellowship!

Jimenez's, Sosa's, & another Pastor & his wife.....

                   It was so neat to hear them talking and laughing in Spanish, what a
                  blessing! I am sorry I forget the name of the other Pastor & his wife...
                  they didn't know any English so it was hard to communicate with them.
                  They came every day though from pretty far away to help! Praise the Lord!

                  We ended up splitting up between Ofelia's Suburban & BPS's van to get
                  back across the border. Brother Hector & Trevor took the empty bus.
                  They made it back to BPS before we did! We had another great time of
                  fellowship for dinner....Pastor Marty and brother's Rob & Richard took
                  everyone out to El Taco Tote! We had a great time! They all headed out
                  to Colorado in the early morning and we left to come home later that
                  same day.

                 It was a great week and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to
                 be involved in distributing God's Word to the people that He loves! We
                 serve a Great God Who does Great things because He loves us!


                  
                  

Thursday, April 16th ~ Juarez Project Day 4

      Thursday morning hit and many were not feeling well... Brother Hector included!
      We still had our meeting in the morning at 7 and we were blessed to hear from our
       son-in-law! His shared his testimony with us and we had a great time of prayer.

         Brother Hector shared with us that the area we were going to go to had three
         different reports of ISIS being there so he did not have peace about our going
         to work there. Instead, we went to few busy streets and just handed out to the
         cars stopped at the red lights.....like we did on Monday.
         For lunch we went back to Pastor Campana's church and then had a few hours
         to rest....we had to slow things down a lot for those who were not feeling well.
        

Passing the time....at first just sitting around...

Then getting in on the action...

Playing outside Pastor Campana's church

           After our rest it was time for the evening meeting. We went to a park near
           where we had been in 2009. The first picture shows the emptiness of the lot.
           The second shows after all the people showed up!

                 
                     A man showed up on his motorcycle to see what was going on.....

              I was just about to walk over to give him a John/Romans when Fred got
              one to him.....and this is what he did.....

         How it thrills the heart to see a person so interested in the Word of God! Oh
         how I wish Americans would be so receptive to God's Word!
        
         Praise God! 15 people were saved at this meeting! It was a wonderful time and
         we were able to get back at a decent time.....though we tried to go get ice cream
         again but they were closed. So we all just headed for bed to rest up for our last
        day in Juarez.

Wednesday, April 15th ~ Juarez Project Day 3

                    Wednesday began a little on the shaky side... many in our group were
                     suffering from stomach issues.... We had our morning meeting at the
                     hotel followed by breakfast and then we headed to the plaza where we
                     would be passing out John/Romans to ALL the people passing by...

Liv and Josiah in the background

A glimpse of the street during a slow spell...

                Most of the time there were so many people passing by you couldn't get
                a J/R to everyone...poor Josiah, he was our runner....to the bus to get more
               John/Romans to hand out....he would no sooner get back with a box and we
               would have finished the previous one!...soon he started bringing two!

             There is an interesting story to the above picture~ I'll try to be brief...
             The man in the plaid shirt is a missionary named Blake, he was in a
             conversation with the man in front of him about salvation....he did not
             make a profession but he heard the gospel! Farther back Terry is talking
             to a man (yes, he spoke English!) who was saved but was telling Terry
             about his home life. He was having a hard time making a living, so Terry
             & Blake both gave him a few dollars to buy a bag of candy to sell on the
             street. A little bit later, he came back to show that he did indeed buy candy
             to sell! He even gave them each a piece...

             After we met near the central plaza, Brother Hector had talked to a man
            who had a sound system set up (the man was actually preaching to the
            people sitting around) and he agreed to let us use his system! Pastor
            Marty from CO played his guitar and sang....

           And Brother Hector preached (sorry, no picture). For lunch we headed
          to a different church~ La Esperanza. We were supposed to work with
          this church that evening but the pastor decided to have church instead
          of a meeting in the park. This gave us some time to go back to the hotel
          and rest. Since plans had quickly changed, we went to Pastor Sosa's
          church for their Wednesday night service. It was good for those who were
          a little under the weather. The services were good, some of the group gave
          a testimony and their teens sang a special....

           We were able to get back to the hotel fairly early and since there was a
           Soriana behind it, we decided to go get some ice cream. If you have been
          on the regular trip in the summer, you know that on the long day,Wednesday,
          we usually get taken to a Soriana to be in the A/C and they have an ice cream
          shop in the front of the store.... any way, we took Hector, Ofelia,Sarah, David,
          Trevor, Liv, Erin, Josiah, Fred (from WA), and Nathan (from AZ). We had a
          great time! (Sorry for the poor pic, but you get the idea....)
           

                        It was on to bed from there. We had one more full day to work.

Tuesday, April 14th ~ Juarez Project Day 2

            Tuesday started with a group meeting in the conference room at the hotel at
             7 AM. Brother Hector gave a challenge and we spent some time in prayer
             for the day. Then it was off to breakfast in the hotel restaurant!
            After breakfast we loaded the bus and headed to a flea market that had LOTS
             of people coming and going! There were a few bus stops nearby as well....
             prime spots for handing out John &Romans!

Josiah on the street

Erin at the bus stop