Sunday Evening

It's mid afternoon on Tuesday, and we're on the plane back to Charlotte. It's been a while since I posted, so I wanted to get you new information as soon as we land in the queen city.

My last post ended about mid-afternoon on Sunday, and I thought the day was going to wind down after that. Not so much.

During the church services, the rain poured down for nearly an hour. And I'm talking about a torrential, buckets-at-a-time, soak-you-to-the-bone, better-build-an-ark kind of rain. The rain had been comparatively light all week long, giving us great weather to do our work. However, the heat and humidity had been building that entire time, and the deluge had to come sometime. Sunday at around 2:15 was that sometime.

After dinner that evening, Marjorie (one of our interpreters) learned that the rains had flooded her house. There was standing water and mud in every room. So we packed up all the brooms and towels we could find at El Jardin Sagrado, and the six of us--along with Ken and Sherri Dundon--headed over to Orosi. When we arrived, we immediately went into "get 'er done" mode. We moved out the furniture, swept out the water, hosed out the mud, and dried the floors with towels. It took us about 45 minutes, and the place was back in order with little evidence of the flooding.

Fortunately, Sherri Dundon was there. Being guys, we were just worried about solving the problem at hand. Sherri, on the other hand, comforted, cried with, and prayed with Marjorie. That was probably more important under the circumstances. You see, not long ago, most of Marjorie and Rosario's immediate family--mother, father, and several brothers and sisters--died when heavy rains caused a mud slide that buried the family's home at the foot of one of the mountains surrounding Orosi. I can't imagine what kind of terror and post-traumatic stress descended on Marjorie when she walked into that house and saw all the mud and water.

We were blessed to have Sherri with us to care for Marjorie's emotional and spiritual needs. And I know that God put us all there so we could help her recover from disaster and be a witness to His grace. When we first arrived in Orosi, Rick Grossman emphasized a very important point to us: Orosi is a small town, and everything you do will be common knowledge throughout Orosi and across the river in Palomo within 24 hours. The statement was meant mostly as a caution. But in this case, it foreshadowed an opportunity to spread the news of how six gringos on a mission trip did more than just renovate a building that will promote Christ-centered outreach programs. That was already big news in the valley.

Plenty of Ticos also saw what happened to Marjorie's house. Many of them were watching from their porches or windows when we arrived. And they saw how we jumped in to help somebody we barely knew--not because it was part of the project plan, but because the Holy Spirit moved us to help one of God's children who was in desperate need.

What an incredible witness to God's glory for the people of Orosi! And I pray that Rick was right and everybody in the Orosi Valley knew about it by sundown on Monday. I also pray that they'll look at all of our actions this past week and make room in their hearts for the love of Jesus.

The pilot just said that we're descending into Charlotte, so I'll wrap up this post. But don't worry, I still have to tell you about Monday-- plenty of good stuff there.

Thanks to everyone who prayed for us, read the blog, left comments, sent e-mails of encouragement, and supported us financially. We couldn't have done this without you. And thanks to God for giving us this opportunity to build His Kingdom and make a difference in the lives of the people of Orosi.