God is good. I'm continually amazed at the many doors the Lord continues to open. I continue to enjoy working with the homeschooling families. I teach Bible and computer each once a week and fit in other times with the kids when I can. We've been having fun doing experiments together. Lately, we've been making lye soap together. In addition, I've been helping with the with the youth in the church. I brought down some videos in Spanish from Answers in Genesis. They have been just excellent!
There are so many opportunities to serve. I continue to seek the Lord's wisdom in the use of my time. Just last week, I was able to go flying with a missionary friend in the jungles. When I lived down here years ago, my parents taught us Jesus Loves Me in the Quichua language. What a joy it was to be able sing Jesus' praises with the Quichua people deep in the jungle. Below are a couple of the most recent posts from my blog.
Dan. 12:3,
Justo
I had another wonderful day flying today. Hugo Chaves and Corea where in town today, so the airport was shut down from 7-10 this morning. So we did some maintenance on the plane. We changed oil, cleaned spark plugs, etc. I really shouldn't say "WE". I mostly watched and asked questions.
The first flight today was a cargo run. We took out the two back seats and loaded up the back of the plane. Most of it seemed to be fuel barrels. After that we went to deliver some things to some Wuaorani villages. One of the places we stopped was right at Palm Beach. See here for more info on Palm Beach: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Auca At another village very near by we picked up a very sick lady. She had just delivered a baby and had complications after the birth. She was barely able to walk to the airplane. The mother lay down in the back of the plane and I got to hold the baby all the way back to Shell. The Wuaorani baby boy was only 5 days old. He was wrapped in a blue shawl and had jet black hair. He slept most of the way to Shell, but did wake up and look around for a while. He was just precious. It was by far the highlight of the day.
On arriving back to Shell, we helped the mother into the back seat of the LaBouef's pickup and Rick and I took her into Puyo for medical attention. We went to emergency and while others helped the mother out of the truck I kept holding the baby. Once we got into emergency, the baby began to cry. He'd been whimpering for a while and moving his mouth. I gave the baby back to his mom so she could feed him, and by this time I had to leave. May the Lord use this precious life, and may he grow up to serve Jesus.
Hello from Shell!
Last Friday I called up a missionary pilot. My family knew Rick and Sharon LaBoufe from when we were down here years ago, and they invited me to come right down and visit them for a few days. I jumped on a bus Sat. morning and 9 hour later, was here in Shell. (For more info on the history of Shell and Nate Saint see this link: http://www.plymouthbrethren.org/article/545) They are so welcoming, and have a beautiful house right next to the airport.
On Sunday Rick and I took off to do some preaching in the jungle. We loaded up the plane with an indian family and a bunch of luggage, and headed into the jungle. We stopped at two or three different villages. The first place we stopped was a very small village. We setup the video equipment in a one-room school and started the generator outdoors. There were about 10 people in total who showed up. They were all women and children. After showing a 20 video, Rick preached and then we sang a couple songs. This was a Quichua village, so I sang Jesus Loves Me with them in Quichua.
On our way to the 2nd village, it started to rain. Once we got there, it was raining steadily, and the airstrip was muddy. On touchdown, mud flew in all directions and we just managed to stop before the end of the runway. At this place, there were more people. We showed the video twice and I shared some myself. Many of the women and children do not know Spanish, so we had one of the men translate for us.
Two of the indians had asked for us to fly them out. We loaded all our equipment into the plane, and a bunch of things they were going to sell in the city. The rain had stopped by this time, but the runway was still soggy, and the plane was heavily loaded. PTL, we did make it off the ground, but Rick did describe the take of as "marginal".
Lord willing, I plan to be here in Shell until Wed. and plan to travel home on Thursday. Please pray for continued safety and boldness in sharing Jesus. Some of the people we were with yesterday had only heard the Gospel once or twice before.
Serving Jesus,
Justo
