Beautiful wheels?

Motorcycles are the plague of the streets in Portachuelo.  There is no control, motorcycles don't need a license,  the drivers don't need a license, maintenance is kept to a bare minimum.   They come from all directions and there is no way of knowing which portion of the road they might want.  At night many of them are without lights.  It is like in the days of the judges, when every man did what was right in his own eyes.  It is the Lord's mercy that there aren't more accidents.  


How beautiful are the wheels......Each Sunday afternoon five motorcycles roar off down the road out of Portachuelo.  These five are all the motorcycles in the Portachuelo Christian Assembly.  Each one carries a special cargo.  They are a team from the  Assembly on their way to minister the Gospel to various small communities in the Province of Sara.   A province would be comparable to a county in the States and Portachuelo is the county seat. 

The team in Bañadito

Romans 10:15  And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! 

Bañadito, San Ignacio, San Juan, Torrentes, San Miguel, Caranda are some of the towns that have been visited recently.  Usually they are well received. Sometimes there are surprises, like this past Sunday only two kids showed up for the meeting in San Isidro.  The reason,  the town's soccer team was playing in a tournament in Buena Vista, 40 kilometers away, and almost everyone went to watch.

Luis and Aldo with the kids in Bañadito

Most of those who attend these meetings are kids.  But some adults come out,usually women once in awhile some men.  At our midweek prayer meeting Aldo shared the request of a mother from Bañadito whose husband had died a few days before.  She asked for strength and wisdom.

It wasn't even a surprise.

Miguel Mendoza came to be the fourth grade teacher in the Portachuelo Christian School last year.  This year Helen Galvez came from Camiri to work in the school as the fifth grade teacher.  It didn't take long before everyone realized there was an attraction there.  Helen lives in our home, Miguel lives in Montero, 12 miles away.  Marion and I have been chaperons as the relationship matured.  Sunday they announced in the morning meeting that they were planning to marry on December 18.  We praise the Lord for this young couple.  The both love the Lord and are much involved in various ministries. 

Our house has become the strategy center as they make plans.  The civil ceremony will be in our house the night before the church wedding.  We have had a number of civil ceremonies here.

Pray for them as they begin their life together.  They plan to continue at the school next year.

Helen and Miguel

Things I learned doing a blog.

I got more feedback from this then I ever got from an email News Letter.  More than 20 people responded. 

• I was told to keep it short
• Send often with lots of pictures (What did we do before we had digital cameras?).  We didn’t have blogs then did we?
• Someone else said to send an email teaser each time with a link to the blog.
• Another said they couldn’t download the blog and requested the email version.  (easy to do)

Schools almost out!

Marion had the graduation for her kindergarten last Friday.  This coming Friday is the closing program for the rest of the school.

The kindergarten graduation

Sergio gets a good bye hug from his kindergarten teacher

As soon as school is out next week the builders will start their work.  We have 12000 bricks, a ton of steel and 100 bags of cement ready to go.  I won't be doing much traveling this vacation.  I'll be here overseeing the building.

Building supplies

We have heard rumors that the government is shutting down the other two private schools in Portachuelo.  The reason is that they do not have their own property.  They are renting the property and they do not have the required space and facilities. We praise the Lord for His provision for our school.  Who knew twenty years ago when we bought the big lot that it would be exactly what was needed now.  I expect there will be a number of new students wanting to enroll in our school next year.  Pray for wisdom.  We don't want to take in more new students than we can handle and ruin the spirit of the school.


Thank you for standing with us in prayer and giving.