As the Light that goeth forth

The Ladies meet every Saturday for a special service. The Ladies are really growing closer to Gods word through this. After Lisa and Luz taught the 2nd teen girls meeting and it went real well. The girls learned about bad friends and their influence, then began making things out of worn out clothing, also a lesson of course.

Several La Cruz men went to Fountain of Life Baptist church in Colonia to preach, and had over 80 folks in service. They met along side of a home of a member. I had to pull the wood off the sides of the kia and make benches on top of the cases of Books of John we brought. Improvise, just give the books away after instead of before service. Sitting listening to Carlos preach seeing everyone sit on broken plastic chairs, boards, boxes logs and the ground, all I thought was we really need church buildings. La Cruz needs one and Colonia needs one. I was racking my brain trying to figure out how cheap one could really be built for, just to keep everyone dry, without doors windows or floor. After scratching out on a scrap paper, I think we could build a 20x30 church building for $5000($3000 for structure $2000 for roof) when I added up the materials with free labor. That might work for Colonia in the mountain, but La Cruz in the city will 2x as much. (More rules and more security ect) Carlos was so proud of the Colonia offerings that had come in these past few weeks he has been teachng them about tithing. They were up to 160 lempira(Nine dollars) That is wonderful improvement over $0 but at this rate it will only take 21 years to afford a building providing prices don’t go up. None of the folks there have money and most squeak by, time will tell. It has been one year already preaching up there almost three years under the tent in La Cruz.

On the way up I found out one of our men(Marcotulio) is from the mosquito coast in the north and we wanted to do a river outreaches there so we pumped him for info. The Moskita rain forest is second in size only to the Amazon. After discussing all the details, and if we can get the boat safe we are planning a week long outreach Easter week....Pray, because it will be costly and dangerous. We would have to bring everything to survive. 50 gal of fuel for the boat 50 gal water, food equipment ect and it is not called mosquito for nothing.

Sunday service was a message on marriage. Afterwards 2 possibly 3 couples who have been in long term relationships now want to get married. (one for 34 years!). Amen. They want to be right before the LORD and be allowed to serve. Amen…

After church 16 La Cruz Baptist church folks loaded up in the Kia to do an outreach in San Geronimo. More than 250 folks showed up in a field to watch a movie and hear preaching. Everyone got a book of John. 20 or more young people raised their hands for salvation; adults not a one. It was a hard crowd to work with, unlike the mountains, many local bars and other wrong influences in the poor area. By the finish there were a large number of drunken men circled around us in the distance, just in the shadow of the lights our folks were holding up. Everyone had to be on guard all the time, protecting our folks and equipment. Even so it is a needy location for a possible future church plant, many are in darkness standing at the edge of light…

This morning it’s back to work on the Lighthouse, and the Kia gets loaded with lots of sand…amen!

Unworthy servant to a Worthy Saviour,

Barry Ritchie