Lunch with girls, soccer and Gabrielson testimony

Many things were accomplished on the Green house today including one of the stairways, the metal stud walls, electrical boxes and the PVC tubing and finally the new soccer goal posts were finished. No sooner than the goal posts were set up did the girls come running out to challenge the New Hope men to play soccer. Need I say that the Oasis girls creamed the men?

One highlight today was dividing up into small groups and being invited over to one of the homes the girls lived in for lunch. The girls had fun looking at our family pictures and we enjoyed learning about their favorite school subjects, sports, and favorite bible story.

After dinner we watched a 3 minute video by Pastor John Piper on why the health, wealth and prosperity gospel is wrong and how in the throes of suffering great loss we can rely on God for strength and support and that God will see us through what ever difficult times we may go through in this life. It is often in the face of great loss that God draws us close to Him. Our God is a big picture person who understands all that we go through. Unknown to me at the time I sensed God calling me to sign up for this missions trip there was a girl in this orphanage that resembles our daughter Maria. Tim Bodkin called me over to share that with me the night the men gathered for prayer. When I arrived I was amazed how much alike this girl was from her looks, to her giggles, and to her determination to overcome her leg disability. I was equally amazed that her name was Maria. This Maria became disabled from some unknown accident. The director told me that she is very determined to learn to walk and that there is a possibility of her having surgery in South Carolina in the future. It is really amazing how God orchestrates the events in our lives and in my case brought me down to Guatemala and used this Maria to help me in the grieving process. Our God is indeed an awesome God!

Todd Gabrielson