It Happened Again!

Each year we attend a church service - obviously. When we began in 2005, the island was hopping with Wednesday evening services. But recently, those services have died down. A few years ago, we changed our trip from Sunday - Saturday to Saturday - Saturday, in order to attend a Sunday morning service. But no matter which church we attend, the sermon always seems to a connect to our trip, and this year was no different. The scripture was the Parable of the Good Samaritan, one that we have all read and heard a hundred times. But when the pastor spoke, the message a little different. He was preaching about the difference between pity and compassion. His phrase was pity + action = compassion. People needed to take action to demonstrate mercy on those who need it. He commended our group for coming and showing compassion to the people on this island. It might not seem like a big thing, and some might not even pick up on it, but as we exited the church this afternoon it was clear that God was already letting us know that He was going to be looking out for us this week. After church, we headed to the feeding center to do some work. Originally we were to paint some of the exterior, but because of the rain we had to change plans a little bit. Karazim has a building a block away that is going to be used as a training center for the jewelry ministry that they began a few years ago. We needed to assemble some furniture and move items from the feeding center. This turned into a complete overhaul of one of their storage area - empty, organize, trash, move. We also worked on building more fishing traps to be used by the fishing ministry. Finally, we cleaned and organized a few other smaller storage areas. After dinner, we played a few beach games - a relay race and tug-of-war. No major injuries - just some pride was wounded. The day ended with our first small group devotion time. Nothing ends a day better than time in the word with these insightful kids. (Except maybe story time with Jeff Hill. Topic of the night - scariest moment of your life. I'll let your kids fill you in!)