How the time does fly. I fully intend to post to this blog every few days, but before I know it, a month (or more) has flown by. I won't try to relate all that has happened in the last month, but work continues in the Puriscal area. Puriscal itself is a small town that is surrounded by villages. Someone said 23 of them, but I haven't counted. We have worked in seven of them and have ongoing contacts in most of the seven. There are several Bible studies being held regularly, but as yet, God hasn't shown us who the future leaders will be.
The people are very friendly and welcome us warmly. It's not hard to spend a good deal of time just chatting. They always want to give us "cafecita"( a cup of coffee) and some sort of snack. These aren't things they have prepared beforehand, so it's not like they just open the frig and pull something out.
I am continuously impressed that these simple (in lifestyle) folks are so interested in world events. Sometimes they have interesting ideas about North Americans that they have learned from TV or have heard by word of mouth. It's always fun to correct misconceptions, but not so much fun to try and explain the negative things that are true.
One area in particular is so poor that it breaks your heart. Some of the poverty is self-inflicted because of alcohol abuse and other vices, but one wonders how much the overall hopelessness contributes to the abuse. How do we help these people? I don't know how to help them financially. Anything done just has to be repeated over and over. We can give them hope in Christ though, and this is what we try to do. A better relationship with God would help them have a better relationship with their families and neighbors. Perhaps that would give a better outlook of life and some of the ongoing problems could be curtailed.
Pray for Flora, Katia, Teresa, Anita, Eliezer, Marvin and Manuel. Also pray for Oscar, who claims to be a Christian but has no church and wants his children to study the Bible.
