Ministry UpdatesRead the Latest News & Updates from El Jordán

God´s Fingerprints

I saw God´s fingerprints today… and yesterday… and the day before…
 
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Elizabeth showed up with 2 small green peppers, slightly withered, 2 onions and a head of garlic…  Matilde rummaged in her purse and proudly displayed a little plastic bag with 4 o 5 kool-aids in it, “I brought the juice!”  Miriam had rice and a pot…  With my chicken, we were ready to go…  
 
Keep your lives free from the love of money
and be content with what you have,
because God has said,
 
“Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you.”
 
Hebrews 13:5
 
This was our theme verse for November… finalizing with a practical week of bringing something from our “house” that we could share with someone who needs more… Our other Bible Studies went downtown, to a market, to a place for old folks and to a home for mentally challenged boys armed with donations to share … On Monday, we went into the woods to make a typical rice/chicken dish (majadito) to share with the addicts who live there…

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Emotions

At El Jordan, there never seems to be many just plain boring days…  Today was a mixture of all sorts of feelings…
 
For the past year or so we´ve battled with our fridges at El Jordan…  Some of them are 15 years old, and just don´t work like they used to… One doesn´t work at all, two others (in volunteers´ apartments) work when they want to, and our main kitchen fridge works at half speed…  Some have seen half a dozen technicians… others just one or two…  This Sunday we have our open house – where we invite churches and friends to come and buy things that our students´ have made…  and we NEED fridges that work!
 
We had money for one fridge… and thought this was a good time to spend it…  You should have seen our volunteers’ faces when we said we were going to get a new fridge… Today when it was delivered, there were squeals, smiles and literal jumping up and down…  They were like kids with a new puppy… (excitement!)

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The Icing On the Cake

¨Thankfulness¨ has been popping frequently as we plan our anniversary celebration at the end of this month… Our focus is ¨15 Years:  Celebrating God´s Faithfulness” and the invitation is open to “anyone who God has touched through the ministry of El Jordán” so together we can “thank HIM”…
 
Last night Heidi invited us to celebrate ¨Canadian Thanksgiving”… a dozen DELICIOUS dishes, 5 nationalities around the table, one spirit of thankfulness for all God has done for us… How beautiful that we can be brought all together in gratefulness to HIS truth and faithfulness…
 
Today was the icing on the cake…
 
I went to visit Elias at lunch time… I went up to Intensive Care… Looked on the board… “Elias Ortiz”… Bed 5… My glance went to the scrubs visitors have to wear… Bed 5… the scrubs were hanging there… No visitors… I could go in…
 
One… Two… Three… Four…
 
I looked beyond the curtain that separated 4 and 5…

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Knowing God

This month, we set aside a week at El Jordan to take all of our Bible Studies OUT to serve rather than studying inside…  My “new girls” decided they wanted to go to the streets… Matilde gave 10 bolivianos ($1.50 US) from her money from “watching cars” towards making a snack to take with us to the “woods” where I took “Christmas on the Streets” in 2014…  I first met Alejandro, Cristian and Alejandra (in their early twenties) years ago on the streets sniffing glue…  They now live in bushes, under bridges, withdrawn from society and addicted to cocaine paste… Matilde was the leader of our ¨pack¨ because we were on her old stomping grounds…  Elizabeth, whose family has been involved in addictions but never on the streets, broke down in tears, seeing this sad reality for the first time…  My heart was touched listening to Rocio passionately share her experiences and sufferings from the streets and how God was helping her change…

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