God's faithfulness on Saturday at the church leaders retreat from Erika

Saturday evening, June 16

Hola mi familia!

Well it’s Saturday evening and I cannot believe we only have two more days here in Cochabamba!  Today was a beautiful and perfect day for our retreat with Florida Norte.  We all took a big autobus to a seminary oasis where we did a bunch of team building activities, took a survey on our strengths or gifts, praised Dios for our time together and, no surprise here, eat eat EAT!! 

We started off with the human knot which was quite a riot.  We had hermanas and hermanos jumping over the arms of teens to try to entangle themselves.  Hermanos talking to Kyle in Spanish and Kyle talking to his team in English, it was definitely a funny sight.  One team was at it for a good twenty minutes and we had to call it quits as they refused to give up... it was true dedication!  Next off was the water balloon toss which everyone loved so much we had to do it a second time after lunch.  The second time we got into single file lines and passed a water balloon to the last person in line who then had to throw the balloon over everyone to the first person in line.  I think everyone was rolling on the ground laughing when Mateo did not squat low enough and got a direct hit on his head.  Pastor even decided to join in, well we thought, but he decided to just launch water balloons at everyone.

Everyone was very into the surveys that we passed out in which helped distinguish each person’s strength.  There was about 70 questions to answer.  I think I was walking around for 30 min helping people fill it out and answering questions as everyone wanted to make sure they were doing it right.  Mateo then went through how these surveys highlight your strengths so that you can identify what ministries you should consider being involved in.  For anyone who has been to Florida Norte, it was no surprise to any of us that the majority raised their hand for the gift of hospitality J

Thank you everyone who has been praying for us.  As you can see through these pictures, Florida Norte has grown as a congregation in many many ways.  Their love for God is so strong and I feel so blessed to get to see it for a third time.  As I shared in my testimony today, I feel that the encouragement they give me is way more than anything I can give them.  I have also been blessed to get to meet the San Martin family and as Barbara says “you must be sick of us now because I am sick of us”.  Clearly they are dedicated troopers and I can’t thank all that Pastor Jaime has done for us both medically and spiritually.  Also James who has literally been with us every minute and has devoted this entire week for serving our needs and Ruth who helped me explain my nutrition lecture to the women’s ministry.  So please continue to pray for the San Martin family as their work here has been incredible!       

Dios Bendiga! Un abrazo fuerte a todo,

Erika