We have been having some extremely eventful times lately. Last week at church, during the first part of class, an immigrant man came bursting in through the main doors--weeping loudly--and fell flat on his face in the foyer. Carolina was the only one who spoke Spanish, so she had to go to the foyer to talk with him. One of the elders came running back to the teens class I was teaching and yanked me out of it to come and help her.
This guy was weeping inconsolably and was--very loudly and rapidly--pouring out the contents of his heart. He came to Arkansas 2 weeks ago to work, leaving his wife and 4 kids in California. His wife is angry at him and is threatening to leave him. The people he's staying with here are mistreating him. He just wants to go back to California. That's a tricky thing about trying to open yourself up to ministry. People's lives are not always peachy. Jesus came to heal the broken because people really are broken and often hopeless. Later, Carlos Hernandez, our Spanish minister, showed up and was able to study with him and help calm this guy down. I hope this will open some doors, but it was very tramatic; especially for Carolina. She pretty much had to listen to him for two hours. This guy was talking so fast he wasn't even stopping to breath. We couldn't have made it with out her help.
This Sunday, things seemed to be going ok, other than that we were all sleepy for having woken up an hour early. Then at the end of service, sweet 94-year-old
Aunt Ruth started acting strange. She passed out there in the pew. Miss Ruby--a wonderful woman--jumped up and went to help fan her off and revive her. Ruby's own health isn't good, and she caries an oxygen tank with her all the time which she gladly shared. They rushed Ruth off to the hospital. It turns out that some new medication she was on had been drying her out without her knowing it, so she was severely dehydrated. By yesterday evening, she was back at home doing well. Even so, it's not fun having people with medical emergencies during your worship services.
I was hoping the drama was all over, but this morning it continued. Carolina was in the garage about to leave, but she heard a hissing sound. She came to get me, and we discovered that our hot water heater is leaking water all over the floor. So now I'm sitting here, waiting for a plumber to come and hopefully fix it. This is all complicated by the fact that my sister and her best friend are staying with us during Harding's spring break this week to continue their student teaching. So we have twice the number of people showering, with absolutely no hot water.
I know that often when it rains, it pours (or "leaks" in our case). I'm hoping that after today there will be smoother sailing for a while.
Even though this has been a dreadful week for those at Virginia Tech, it has not been a week without blessing. At Rose Bud, we began our hispanic outreach in January. Getting started has been a little slow, and we have still not had large numbers of turnouts, but this last Sunday, we had our first baptism.
On a sad note, the financial situation has not been good for Fermin in Rose Bud, and he will soon be moving to Utah. Please keep this young brother in your prayers as he's going to be starting life over in so many different ways. Even if the rest of our efforts flop, if Fermin really stays strong in his faith, then every hour of time and every cent of money we spent on this outreach will have been completely worth it. It's great to get to see the fruit of your efforts in your own lifetime.
