Hello
friends,
Its been another great week down in Tampa Florida. The
weather has still been fairly warm. At
the Boys and Girls Club I’ve been working with the five and six year old
children and I’m still loving it!
Here’s a thought I’ve had: I’ve heard from numerous people
and know from experience that when someone goes on mission, they desire to
help, and serve and do lots of good for others. But at a certain point they
feel like the people they are trying to help, serve and do good for end up helping,
serving or doing a lot more good for the missionary. It’s weird because you
give so much without expecting anything in return and then bam! There it is;
something in return! I see this already
happening with the children at the Boys and Girls Club because there are some
days I feel like they are teaching me and helping me more than I am teaching and
helping them. More
on that in a future post. But this week as always we had faith time on
Tuesdays. I decided to teach them about the story of Abraham and Isaac. I
connected Abraham’s sacrifice to the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for us.
And how God loves us enough, even though we have sinned, to sacrifice the life
of His only begotten Son for each one of us so that we can be in heaven with
Him. It brought me joy to be able to share a short version of the Gospel to the
kids who otherwise may never hear it. I pray that someday it may bear good
fruit.
The week has been pretty busy as we are getting ready for
the big Don Bosco Festival at the end of January (his feast day is Jan 31) and
a pro life Youth Rally in February. So I’ve been busy planning my part of these
two events as well as completing the other various duties I have here. Although
it’s been a busy week, I thank God for it because He’s given me the opportunity
to fill my entire week with different ways that I can serve Him and others.
Last but not least, I have exciting news! I mentioned in my last
post that the other Lay Missioner who was with me had left and mentioned how
nice it would be if God would provide another one. Well, I wasn’t 100% sure at
the time of writing that post if another missioner would be joining us or not.
But now I know that come early February we will be joined by another Lay
Missioner, who happens to also be from Massachusetts! She was previously in
South Sudan serving as a Lay Missioner but had to leave for health reasons. Now
she will be joining us here in Tampa and I’m rather excited for her arrival!
She also has a wonderful blog you can follow here. She’s got some great posts
on her time in Africa if you’re interested to hear about what life there is
like.
