fishy fishy

Last week Duane sent me and Matt into the small town of Pueblo Nuevo to interview a pastor named Doro. He had been suffering from a brain tumor for the past three years but doctors wouldn't operate because of the possible complications like physical or mental impairment. Finally they decided to do the surgery in April but they told him it would take two separate operations and that he probably wouldn't recover well. So his family and church met in their homes and fasted and prayed for three days. Their prayers were very specific. They prayed that the surgeon would remove the tumor in just one surgery and that Doro would recover completely and quickly. And that's exactly what happened. The doctor came out of the surgery after nine hours and said that he got it all. Doro was out of the hospital in one week and completely recovered a month later. He ended his story by saying, "God is big and His mercy is big. What He did was a miracle."
We used this story in the Roca Blanca July newsletter that we wrote for the base.



Two Sundays ago at our church in Cacalote God's presence was undeniable. People were dancing and singing and crying and sweating. It was beautiful. The Spanish school students really loved it. Pastor Bartolo's wife has been sick, please pray for her. Also, pray that Bartolo and his family will not let the illness rob them of the joy they have in Christ.

We made it through our first week of Spanish school! Our Korean teacher, Joe, is great and we're learning a lot. Well, I'm a little bored because we're starting with the basics but it's good review. We have nine people in our class and we're all on different levels. We start our day with devotionals that we each lead on a different day. We all enjoy this time and we are learning a lot about each other and about God. Matt talked about patience and the need for continual sanctification. I talked about the importance of seeing things through eternal eyes and how it changes the way we relate to and treat each other. I used the example from Mark 14 about the woman and the alabastar jar. It sparked a lot of conversation and made people think about what it is that they have a hard time sacrificing for Jesus.

There was a Korean team from Houston, Texas that had been in the mountains this past week. While they were there they planted fruit trees, did village clean up, and did door to door food distribution while they ministered to the people. They all really enjoyed it and felt like they were making a difference in the people's lives. Pretty much all of them got sick up there from the food and one guy came back with a fever of 106! They recovered well and on the last day we took them to Puerto to play and shop. Matt, Joe, Roger, and I got up at 5:30am and went deep sea fishing. Beautiful! It was sunrise and the little boat jumped over the waves and I just laughed the whole time because it was so much fun. But then the two dramamine I took kicked in and I was pretty delirious. Our boat was motored by two locals and they put four lines into these rod holders at the back of the boat. About thirty minutes into the trip we hooked our first fish. Roger, the Korean secret service agent from Houston, strapped this rediculous thing on his waist that holds the fishing rod and sat down for the twenty minute reel-in of the beastly sailfish. It was tragically beautiful as it sparkled in the morning sun, wrestling its inevitable death.
(see pictures)

The second fish was equally enormous, but didn't put up near as big of a fight because he just couldn't stomach it. LITERALLY! When we got it to the boat it had already died because it swallowed the hook and Matt ripped its stomach up through its throat while he reeled it in. We only caught two but they weighed about 130 pounds each. The fishermen took one fish and we got the other one and it fed the whole base. Delicious!