Day 4: March 24, 2008

Here are 6 of the Nelson kids from left to right: Jireh, Malia, Keziah, Silas, Hope and little Jaza.

We Begin Flyering
We went to the Nelson’s and had eggs. We had a good time of sharing and prayer. Then we came up with a plan for the week. Tim laid out our main objectives for the week:
1. Serve the people of Rio Church.
2. Share the Gospel.
3. Sharpen each other as iron sharpens iron.
This was great to hear and I reminded myself of these things through out the week.

We then broke up into two groups and we had maps of the neighborhoods we needed to flyer. We put door hangers on people’s doors promoting their grand opening. The hangers are for a series called “The Family Secret.” Sarah and I were teamed up and we knocked on doors together. There were probably 1 in 4 houses that had someone home. The response was mostly pretty good. The majority of the people said they already belong to a Catholic church.

We went to Cici’s pizza buffet for lunch. We got back to work quickly, knowing we had a lot of ground to cover. After lunch we still paired up, but we each had one side of the street. I’m afraid that my attitude changed as I got tired. I wasn’t quite as excited as I was at the beginning. A college-age girl gave a couple of us some water. We really connected with her and she said she was looking for a church with younger people. It was our best response of the day. We quit around 4:30.

We really wanted to bless the Nelsons so they made a list for us. In the evening we worked on different projects around the house. Jason, Chris and Tim worked on a bunkroom out back. They put sheet rock up and began mudding. I worked on a flyer for a carnival we wanted to put on Thursday. Steve’s son Jireh helped me with this project. He is 4 and so he helped me pick what images to include on the flyer. He wanted to show everyone what we did after we finished. He is proud of it. It was pretty funny. After that I helped John and Mike take down some barbed wire that was on the fence.


This is the Mission House where we stayed.

Then we headed to the Mission House, which was near downtown. It was perfect for us. It’s a two-story house with 4 bedrooms, a kitchen and lots of cool places to have quiet time. There were bunk beds in the bedrooms. That night Kelsey and Amber made spaghetti, bread and salad for dinner. We got to share our God stories as we ate. Tami and Amber had a great connection with a woman who had just lost her baby. She was interested in coming to the Rio church.

We really started to bond as a group that night. We are very united and willing to serve. I knew that what we were doing will bear fruit, maybe not immediately but it will. I knew God had a purpose for each of us on this trip. It was very encouraging to watch our group serve through out the day. I was glad to be able to use some of my skills in creating the flyer. Many people were rising up and using their God-given gifts. It was nice to see everyone in action through out the day.