Dios Es Amor

God is love. The greatest command: to love the Lord. We have all been working on singing the hymn, The Greatest Commands, in Spanish so that we can sing it with our Spanish speaking brothers and sisters in Christ, and also so we can hopefully sing it for the blind school one day. Sometimes you don't realize how hard it is to keep up with a song until you try to sing it correctly in Spanish, stay on key, keep the right pace, and not get confused when 3 separate parts are being sung around you. I think we pulled it off pretty good tonight though and with some more practice it's going to sound even better! God truly is the epitome of love. Just imaging a life without Him, is a life without love. After being able to look out at the city of Tegucigalpa today, I think about how He loves each and every one of those people. He is looking after every one of them, no matter if they live in a shack by the dump or in a mansion on top of a hill. And above all else, he asks us to love Him. Loving Him encompasses so much in our lives and if we truly love Him, it directs every part of our life. 

This beautiful day began with breakfast from 7-8. Then we had church service in the cafeteria with our group. Terry had some great thoughts for the Lord's supper and contribution this morning. He reminded us that our lives truly are in God's hands and when we start worrying, it's pointless because He is going to take care of us. Despite our countless financial problems, He is finding ways for us to get work done here in Honduras using us as His servants. Then Brian Steffy presented our lesson for the morning. He spoke about the power of permission. He found a way to use countless examples from his life about asking and giving permission, and relate it to us asking and giving permission to God. So often we get caught up and don't let Him all the way in. How often do we give God our permission to work in our lives? 

It was an off day for the entire group. After worship, we loaded the buses up for a trip to Mi Esperanza. This is an awesome store and program that TORCH loves to support. We all had about an hour to shop and support this ministry for the women of Honduras. (You can also shop online and support Mi Esperanza back in the States!) Once Jenny Lovell was done buying up the store and placing custom orders, we were able to go to lunch. We went to Cascadas Mall where we had 2 hours to eat and shop around if we wanted to. The food court had a pretty good selection, and the dessert options included: Churros, Cinnabon, Dunkin Donuts, Ice Cream, and Frogen Yuz (the greatest of them all). You can tell what my mind was set on for lunch by the fact that I listed those options, but not the others. On our way back up to the mission house, we stopped at the park where the Jesus statue is to visit for around an hour. We were able to walk around and see the sights during the day time since we usually only visit at night. There were some beautiful views from where we were and I think everyone enjoyed it. Then once we left we went back up to the mission house to get some work done. The next few hours were spent organizing VBS stuff and the two lobbies of the main dormitory. A lot of clothes were gone through, food bags were moved, and VBS should be good to go for this week. Once we were finished, we headed out again for dinner where we had the choice of chicken places, Little Caesars, or Burger King. Let me just say that once I get home, I will not be eating fast food for at least a year. 

Apology for not having devo on the Ustream tonight. We got back from dinner downtown and immediately started the devotional, so we didn't have time to get it set up. Jeremy Myers spoke about Zaccheus tonight. I had a lot I planned on writing about his devo tonight on the blog...but (there's always a 'but') for some reason my notes on my Bible app weren't saved, so it's all gone. And when it's this late, my recall is slim to none. I can vouch that it was a great lesson about not overlooking things in our life and how we should want to seek Jesus as badly as Zaccheus did. We need to follow his example and look for Jesus in all we do and in everyone we meet. 

The current plan for tomorrow is for us to have 3 teams. Two construction teams will be building houses in two separate locations. The third team will be going to the community of Mololoa to bust up concrete at the daycare and help at the feeding center. I know God has some awesome plans for us this week, for everyone but a select few, this is our last week of work here in Central America. I hope we put everything we have into it and make it the greatest week of an amazing trip. 

Sorry you have to put up with me for a few more nights, Brandy is a brave soul trying to work on her graduate course while down here so I'll be blogging when she's unable to.

Leah