Gosh, it's Saturday already?

Where has the week gone? Today Tracy and I are up at 6:00 to shower and get ready to be at the church before the first session starts at 9:00. Because it's the weekend, we are able to stay at Peggy's and have breakfast with her. This is a wonderful time. She has prepared a feast for us with boiled eggs, salmon spread w/crackers, cheese, fruit, cereal, juice and her great coffee. For the first time we were able to just sit and visit like girls do. It's a shame it had to come at almost the end of our trip. She is such a dear, open and generous woman. When we had admired her house earlier in the week, she told us that Imro had encouraged her and Marlon to build the biggest house they could so they could open it up to whomever the Lord would bring for them to minister to. What a concept! Exercising the gift of hospitality. Romans 12:10-13 says: "Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor; not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, procticing hospitality." The art of hospitality is a gift. The ability to make people feel comfortable in your home. Not everyone has it. My husband sure does, and I don't think it's necessarily because he's from the South. I believe it's because he genuinely cares about people and wants them to feel at home. When I wrote out my goals for 2008, one of them was to open our home more often to the people God has put in our lives. Sadly, this is a goal that I have not done a good job of achieving. But, I digress.

I loved the idea that you would build a house not for yourself and your family's needs, but to then give back to God to use however He would choose. How different my trip might have been had Peggy not been willing to open her home to us? I have been blessed, but she has too.
I need to recommit to this goal in my own life.

After our time with Peggy we head off to church for the first session. Pastor Tom spoke about technology and how it pertains to the end times. It was facinating for me because I love technology and how cool that God planned all of the technology that we have now in order to reach all those who will be called as we get closer to that day He will return. Time grows short and there are many to be reached. Technology makes that possible. The crowd was smaller but still a very avid group and it is Saturday when many need to shop for their families and do things at home that cannot be done during the week.

We break for lunch at the Smits with rice and beans, pickles and chicken, then back to Peggy's for a short nap. When we get back to the Smits we begin to make sandwiches to serve as snacks during the break in the evening session. We had a real assembly line going with Linda, Millie, Tracy and Kathy making the sandwiches and Rand and I bagging them. They were making them faster than we could bag them being four to two and would have to stop periodically to help us bag to catch up. In all we made about 300 sandwiches!

Afterwards we headed back to church for devotions and testimony. Today was Tom Smith's turn. His topic was "God is in control" Psalm 115:3 "But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases." His will is done whether we obey or not, Esther 4:14 "For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place and you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?"; We don't need to worry because God is in control. Worrying means that we don't trust God. Phil 4:6, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God." This is especially relevant these days as people fret over the election, the economy and general direction our country and the world is taking. God is not surprised by any of this and can use any person and any circumstance to accomplish His purposes. He's used the most godly and the most evil throughout history to bring about His will.

He and Cody have a surprise cooked up for everyone tomorrow so we stopped after his devotion because they needed to get upstairs to meet with the praise band at 2:00. He will give his testimony tomorrow before Tracy does her devotion. (We found out later that the rest of the praise band didn't arrive till about 2:45 and when Tom asked them about it they said well there's still a 2 in the time! The schedule according to Suriname time LOL)

The evening session was so special. Imro had arranged for a re-enactment of a traditional Jewish wedding from the time the contract was first arranged until after the days of feasting were ended and then showed how each part of the wedding correlated with that time when Jesus would return to earth for His bride (us the church). It was so clear the way it was presented and I wish I had taken the time to take close notes about each part and what it symbolized. But, had I done that I would have missed the whole enactment. I would love to go back and see it again. It was very meaningful.

We ended about 9:30 after more good discussion from the crowd. Back to Peggy's. We're exhausted! I also decided that tomorrow I'll be wearing jeans to the evening session. No more of this dress stuff as everyone else is wearing jeans. I try to call Bruce before I go to bed but no answer :-( Maybe tomorrow.