Domingo de Cosecha/ Harvest Sunday

What a blessed day we had yesterday! It was special for a couple of very important reasons. First, as some of you already know, this past weekend we participated in an outreach event sponsored by the Billy Graham Association. Six homes from our church invited people on Thursday, Friday and Saturday to watch an evangelistic message and then a movie on Saturday. It was neat to watch a collective sense of excitement and even anxiety as the time approached, and, as always, God proved himself faithful. We had 60 new people from these groups that made a decision to walk closer to God. Wow! This is the beginning step for many of these people, but our prayer is that the fruit of this will be 60 new, forgiven, passionate, followers of Christ that will become a part of the community of believers here. There are many testimonies of God's greatness this weekend, among others, it seems that we may have a brand new cell group that spontaneously emerged...Sunday had been designated as Domingo de Cosecha (Harvest Sunday), where we invited these people to join us for our celebration service. Although, many of these people could not come, several did, and we enjoyed a great time of worship, prayer and fellowship. There were about 10 visitors there that we prayed for and rejoiced with them in their decision to follow Christ. Sorry, no pictures, since I haven't quite figured out how to nurse a baby without flashing the world, wrestle two other kids, sing, pay attention and take pictures all at the same time! The national goal for this event is to have 1 million people added to God's kingdom or reconciled to him. We will know in the next several days how it went.
As many of you know, yesterday was Harvest Sunday at Richland Hills. Summer and Sara participated in that as representatives of the work here. For those that may not know, this is the Sunday when RHCC takes a contribution specifically for missions and for spreading God's word. The goal was about $1.3 million dollars, and as of last night, almost all of it had been donated. Praise God! This is what allows us and so many other missionaries live and work for His kingdom glory. So, we rejoice greatly in that.
We topped off the day thanking God for his protection. We had "lunch" (at 5:00 pm) with a couple of neighbors. As we were eating, Sofia decide to walk behind a swing in motion and got hit on the forehead with a metal swing (not the first time she has done it, but I guess when we talked about the dangers of swings, we only mentioned walking in front of, not behind). As Sam ran out to get her and make sure she was okay, he ran right into a metal clothes line. He has a nice cut on his nose that should heal without stitches. Just to not feel left out, I whopped a guy with my purse on the way out of the restaurant. Oops...So, we came home tired, bruised and battered, but thankful for all that God has done in these past few days!