HOME!

It is so good to be back in South Carolina! We made it home last night. Yesterday was a full day of travel. It went something like this…

We began our day with a devotional time then we started boarding the vans for our ride back to San Juan. But before we left, we sang “Alleluia” to the front desk staff. at the hotel. Lorena (sp?) was moved to tears. She stood behind the counter with tears streaming down her face through the entire song. This young lady is so warm and kind. She always greeted us with a smile and a friendly “hello.” It was a joy to be able to sing for her and the other staff members. We pray that God will use our interactions with her to bring her to an understanding of God’s love.

When we reached the San Juan airport everything seemed to be going well until all of the kiosks for American Airlines stopped working. This made our check in process more of a challenge and delayed us getting to the TSA screening que line, and what a line it was. We weaved back and forth seven or eight times before we went through the screening. We all reached the gate a few minutes before boarding but most of us had to skip lunch. It was a minor inconvenience. We made it back to Charlotte where we dispersed and headed to our homes.

Going to Puerto Rico and working with the children at Logos Baptist Academy was a blessing. Those who made the trip were drawn closer to the Lord and closer to each other. We felt God working all around us. His presence was evident in so many ways. We are grateful to God for the experience we had with the children of Logos Baptist Academy and the people of Iglesia Bautista Logos Church. We pray that many people will come to know Him as a result of our time spent with them. Please continue to pray for the school and the church and we hope to share reports of God’s continuing work there.

Oh, What a Night!

Today was our last day in Puerto Rico. We fly home tomorrow. Everyone will agree, we ended with a bang!

This morning we were at Logos Baptist Academy for our last day of Music Camp. Part of our day was spent preparing the children for their gala. We rehearsed songs and motions and made sure everyone knew exactly what to do. We wanted to make sure that all of the parents got to see what their children learned this week.

Tonight we gathered at Iglesia Bautista Logos for the gala. We heard from our preschoolers, elementary children, students who took hand chime classes and those who learned to play the recorder. Then we moved on to our high school students where we heard from their voice class, guitar class, percussion class, piano class and then saw the artwork of the students who took a painting class. The night ended with the voice class, guitar class, piano class, and percussion class combining with our band to lead the congregation in the song, “Praise” or “Alaba” in spanish. It was the perfect ending to a great week.

We are so grateful for our friends at Logos Baptist Academy and the difference they are making in the lives of their students. We pray that God will continue to bless them as they serve Him and point children to Him. Join us in that prayer.

We have so much more to share. Our hearts are full and so are the galleries on our phones and tablets. We all have hundreds of pictures to organize and put into some type of presentation. Be patient with us as we comb through these pictures and relive the memories. It has been a good week and we have seen God work and answer so many prayers. We can’t wait to see what He has in store for Logos Baptist Academy.

To our friends at Logos, we say goodbye for now but we hope to one day be together again.

Pressing on!

Ok, let’s be honest. We completed day four of our camp today and we are all feeling a little fatigued. We are still having a great time and the children are loving the camp, but we are moving just a little slower today. Part of it is due to the weather. Today at lunch time when we were presenting an outdoor mini-concert for the children and staff of the school, I looked down at the weather app on my phone. It read a temperature of 83 degrees, but beside it was the phrase “the ‘feels like’ temperature is 96”. Yes…yes it was. We are feeling the impact of the heat and the humidity. But, the Lord is faithful and He continues to give us strength to do the work He has called us to do.

Tomorrow is our final day of the music camp and then tomorrow night the children present a “Gala” for their parents. Let’s put this in perspective. There are 200 students in the school. Three hundred and fifty parents have responded saying they plan to attend the gala! The host church, Iglesia Bautista Logos, is removing all of the chairs from their sanctuary and bringing in smaller, more compact chairs so they can seat more people, And the parents are in for a real treat. They will see preschool children singing, elementary children presenting the music and drama they learned this week and some added in hand chimes and recorders, and the high school students performing what they learned in their voice, percussion, keyboards and guitar classes. To top it all off, several high school students will present original paintings they created this week. It is going to be a fun and very fulfilling night for all of us.

One of the desired results of this week is for the students and parents to see the value of teaching the arts and the difference this week has made in their children. The school administration wants the parents to be so excited that they will want to support expanding the school courses to offer arts education. Please pray for Logos Baptist Academy and their administration as they strive to make all of this happen.

Ultimately the administration and all of the Singing Churchmen pray that the children will come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. All of the students heard the Gospel this week, several times. It was written into everything we did. Join us in praying that the messages the students heard this week will stay with them the rest of their lives.

Would you like to see some of our outdoor mini-concert from today? Go to Logos Baptist Academy on Facebook. They have about an eight minute video from the concert.

United!

When we were developing a theme for our mission trip to Puerto Rico we decided to use Ephesians 4:4 as our key verse, “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called.” We wanted to feel united with our partners in Puerto Rico. Tonight, we had the opportunity to sing at an outdoor event where eight churches came together for a time of praise and worship and to hear an evangelistic message from one of the pastors. The event showed the unity that we have in Jesus Christ when we all work together for His glory. It was a huge success with probably 300- 400 people in attendance. It was a great night!

Earlier in the day we had some rain showers and some windy conditions. We were a little concerned about the weather and how that would impact our event. Well, it didn’t rain on our event. As a matter of fact, the weather could not have been any better. We didn’t have any rain and we had a cool breeze that blew through in time for the concert. Then, wouldn’t you know it? It started raining when we were walking back to our vans after the concert was over. God gave us a perfect night!

Our morning was another full day of music camp activities. The children are learning so much and are having a great time. On Friday night, we will hold a “gala” which is a night for the children to perform the things they have been learning. Parents will have an opportunity to see their children perform. Please pray for the children as they prepare for this important evening.

Thank you again for your prayers. God is listening and He is answering.

God is at work

Have you ever walked into a room of first graders and they started cheering when you walked through the door? Well, that is how the day started. It was Music Camp day two. The campus was full of excitement and the children were eager to see what we had planned for the day. Preschool children continued with their fun songs and movement while the elementary children were introduced to Nicodemus and his encounter with Jesus. Music, crafts drama and recreation followed. Middle school and high school students continued with their instruction in percussion, voice, guitar, piano and art. We are finding some real musicians in this bunch and we can’t wait to see their talents on display at our Friday night Gala. Details about this event will be in a future post.

Today we could see more interaction between our team members and the children. On the playground you could see one on one conversations taking place, team members playing volleyball, basketball or soccer with the children and even a game of tabletop football…you know where you fold a piece of paper into the shape of a football and try to “thump” the football to the edge of the other side. Oh and we also saw this guy. This is a common sight in Puerto Rico!

This afternoon some of our team sang at a nursing home. All of us would have participated but the facility didn’t have enough room for everyone, so a great representation from our group sang for the senior adults.

Later in the afternoon we had the privilege to tour the Send Relief Center of Ponce. This is one of three Send Relief Centers in Puerto Rico. If you are not familiar with Send Relief, this is a ministry of the North American Mission Board where you and a team can come to the center for a week, stay in the facility and then go into the community and complete a variety of ministry projects. Send Relief will provide your housing, meals, local transportation and all supplies to complete your ministry project for a very nominal fee. Want to learn more? Go to sendrelief.org.

Please continue to pray for us. We can see God working in so many ways. At the end of a day when we come together to talk about our day and hear a devotional message, team members are constantly sharing stories of what they saw and experienced in a day. Most of the time these are things we can’t explain or we see how something worked out at just the right time. We all just look at each other and say, “that was God.”

We can’t wait to share more with you!

Music Camp begins!

Today was day one of our Music Camp at Logos Baptist Academy and what a day it was! We have been given time every day this week for the children to take a detour from their normal instruction and explore the arts. What an opportunity we have to invest in the lives of these precious children.

So what does this look like? We have a team working with preschool children, teaching them fun songs with lots of movement. There is a team for elementary age children where we are doing something similar to a Vacation Bible School complete with Bible stories, original songs (written by our own Donnie Smith) crafts, games, drama and we’ve even included instruction on hand chimes and recorders. Our team working with high schoolers is teaching percussion (they are beating on buckets!), voice, guitar, piano and art. The school is filled with music everywhere you turn and lots of creativity. It is so encouraging to see the children laughing, singing and learning about Jesus.

We have taken too many pictures to post here, but if you want to see what our camp looks like go to the Facebook page for the school. It is Logos Baptist Academy.

This afternoon we went to the town square of Santa Isabel. They have an open area in the center of town with a stage. We will be presenting an outdoor concert their on Wednesday night. Today we walked around to businesses to give them invitations to the concert. We are hoping for a great turn out and great weather! Pray for this event.

Thank you so much for your prayers. We are amazed at all that God is doing. He has assembled the exact team that we needed to pull off our task for the week. We have so many different gifts and abilities within our team and God is using all of them for His glory. Thank you for doing your part by praying for us. We will share more tomorrow!

Sunday at Logos

Our morning began at Iglesia Bautista Logos for Sunday morning worship. All we can say is…WOW! We felt like we had a small glimpse of heaven today. People from different parts of the world, speaking different languages, all worshiping the same God was amazing! We felt God’s presence in the packed auditorium and we felt the love of fellow brothers and sisters. It was such an amazing experience. It is hard to put it into words. See some highlights on the Facebook page for Iglesia Bautista Logos.

After the service we made a short drive to Logos Baptist Academy, which is a ministry of Iglesia Bautista Logos. They fed us lunch at the school, then after a tour of the facilities, we made our preparations to start tomorrow’s music camp. Pray for us as we board our vans at 7:15 AM to head to the school.

We learned some interesting facts about the school. The most important fact is that although this is a Christian school, most of the students are not professing Christians. Many of their families do not attend the church. We will do our part this week to teach the children about Jesus and show them His love. This is going to be a very fun, exciting week. We can’t wait to see what God has in store for us.

Off to a GREAT start!

Today we started our day at Iglesia Bautista Logos which is our host church for the week. We set up for tomorrow’s worship service, did sound checks with their production team, ran through most of our music and enjoyed lunch provided by the church. The members have been so kind and welcoming and made us feel at home the moment we arrived. Tomorrow we will help to lead their service. We will be singing several songs in Spanish to begin the service. Would you like to see it? The church streams their services through Facebook live. Go to Facebook and find iglesbautistalogos. The service begins at 10:30 AM.

This afternoon we had some free time. Several of our members toured San Juan, others went to the beach at Playa Santa, while others shopped and a few experienced a natural hot spring. (They said it was 109 degrees!) This was our fun afternoon before we start a very busy week. We are excited to see how God will use us.

How can you pray for us? Pray for tomorrow’s service. We want God to use us to lead the people of Iglesia Bautista Logos to worship Him. Singing in Spanish has been a challenge for many of us. We want the message to be clear. Pray that our words, although maybe not pronounced perfectly, would be meaningful and will draw everyone who hears us to our Father.

Tomorrow afternoon we will go to the Logos Baptist Academy to set up for our week long music camp. We will work with kindergarten through high school students. We have a lot of logistics to work out before we see the students on Monday morning. Please pray for our set up time and for our organization so that the camp will flow smoothly and we will have the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of these children.

We landed!

Today was our travel day. We began at Charlotte Douglas airport at 7:00 AM getting bags checked and our group organized. We were in the air at 9:00 AM and landed in San Juan around 12:30 PM. Everything went very smoothly. We boarded vans and began our hour and a half journey to Ponce. That went smoothly too…well, unless you were in the back of one of the vans. Some of our drivers (who will remain nameless) thought we were still in Charlotte at the Charlotte Motor Speedway! To be honest, that is how you have to dive in San Juan.

Our drive to Ponce was beautiful! We were surrounded by lush green mountains on both sides of the road. If you have ever traveled from Greenville to Hendersonville on Highway 25 then you have an idea of what we saw. As we got closer to our destination you could see the ocean in the distance. It was worth the drive. Click here for a view.

We checked into our hotel and had a delicious dinner. The most memorable part of dinner was the temperature in the room! They reserved us a banquet room and apparently the air conditioning was set on about 65 degrees. (Ask Tom Barden for a more accurate temperature reading. He seemed to have it figured out. This is where Diane rolls her eyes!) Who would have thought we would be in Puerto Rico begging for long sleeves and a jacket? Click here

We ended our night with a debrief of the day, discussion about plans for tomorrow and a devotional time. We all agree that today was a good day. We look forward to tomorrow.

Thank you for your prayers. God is working all around us.

Mission Trip Eve

Tomorrow morning (4/26) our Puerto Rico mission team will gather at Charlotte Douglas airport at 7:00 AM to begin our journey. Because of the early check in time, some of us made the trip tonight. (I’m not a morning person!) Our plane is scheduled to take off at 9:00 AM then land in San Juan. at 12:35 PM. Pray for us as we board our plane to start this adventure. Our mission field will be sitting all around us. We want to impact those around us.

Our plan is to provide daily updates. Check our website frequently to keep up with our progress and to read what God is doing. We can’t wait to see how He will move this week!