A Brief Intermission
Well I was hoping to at least begin my next series of posts breaking down the details of our vision for Epic Church of Augusta, but alas...we must wait.
I will soon be leaving for a short-term mission trip to Bolivia in South America. This is an annual trip for me as each summer I join the mission team from our home church in Columbus, GA to visit the small rainforest township of Ixiamas, Bolivia. For the past six years we have been involved in the building of an internado which is a boarding house for children who live too far into the rainforest to come in to school everyday. The vision for this internado is to provide a safe, Christ-centered home for these children to live Monday - Friday while they go to school.
My first trip was in 2002 and on that trip the building was simply a one-story brick shell with dirt floors. Our main construction project that summer was the laying of cement flooring. This is much more difficult in Ixiamas because you first must assemble a "puzzle" of river rock, then mix the cement by hand with a shovel, and pour it with wheelbarrows. That was some of the hardest work I think I had ever been a part of.
Well, four years later it is a 3-story building with 44 children living there along with a couple of house parents, and a cook. Many of the children have come to know Christ as their savior and many are finding hope and healing after very difficult lives of poverty and (surprisingly prevelant) sexual abuse at home.
We will also be conducting vacation Bible school for the children of the internado, the children of the town, and the children of a distant village that we will be visiting called Tahua. We have an optometrist on our team who is bringing a focumeter (spelling?) and a couple hundred pairs of glasses. Many children will be given the gift of clear vision during this trip.
I've been appointed as the team blogmaster so I have set up a blog called
Rio de Vida. This is spanish for River of Life. Surprisingly there is an internet cafe in the town where we will be spending most of our time so I will be making daily posts of our activity. Stop by and see what's happening south of the Equator when you have time.
After arriving home, kissing my wife, petting my dog, sleeping a whole lot, eating fried chicken, and drinking a gallon or so of sweetened iced tea I will resume this blog with the series of posts about Epic Church of Augusta.
Adios mi amigos!