Washing Cars to go to Six Flags Mexico

Yesterday (Saturday) a bunch of the young people began washing cars for a donation, and ended up washing around 18 cars through the morning and early afternoon hours. They raised about $40 towards the whole youth group going to an amusement park. Fun times! The ladies plan to also bake some sweets to sell in order to raise some money for this event.

Later that day we had a team meeting at a local restaurant, planning for the many events in the next several months. Among the highlights...two different Saturdays we are receiving a medical team that will be doing simple medical clinics, and we also talked about the plans for our church's first anniversary Sunday coming up the end of March, and the closing program for our community center.

Today I spoke on what the baptism of the Holy Spirit is, and what it is not. Jim started us off about a month ago on a series of sermons addressing important and relevant doctrinal issues. He spoke on the eternalness of our salvation. My challenge today was to talk about what Holy Spirit baptism is, which prompted me to address the whole concept of second blessing and tongues. It was a challenging sermon for several reasons. First of all, probably 70-80% of the Christian community here (perhaps even higher) is pentecostal in their theology, and stresses to one degree or another the gifts of tongues and prophesy (and have varying views on "liberation," casting out demons, power encounters and the like.

But I survived, and I think we as a congregation survived and will hopefully be stronger for it.

Still no little pet snake, by the way. Pretty sure if must have starved to death by now. Unless it has been swallowing small rodents, in which case it could be REALLY BIG!

Pray also for my visa. Still don't have it. The week will be decisive. I may have to get a special permit to fly up and back.