The Least of These

Matthew 25:37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? ³⁸When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? ³⁹When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

⁴⁰"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

Wow what an amazing Sunday we had here as we had the opportunity to first go to Jamin and Renario's church which is out in the flats close to the ocean. The service didn't start till noon and the youth would definitely appreciate that. When we arrived we noticed that each person who came was given a number...would there be a 50/50 draw with the offering?

The service began with Jesus leading worship...there are a lot of guys who take His name here. He goes by the nickname, Chewy! He truly has a heart of worship and the small church was packed out...standing room only today. Pastor Jamin preached the Word with intensity and conviction although I really had no idea what he was saying, I could feel it. We had communion after and the children were given grapes. I thought that was a neat idea. Following the service, he prayed for a number of people who came forward and church ended around 2:30pm!

Following church we quickly downed some deep fried fish tacos and that it was off to the 'mountain' to do a 'distribution' to one of the poorest areas of Maneadero where we are staying. The people here actually come from another poor province, Oaxaca, and work the fields picking vegetables if they are chosen by the farmer and are lucky to make $10- day. Some don't even speak Spanish, but a dialect of it and actually you can hear them cluck as they speak.

So, we played loud music and invited the people out of their homes to come and meet with us. We performed our drimes and then Jimmy Donaruma, the youth pastor from Long Hill Chapel in New Jersey spoke to them on Jesus and the Samaritan woman. He spoke on how she thought she was just getting water, but Jesus was giving her so much more than that. So, too were the people there to receive the clothes that we brought for them, but we were coming to offer them so much more. The clothes will wear out, but Jesus love will not and we directed them to Faustino's church which is not too far from them.

Following our presentation we laid out our brand new clothes and shoes that we brought from the cast offs from Superstore along with clothes that the other team had and were able to bless their socks off. It was a lot of fun and brought an incredible sense of joy.

In the evening we listened to a concert by El Trio and Marina from the Nazarene Church and then two of the pastors shared their testimonies. We listened as Pastor Renario shared how he once trafficked drugs and weapons across the border, was caught and spent time in prison in the US. He shared how he found Jesus and how His life is now transformed!

Monday morning came way too fast as I was up at 6am sorting tools with Rick and Todd as we got ready for 3 house builds this week. So, I'm leading a team to build a house from the get go....Rick doesn't waste anytime, that is for sure! Thank goodness I have an architect on my team as well as a guy who used to build homes as well, but they almost have too much knowledge for the way we do things here in Ensenada!

I made a few mistakes using 10' footers for framing instead of 12' and 8' but thankfully caught it before we secured them to the pad because the 10' are for trusses....stuff like that, but no permanent mistakes and I'm happy to say that we completed day one with a success....all four walls are up! We are on our way!!