We started our day at 3:30 am. I am starting to understand that whole thing about "we do more before 5 am than most people do all day!"
The prayer time went from 4 am to 6 am. The prayer time was incredible! I have learned so much about prayer! What it really means to pray. We prayed for all of you. We prayed for the church. We prayed for the city. We prayed for their impact event. We prayed for the nation. We prayed for our personal lives and relationships with God. We prayed for our neighbors. We prayed for those that don't know Jesus. We prayed that they would know Jesus. We prayed for our jobs and families. We prayed for our debts, to be financially free. At the end we walked around the worship center walls and prayed for our own concerns. The reason they do this is to claim the Joshua experience for themselves. That our own walls would fall down and God would rush in. I walked around seven times (then realized that they walked around it 13 times total). I have felt the presence of the Lord so incredibly powerful in my life as we have walked and prayed and worshipped and sang. So very powerful.
We got a chance to workout again at the park so many of us did that after coming back at 6 am. I ran around the track and Bill played basketball in a pickup game with some locals. Some walked and some went on home. It was refreshing and energizing.
Breakfast and devotional. Ron did the honors for the the devotional. God answered the prayer of our hearts through Dr. Kraemer. He was supposed to arrive at 11 am, but due to a schedule mixup he didn't arrive until EARLY Wednesday morning. What did God do?
God made it so we could go back over to San Judas to work on their concrete! We had been wanting to go back over and help them some more but did not see how we would be able to do it with the Master's Plan Conference beginning on Wednesday and Dr. Kraemer arriving in the middle of the day. God had His plan for us. He heard our hearts! Doesn't he always hear our heart??
So we went over to the church (San Judas) and worked from 11 to 6 pm. We continued to work on the rebar. Making many ties to get it ready to pour concrete. On the other side of the wall, it was ready to put the forms on for the concrete. Many of the forms were ready and we were almost ready to mix the concrete. When . . .
. . . we decided to have a quick sandwich so we could continue to get done as much as possible. However, on one side, we had four people coming across the support beam at the same time. This, in hindsight, was not a good idea! April was holding some sandwiches ready for us to take down and as Bob approached the middle, I was halfway to April and Ron was between Bob and the other wall. (This is confusing! I know. Picture April, then me, then Bob in the middle of the beam and then Ron.) The beam collapsed!! And the tin roof became a giant, HOT, slide. April stepped back just in time to the safe scaffolding and the sandwiches tumbled, becoming literal SAND-wiches. Very gritty!! Meanwhile, Ron, Bob and I dropped down the tin that now funneled us toward the second floor. Tin hit the support beam, the support beam hit the bamboo and the now broken beam caught on the bamboo below and corked the end of the slide. Bob soft landed in the corked hole. Ron and I came to rest on the sides of a pile of cascaded debris. Time stopped.
Quickly, Pastor and others began scrambling to get us off the twisted metal. We quickly reached out to Bob and helped him get over to safer ground. We examined ourselves. No one was hurt. There were a few minor burns, from the tin, and a couple of scratches and that was all! However, the sandwiches had third degree burns from cooking on the metal and had to be put out of their misery. We gathered on the second floor construction area, caught our breath and accessed the site.
We prayed and thanked God.
Now. What do we do? We've got a mess. The good news is that we were able, with God's help, to recover and still pour the concrete. After mixing and pouring, we had one more job to do. We needed to make it so the roof would not allow water, should it rain, to enter the worship area below.
After moving tin and creating supports, it was finished. In my opinion, we left them with a poured concrete beam and a more solid temporary roof to continue their work. After feeling down from moving two steps back, I now felt we had gotten to a good place to leave them to continue the hard work of building the third floor. I praised God for what we had done and what, now, He would continue to accomplish in this rapidly growing church. Gloria a Dios!
We said goodbye. Went home. Had dinner. Then most of us went to experience a cell group. I stayed home because I was totally done and emotional spent. The group that went was excited when they came back and said they had a wonderful time with the cell group!
Whew. Time for bed.
Watch the video below to see what was accomplished! Thank you, God.
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