We Hit the Jackpot!!!

This trimester I was put "in charge" of the ministry in La Carpio, mainly b/c almost everyone that was here last trimester left! Our leader, Lalo, who works with the people in La Carpio encouraged me to not have a "plan." What? No plan? That's crazy! But the more I thought and prayed, the more I was convinced that that was exactly what God wanted me to do.

It sounds easy. But all the "what if's" were entering my mind. What if no one shows up. What if they are bored. What if they think I am totally unorganized! It was a struggle for me to just go and wait for God to do HIS thing. I highlighted these verses in my bible the morning we were to go and was encouraged by some verses in Psalms 27:
8 "My heart says of you, "Seek his face!" Your face Lord, I will seek.
11 "Teach me your way, O Lord; lead me in a straight path."
13 "I am still confident of this: I will see goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. WAIT for the Lord; be strong and take heart and WAIT for the Lord."

So, I knew I needed to wait, but I have to say, I was a little nervous. I work with the women making jewelery and we didn't have enough materials to really do anything. I had no idea what we would do for 2 and a 1/2 hours, but was interested in seeing what would happen. When we got there, the ladies came and we tried to make some jewelery and kept coming up with things we needed, so we decided to make a list. We wrote: 3 scissors, hot glue guns, hot glue sticks, ziploc bags, more beads, earring "palitos" (what we put the beads on).

I thought, well let me just go look in the closet and see if I can find scissors. (It's basically a bunch of plastic containers filled with stuff that mission teams have left when they come down for mission trips). The first box I looked in I found a big ziploc bag of scissors! So I went back to see what else was there. That's when I came across a box filled, and I mean filled with wooden beads, colored beads, seashells, etc. that already had holes in them and everything!!!! We couldn't believe it! The ladies were so excited and immediately started sorting everything, but we needed bags to put them into. So, I thought "Might as well try and see if I can find some bags in there." That is when I found another bin filled with 5 boxes of ziploc bags in all sizes, hot glue guns with the sticks and all kind of string to make necklaces!!!!! Holy Moly we hit the jackpot!!!! We were all laughing and praising God for how He provided in ways beyond my imagination! We also thought how funny it was that we made the list first and how God was just answering every request we had. Lalo came in and asked us to write MONEY on the list:-)

Needless to say, I got a little teary eyed as I was in the closet giving thanks to an Almighty, powerful, and loving God. It was as if we had stumbled upon the biggest treasure chest that brought all kinds of new and different ideas as well! It was so cool! Thanks Lord for showing me how to let go and be a part of what you are doing!