When you go on a Mission Trip one thing you can plan on is opportunities. These are those situations where things don’t go as planned this is what we refer to as an opportunity from God. We had a couple of those today.

Before everyone made it out for breakfast we had our first opportunity. Barb was ill, Kevin told us she would be staying here at Caminul Felix and could not come with us today. Everyone quickly stepped up to the plate to fill her spot. With 1 person down on our team, it would take the other 12 of us to fill her shoes. Just a quick update, Barb is feeling much better and is currently planning on coming with us tomorrow.

After making sure she had medication, something to drink and was settled, it was time to get ready to go. Oh that’s right, Barb would be the one normally making a list and checking it twice, make sure we left on time (ok attempted to leave on time), secure the building. This is where the rest of the team stepped in to make sure that everything was taken care of. Then it was off to the Isaiah Center. As I recall there was only supposed to be a 10% chance of rain today but it is looking awfully cloudy. Oh well, that’s ok, we are talking about Baptism, hmmmm if it rains, we’re still going, we’ll figure out some way to make it our advantage.

That’s when the bomb scare happened. We had a stink bomb in our van, his name is Alex. He is a four year old that is one of the children that come to the Isaiah center. He has been staying with us each night. By the aroma in the air it seems he is having a little “issue” and had a “present” for us to take care of. Poor Julie had been holding him when this happened. Without asking, Adi, our driver who doesn’t speak English, reacted and pulled over, that was great, we can handle this much better with the van stopped. Then Adi quicly jumped out of the van. Seems the aroma was just a little overwhelming. I believe more of the Julie was great, she got into her battle position it took two of us, but we finally got Alex changed, Julie would have to wait until we got back to Caminul Felix 12 hours later. We all had a good laugh about it then, and several times later.

We made it to the Isaiah center, quickly cleaned up Alex & Julie, and then it was off to the village for our second day of VBS. By the number of sandwiches we gave out today we are estimating we had about 170 children. Seems we overlooked charging the Ipod, so there was a delay in the music. No worries though, Janet had her Ipod with the music loaded so we were quickly back on schedule. VBS time was great, we worshiped, prayed, ate and played together. God was good.

After VBS it was back to the Isaiah Center to work on the special projects. I have to say I think everything went pretty smooth. Barb was missed in all areas but Kevin was able to check on her several times and by the time we got back she was feeling much better.

Though it was an eventful day, Christ could be seen everywhere, especially when you look at the opportunities we gained instead of the problems that arose. It was difficult having Barb gone, but everyone went above and beyond to make sure everything she would normally do was taken care of. With a little prayer and His help, we were able to keep on task and pretty good on time. The little, ok large, bomb scare we had gave us a lot of laughter throughout the day. The battery issue with the Ipod, gave us some extra time to build relationships with the kids. Oh, and that rain, it was pretty cloudy on the way there, but once we got to Tinca it was only sunny skies. It is all about how you react to what has been given to you. Next time you have a problem; look at it as an opportunity.

Praising Him through the dark clouds,

Tracy