Dear Friends,
Once again, the past two months have been full of activities! When I got back from Christmas vacation, one of the first things our church did was load up a bus of about thirty people and go to the capital city to help another church with an evangelistic outreach. We visited some of the slums of the city, giving out tracts and spreading the Gospel from 8 a.m. – 4 p.m. It was a long day, but we were able to see a lot of souls saved! I personally led 11-year-old Neidali to the Lord, and my partner led 14-year-old Fanny to the Lord. I believe there were over 50 professions of faith that day. We were all exhausted by the end of the day, but we were also thrilled at what we had seen the Lord do. We gave all the contact information we gathered to the local church we were helping, and we are praying that they can see growth through our efforts.
At the beginning of February one of the girls on my bus route accepted Jesus as her Savior! She is also a student in our school. She was telling everyone about her decision, and she just couldn’t wait to get baptized. My bus route is also growing. Two weeks ago, I was outside a house waiting for one child to finish getting ready. Suddenly, a lady sticks her head in my driver side window and asks, “Are you going to that church in Sabanagrande?” Startled, I acknowledged that, yes, that was our destination. She opened the back door, put her two children in the back seat, said, “They want to go,” and started to walk away. After a moment of stunned surprise, I jumped out of my car and chased her down to find out their names, contact information, and where I was supposed to drop them off. The next week, those two children brought their 22-year-old friend and her two-month-old baby. We had 17 people in my little five passenger car on Sunday! Needless to say, my car is filled to beyond capacity.
I’m also taking another step in my ministry here. Until now, I’ve been living on the same property as the church and school, in a house provided by the head missionaries. But in December, after much counsel and prayer, I made the decision to begin looking for my own house. I found a beautiful three-bedroom, two-bathroom house with plenty of space for my two Rottweilers. My friend, the secretary of the school, will also be rooming with me. We are moving the first week of March. Thankfully my dad is flying in to help me move, and I have many friends here who have also volunteered to help. I am excited about this next step in my life!
My adventure this month happened one day while on evangelism. My group had just finished and were in my car headed home. The area we were visiting was not a populated area, so it was not unusual to see a man driving a herd of cattle towards us. I slowed down in order to navigate through the cows when I saw a massive bull with horns headed my direction. I was watching the bull in fascination when I made eye contact with him. We stared at each other for a few seconds, but that apparently was a few seconds too long since he charged my car. I, of course, let out a nice girly scream. At the last moment, he swerved to the side and slowly walked past my driver side door, eyeing me the entire time. As my heart rate was slowly coming back down to normal, I realized that the cowboy was sitting on his horse, laughing hysterically. He shook his head and shouted, “Why are you scared? You’re inside your car!” Apparently that man has never had a huge bull run towards his small car.
Please remember my students and their families in prayer as we try to reach them with the Gospel.
Sincerely, Ericka Wright