First United Methodist Church

We have safely landed in Puerto Rico. A few of us are returners but most are brand new to Puerto Rico. We are excited to see what God has in store for us.

Today is our first day of ministry. We have breakfast scheduled at primera Iglesia Bautista Rio Piedras. During breakfast our project manager of the church Adrian shared with us the vision of what we will be doing throughout the week and also sharing the ministries that the church is involved in.

One of our missionaries named Carmen shared with the church her story. A cancer survivor 9 years ago she started writing poems of her story and giving God the glory that she is healed now. This woman never thought she would get to see her 60th birthday and now she's 64 and in this mission trip sharing her story.

Today's our first day of ministry and we are at Casa Amor Fe y Esperanza (CAFE). It's a nonprofit that does missions ministry and outreach to the University students in Puerto Rico. Today we got to hear from pastora Belkis and the ministry that the church does. We are excited to roll up our sleeves and start working with them.

We arrived this morning at Primera Iglesia Bautista de Río Piedras, where we are painting the bunk rooms for future missions.

CAFE Church has a ministry that gives clothes to the community but especially in the graduation season they give dresses and suits to people graduating, so we are  making sure the Boutique looks nice so everyone can go and dress to shine. 

On the left Pastora Sara, on the right pastora Andrea and in the middle pastora Belkis. These 3 women are pastors of First UMC in South Dakota and Belkis of CAFE Church will get to work together and get to know each other this week. Please pray for these awesome women and the week of ministry ahead of us!

Today we continue the painting at the Primera Iglesia Bautista de Puerto Rico giving all areas finishing touches.

Today we finished touching up Primera Iglesia Bautista de Río Piedras for the glory of God, so that many more teams can arrive, rest & shine His light throughout this community. 

This morning with Pastora Belkis we helped carry grocery bags to the van that'll take them to the city of Ponce in the south of the island. This bags will be a blessing to college students there. 

Today we finally finished painting. We take the memories we've made at Primera Iglesia Bautista de Río Piedras, but we leave our mark & the Lord's blessing for those to come.

Today we headed to Baño Grande, one of the many water pools in el Yunque, to enjoy our recreation time.

As part of our day at El Yunque we visited Yokahú Tower. We got to see the mountains and towns near by.