Holy Cross Lutheran Church

Heather and Gabriela are waiting for the team to arrive in Puerto Rico! We are ready and excited to meet everyone!

Today we are joining Primera Iglesia Bautista de Canóvanas in their early morning bible study! This is an enlightening time we’re having, learning about a pastor’s role in church! 

After a delicious lunch, we are having a prayer walk in the community Pastor Dieppa dearly cares for. We’re praying for people, taking prayer requests, and blessing them with much needed groceries to spread God’s love to their lives. Mark 16:15

Up and ready to serve Pastor Dieppa’s community! After discussions and planning, we’ve got a great day of work projects ahead of us! Looking forward to getting to know and helping others here in Canóvanas and Loíza. 

As some of us are working in the community of Canóvanas, a few of us are working in the house of Priscilla in Loiza! This morning we are pressure washing her roof and removing debris from her yard that has been here since Hurricane Maria.

At Benjamin's house, we are helping clean his house and yard. It is a wonderful experience getting to meet new brothers and sisters in Christ.

As we clean Benjamin’s house, we have been able to meet some wonderful people of the congregation who are helping out as well! A woman named Melanie served us some guava juice that she made from her own grown tree! It is a blessing to serve with these beautiful people we’re meeting.

Meeting Priscilla today was a blessing. Her joy in the midst of her life struggles is truly inspiring. She even introduced us to her mom and sisters!

At Primera Iglesia Bautista de Canóvanas, some of us have stayed to work on pressure washing the basketball court and scraping mold from the fence! We have been able to multitask by dividing up the work, remembering that just like body parts we each have an important role and must work together for the body to function! 1 Corinthians 12:12-20

Having breakfast at Panchy’s bakery has been a great way to start the day! While we eat some delicious sandwiches, we do more discussing about what today is going to look like, making sure we are all on the same page. We want to do our best for God always!

Let’s get creative! It is a blessing to spend time with the kids of Nueva Academia Bautista Sotera Sánchez. First, we’re giving them an example with our Adam and Eve skit and then we help them create their own! This is a great and entertaining way to learn and teach more about the Bible!

Another of our projects today is using primer on the church and academy’s fence. While doing this, we’ve been able to do some bonding, which is something every team needs! Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

Tonight we are participating in the prayer service at Primera Iglesia Bautista de Canóvanas. Becky and Diem shared testimonies, and Nolan played the piano. At the end of the service, the church members prayed over us in Spanish and we were able to pray over them in English. This is the Church.

We are ready to work again at the church and house projects! God is good!

We are back at it at Benjamin’s house! We are glad to keep serving this fellow missionary and actually paint his house with a color he likes! This red color was picked by him and we’re more than glad to help him out with it!

Priscilla's roof has been coated with two coats of sealer! She is so happy that the work is done, but is sad that we have to leave. She said next time we come she will cook lots of food for us!

After a long few days, we are having fun playing games together before bed. Right now we have two tables of Chameleon going!

This morning a couple of us are doing the last finishing touches on Benji's house. It is looking so good!

On our last work day, we’re doing our best to finish priming the fence. This time, it’s all hands on deck! Team work makes the dream work!

We had the opportunity to say our goodbyes to the homeowners, Priscilla and Benjamin, so now we take a moment to appreciate and pray for Pastor Dieppa who has been such a great person to serve and has served us with humbleness. His church and community have impacted us so much this week. We’re sad to leave, but happy we got to meet such amazing people.

This afternoon we are going on a zipline tour through the rainforest! There are 8 total that go through the canopy. It's beautiful!

Of course we had to dip our toes in the water one more time before heading home tomorrow! After some time at the beach, we had a delicious dinner at a local restaurant.

Of course we had to take a last picture at Plaza Colón, our drop-off/pick-up area for today as we spent some time in Old San Juan.  As we say one last goodbye to Puerto Rico and our mission leaders, we look forward to getting home, but feel sad about leaving. It’s bittersweet but we’re glad we’ve had this experience!