Trinity Lutheran Youth

Our Praying Pelican Missions staff is ready to go! We are looking forward for what God will do this week. Let's go!

Today we are joining our different partners of the week to worship God! A part of our team is with Pastor Elvis, praying for the people and giving them something to eat. We're blessing many people here.

Some of our team is with a Methodist church in San Juan. We are singing is Spanish some well known English songs, like Waymaker, as well as some new to us!

Some of us as sharing in worship by singing Amazing Grace in the front. Although a bit hesitant at beginning, we allow God to take over and we nailed it!

We are enjoying spending this Sunday alongside Iglesia Bautista Cristo Restaura sharing testimonies and songs. Everyone has been open and loving and we are so excited to be spending this service with everyone here in Puerto Rico.

We walked around the community of Iglesias Bautista Cristo Restaura. We prayed for people and handed out bags with the church information to the people we prayed for. Everyone feels overjoyed to be able to pray for people and be a part of this experience.

 We are taking advantage of our downtime to try Paletados, a Puerto Rican popsicle store. It's so tasty, they should open up shop in Washington as well!

Today we are visiting our other partner for this week, Casa de Restauracion Pan De Vida. We are hitting the ground running, as after meeting pastor Rosa, we get to work on the 2 walls we are going to build. First, we have to prepare the area, so everyone is jumping in to clear the area of the previous structure that was in place. This was an abandoned building, so we are helping in preparing it to be a sanctuary 

Today we are scraping the walls of the of the old school that's in renovation so we can start painting them. Everyone is pumped to do the work that we've been assigned. 

Today we're cleaning out a truckload of toys. These toys will be used to give children Christmas gifts.

After our awesome lunch, we are back in the walls! Everyone is doing great, taking breaks when needed, but doing a great push! We have almost finished the beams to put the sheetrock, and we feel pumped! Let's go, church with a capital "C" !

We are painting the old school building. We are excited to be helping the community.

We are continuing work at the old school building, scraping the old loose paint and painting new coats. Everyone is exited and happy with the work that is being done here.

Today we came with Pastor Elvis to his new church and we are cleaning the sand so we can use it later to make the cement mix.

Some of us were able to bring some furniture for the pastor's office. We put it inside after loading it on a pickup truck. Looking forward to how everything will look together!

After lunch we are putting up drywall for a new office space at this church in Naguabo. We're making great progress! We're all excited to see how this new space will bless the church.

This afternoon we're in Torres del Plata, Toa Alta, participating in the VBS. We're creating crosses and painting. We also sang and shared the Bible.

We stopped to get some dessert after a long day of work today. Everyone feels good about the work we've been able to do for the community.

This afternoon we went to the beach after a great day of ministry. We're having an awesome time admiring God's creation!

We are cleaning out the kitchen of the old school to rehabilitate it for other missionaries to be able to use in the future. We are proud to be doing the Lord's work.

Today we are with Pastor Elvis putting primer on the walls.

We are having arroz con gandules and pernil for lunch at the church in Naguabo. It's delicious! We are having a great time connecting and sharing stories with the people from this church.

We are continuing to clean and pressure wash the kitchen and the classrooms of the old school. Everyone is working hard and we are able to see the progress that we've made here. Praise the Lord!

After hanging drywall and corner trim, we are sitting down to hear Pastor Rosa's testimony. We are hoping to pray for her and see how many more blessings God has in store for her congregation. 

We were talking about how God is the light in our lives and how we too need to be light in VBS

We are painting and priming the classrooms at  Colegio Bautista de Gurabo. Everyone is excited to be working and everyone is happy with the work that's being done.

This morning we are helping clean pens at the dog shelter. This is a difficult task but we are determined to do it. We hope this is a blessing not just to the dogs but to the people who work here.

Before closing up our trip, we are exploring La Parguera, a little beach town on the south of the island. We're also trying local food and getting souvenirs to bring back home.  As we experience one of the wonders of the world, a bioluminescent bay, and one of us gets baptized in this beautiful scenery, we can only give thanks to the Lord for what we experience this week, and look forward to what God will do next in our (and Puerto Rico's) lives.