DIOS TE BENDIGA

“God Bless You”

¡Hola! ¿Como estas? ¡Dios te bendiga! Hello! How are you? God bless you! Wow! What a trip we had to Venezuela! Dan Bolin, Mark Larwick, Michael Kruse, Justin Mack, Jeremiah Selby, Nettie Spitz, and Carrie Ogle made up the seven students that went on the two and half week mission trip to Venezuela. Jaime Woodburn, John Woodward, and myself led them.

It was wonderful to visit Venezuela and see the work that God is doing through Sara Navarrete who graduated from Iowa State University and is now a full time missionary in Venezuela. She married a wonderful native Venezuelan named Jorge and together they are working to expand the kingdom of God in Venezuela. They are incredible people doing an incredible work for the Lord.

While we were there Sara kept us very busy and we were able to accomplish a great amount of work for the Lord through which we were all greatly blessed. At the church we knocked down three walls and created two new walls to restructure the church to make the meeting area larger and the church safer. It was a huge amount of work as the church is on the third floor and the walls are made out of ceramic block and concrete. The first step was to carry all the materials for the new walls up the stairs to the third floor. Then the current ceramic block and concrete walls had to be knocked down. The next step was to shovel the rubble from the walls into bags and then carry the bags down the three floors and put them on a truck so it could be taken away. After that we began building the new walls but the concrete to make the new walls had to be made on the ground using a shovel on the second floor then carried up to the third floor one bucket at a time. Once the walls were completed we repainted the entire meeting room, which required three or four coats of paint. It was a big project but the team worked incredibly hard to get it all accomplished and it was a great blessing to the church.

The church had a great need to make its meeting area larger as the church continues to grow and had out grown the current space. The first Sunday after we completed the project of making the meeting area larger the church was already full of people again. Praise the Lord!

The team was also greatly blessed by being able to spend a lot of time with the youth of the church. Several of the youth stopped by the church everyday to spend time with us while we were working. We had the opportunity to teach them during their youth group time, have a pool party with them, and play sports with them. It was awesome to see their excitement for the Lord, as many of them are new Christians.

One of the greatest struggles we had while there was communication. The majority of the team knew very little Spanish and translators were not available every moment. However, God was with us and we were able to communicate through using our hands and using Spanish/English dictionaries. It was awesome that though communication was hard, both the team and the church did not allow that to prevent them from communicating and building relationships with each other. It was a blessing to get to know our brothers and sisters in Christ in Venezuela. Now that we are back, we miss them and look forward to one day seeing them again.

This was an awesome trip for the students and leaders. Many of the students that went had never been on an overseas mission trip before and we were all greatly impacted by what God showed us through this trip. Thank you so much for your support, which made this trip possible.

Dios te bendiga,

Shane McMahon