Maplewood Baptist Team

We just finished a week of serving with a team. it was an incredible week. here is a thank you letter that was written by one of the team members - Laurel. I thought you might like someone elses perspective.



We had an absolutely amazing week! We know of at least thirty to forty people who were saved this week. We also know of close to 1400 people that we got to share the Gospel with. We had a VERY busy week while we were there! We went to four schools and presented a program that consisted of performing a skit, singing songs, telling testimonies, and presenting the Gospel. We also had a slip-n-slide for Victory Baptist Orphanage, which we visited last year. Later on in the week, we took them to a river to play. These children are precious and are being raised in a loving Christian environment. There are just not enough workers to give the children the love and attention they deserve! We also evangelized at two town squares, one in Ajutarique and the other in Comayagua. This included making balloon animals, one-on-one evangelism, and playing soccer as means of sharing the gospel. One night we passed out flyers around the community of Lo de Reina, which is where the El Ayudante mission house is located, about a movie night later on in the week. We probably passed out 100-150 flyers and ended up having around 300 people show up for the movie night. We now know what the disciples felt like when Jesus fed the 5,000 with the fish and the bread. We had put on the flyer that there would be popcorn and sodas, but when so many people showed up, we did not have near enough popcorn. So earlier that day, we had been to the grocery store, and several of us had bought cookies to take back home with us. We gathered all of our cookies together and just knew it wasn’t going to be near enough. We handed out two cookies and a glass of soda to each person there and ended up having two bowls of cookies left. It was truly a miracle, and it amazed us all. We ministered at the squatter’s village where we handed out hygiene bags. The people who live here literally have nothing. Some of them may have a mattress to lie on, and others of them may have cardboard boxes as their beds. Their houses may be made of concrete, or, for some, they are made of sticks and plastic. We shared the hope and love of Jesus with them as well as handed out bags full of hygiene items that most of them have never had before. We then headed off to another awesome orphanage. The orphanages are always the hardest parts of the trip for me. Most of these people just literally “throw” their children out on the street because they either do not want them or feel they will have a better life if they are somewhere else. While we were at this particular orphanage, the first little girl I sat down beside was very shy and would not tell us much information. She wouldn’t even tell us her name. She did not want us touching her or even really talking to her. We tried everything to make her smile and nothing worked. She looked so sad. She is the girl in the second picture at the top of the page. I was tired and content to just sit beside her. About thirty minutes into our time there, she scooted over and sat in my lap. I got a hold of some bubbles that we had brought and we blew bubbles for a while -- she smiled while we were doing that. She still wouldn’t talk much, but I was fine with just sitting there and loving on her. From then on, if she wanted to go somewhere, she would grab my hand and drag me to another group that was playing frisbees, or flying kites. She was a sweetie who just needed to be shown love. I was so terribly sad when we had to leave, and I had to let her go. What an incredible time God gave us on this mission trip this year! He truly blessed our every effort above and beyond what we deserved. I feel as if I were more blessed by this trip than the people we went to bless.