Saltshaker Aguascalientes Update (7/4/09)

Update From Matt Newton:

Hola! Yesterday was a long and exciting day full of many different activities. I woke up at the usual 9:45ish and went downstairs to eat my breakfast. While that was happening everybody came over to the Smuck's house to work on our first task of the day. We had to fill out VBS handouts with dates, times and directions. We had about 600 to fill in and about halfway through we took a break to have our daily devotional time. Yours truly led the devotional with Hebrews 12:1&2. After the break we went right back to work and finished the fliers. Then we left the Smuck's and headed to the Giron's house for lunch.

After lunch we split into two groups and went our separate ways. Roy and Sammy went to a prison to see the ministry that Edwin is doing there. Everyone else went to Villas and walked door to door handing out the VBS fliers. We split into two groups to cover more ground. The ALPHA Team consisted of Bobby, Deidre, Favi and Jeremy. And the Gold Team consisted of myself, Robyn, Aris and Andrea. Afterwards the girls went with Andrea to her bible study and the guys went with Jeremy to the new worship house in Pocitos to do work.

We met back up with Sammy and Roy at the house in Pocitos. I'm not going to lie, I didn't do much work that night. Bobby swept the roof and Roy swept the sidewalk clean. The house was mostly cleaned by the women believers in Pocitos. When the house was cleaned we walked through and prayed for the house. One English prayer and one Spanish prayer in each room, even the bathroom. After all the hard work, our guys went with some of the guys from Pocitos to play Ultimate Frisbee. We played a pretty solid game for about an hour. My team would have lost if it wasn't for me, luckily I had my game face on. After the game we went out to eat and called it a night.

Happy 4th of July and God Bless,
Matt Newton

Update from Roy Gongwer:

Happy fourth everyone!!!!!!! As Matt shared, Sammy and I went with Edwin to a men's prison where he helps with a prison ministry. After jumping through the hoops to get into the prison, we joined about 20 inmates in a courtyard for worship. Even in the confines of a prison I could sense the presence of the Lord (should I be surprised? NO!!!!!). Sammy and I both shared a short devotional thought with the men. Sammy spoke on dealing with guilt, and I spoke on finding happiness. The men responded very well to both our thoughts. Edwin spoke to the men, and you could see the respect they had for him and his care for them. He just drew them in to the message he shared with them. He spoke on dissappointment. Edwin also took his guitar in and led the men in 3 or 4 songs. It was just another one of many incredible experiences so far here in AGS.

We appreciate and incourage your prayers for us. We also enjoy seeing your comments to our blog.

Blessings, Roy