October 9-15

        This past week was a rather strange week because we had two holidays (Monday and Thursday), so there were many special activities instead of our normal routine. On Monday we were able to spend the day with Lorenzo and Ana María, and we visited several families in the church. On Thursday we spent the day with Juan and Cristina and then had our couples' study with Lorenzo and Ana María in the afternoon before church. Since Thursday was a holiday, we had an extra large attendance at church for prayer meeting.
        But the biggest activity of the week was our men's retreat on Friday and Saturday. Pablo Portugal came down from Barcelona to be the speaker, and we had a total of 25 men. The topic was prayer, and the studies were very practical. The Lord was so good to us in many ways. Emilio was a great help to me for the last retreat, taking care of all of the food and other organizational matters, but he went to the hospital last Monday morning with yet another heart attack. When I visited him, he told me that he wasn't going to be able to be at the retreat. But he got out of the hospital on Wednesday and was there helping out and entertaining at the retreat as if nothing had ever happened to him. On Friday morning I checked the weather report and noticed to my horror that they were calling for rain Friday night and thunderstorms during the day on Saturday! I could just imagine all of our tents getting washed off the camp site. But the Lord overruled, and we had perfect weather all week end. Praise the Lord for answering our prayers about this retreat.
        Yesterday I preached from 2 Corinthians 1.8-9 about another of Paul's "ignorant" passages. In this case he warns us not to be ignorant that even the strongest trials can be used by God to teach us to trust in Him.