Learning by Trial

As the months went by, we learned that the people could not hear if their stomachs were growling. So, we asked our "mother" church to help with expenses and we provided a meal before each meeting. Within one year we had grown in attendance to averaging 40 people. Half of them were children of the ages infant to 12 years. We also saw the need for help in the children area. I was doing it all by myself and there wasn't much order because of the age differences and so many of them. We went back to our "mother" church Indiana Avenue Baptist Church and asked the singles group if they would be interested in volunteering. The next week four people showed up. We divided the children up into two groups, preschool and school age. We would take the kids outside so they could have the space run and do games. This also allowed the adults to be separated from the kids while they learned. Thanks to the volunteers, they did a terrific job and stayed for a year to help. Shane taught the adults very basic teaching, how to use the Bible through reading and understanding. He answered questions, made it interactive, and challenged them each week with some kind of action required and then respond the next week. For instance, one week they were to go to Walmart and make effort to say "Hello" to the greeter. Then come back the next week and tell how they felt about it and how the greeter responded. Another week, they had to show an act of kindness to a person they did not know... Another...Read a whole chapter in the bible(particularly what they were studying). Each week we would see changes in their faces, their walk, and their talk. Eventually they started participating in preparing the food for dinner, set-up and break down, tithing, ending the meeting with prayer, and singing the worship songs. Every summer we would do a back yard VBS in the courtyard of the apartment complex. We would invited everyone in the neighborhood to come. Activities included simple games, crafts, music, story telling, and of course food. We would do it for three days, and on the average have 50-80 people coming not including all the volunteers from the church helping.
We saw though that like most people, their lives weren't changing outside of church. It made them feel good, someone was paying attention to them and we loved them in spite of what was going on outside of our weekly meetings. Living on the property caused us to be more involved in their lives than just on Tuesdays when we met for Bible study. I really felt like I was already on the mission field (my childlike vision of what it was supposed to be like on the mission field). Submerged in a culture that was not normal to me(mostly Hispanic). Lived, breathed, and ate with the people. None of them went to church before we came. Our friends outside the complex, we hardly ever saw. I felt alone and discouraged because I didn't see dramatic change in the people, I was tired because we were working full-time managing the apartment complex as well as ministering to the people 24-7. But, every time Satan would beat me down, God would lift me up. God would use His people, our prayer warriors and Christian comrades, to send us on several weekend trips away, brought gifts to us for Christmas and birthdays, and prayer walk the community. Every time we had a personal need, God ALWAYS has been there to meet it.