February 18th, 2025

I have tried four ways now to tie this together...let's just see what happens?

The Milk Project opened in Danli yesterday.  It will take a while to get the kinks worked out, but it does get "easier" after six different locations now.  Another community will be blessed, a church will be a bigger part of their community, and outreach will be improved.  There is a lot of behind the scenes things, from boring, scary, complicated, and otherwise running the gamut.  It won't be easy, being as far away as it is, and in the area it is, but the direction and ability to get this far has been clear.

We spent $5,000 on pavers to improve the road to the farm in Sampedrana back in December...it takes this long for the company to make them, and this week, all week, most of our trucks are transporting all that to the farm.  The farm staff will be putting in some of them, and we will be using two groups in March to help as well. 

I can't tell you how exciting I find this.  Something that I know for many reading this won't make sense.  I am excited not mostly for me, as I don't get to drive up there very often (maybe more often when the road is better eh?) but everyone else that lives on that road and works using that road.  This is a long term investment that will improve safety and many lives now and to come, Lord willing.  

Also Lord willing...we will need to buy even more of these if we can afford it/fundraise for it.  And we need to pray that they are the game changer we believe them to be.  Game changer...in transportation?  Don't get me started talking about how infrastructure can change lives in the short and long term.  

Church service, in a home, coming from patients coming to the clinic.  Wow.  

We didn't have this like as a goal or something, but in a way something we have been praying over for since the beginning.  And we honestly don't have a clue what this means long term, are we talking about another church plant?  No?  Yes?  This house is just a few blocks from the clinic.  There are other churches in the area...including next door!  But there are patients, nearer and further, that aren't churched.  How do we respond, and plan to respond?  Mostly right now, in prayer. 

We have had four groups already this year, and the last two were medical teams.  It is easy to get focused on all the details doing those.  I was focused right before I took this picture, trying to explain some optometric options to a patient that needed a lot of explaining.  It was somewhat difficult though due to all the crying and screaming.  I tuned it out, but when the patient left, I took a moment to see if this was out of the ordinary or just the normal stuff.  Turns out, the mother there is holding a small child that had a plastic piece lodged in its ear.  The doctors could have referred him, left it for someone else to do...from what I literally heard and how long it took...it was somewhat involved.  But they worked hard and got it out.  Then we learned from the crying mom that they had tried somewhere else, and even had the child admitted previously, but the situation wasn't fixed.  

I have statistics and numbers of how many were seen, and they are impressive, but the real life stories...known and unknown, the prayers, and lives impacted...are beyond me.  

Ingris, our new group coordinator helping take those pavers to Sampedrana sent me this picture today. 

I thought it was beautiful, for metaphorical reasons mostly.  The seen and the unseen.  What is ready for harvest, and what soon will be.  The fact that someone long ago looked at this fruit, and looked beyond the fruit to what was inside.  

Thanks be to God that He sees what we don't, works where we don't think there is a chance, brings things about otherwise unthinkable.  

There is a lot we are planning that seems unthinkable, or undoable, (right now!  Like...we just today bought property to build a hospital?!!?  How is that going to happen?!?)...and yet we are on a path clearly laid out for us, even if we can't see but for a few steps ahead.  Praying for the steps, for faith, for the help we will need, and all the help we don't even know we will need!