We have had the opportunity to begin to explain the grace of God to many people over the past two weeks.
 In Tim's morning Bible study with the guys, the question of salvation by faith alone came up. Some of the guys just feel that when you die, that is the end, but God created us as eternal beings, like him.
Since we were finished going through James, we have started working through Romans, and the questions have been great, like "what is faith?" or "what is grace?". Their interest is high and I can hear the discussion continuing long after we break up the study each day. They are processing the information slowly. It takes time.
Yesterday, we talked about Romans 1:16-17 where it says "In the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed - a  righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written 'the righteous will live by faith.'"
We are naturally wired to feel like we have to somehow earn God's favor. We cannot earn it, but we can accept it as a gift of love offered by the One who loves us more than any other.
We also found the need to explain grace to our discipleship groups. It is surprising to see how few people inside the church understand grace. The common belief was that if you had an evil thought on your deathbed, you would go to hell.
 We did a special study on this topic for them, showing them that if you are depending on your own good works, you will be judged by your own works, and it will not turn out well.
If you are trusting in the grace of God and the righteousness of Jesus which is offered freely to you, then in that final day, God wll not look at your sin, but will look at the righteousness of Jesus, and there is nothing that you can do that will detract from the righteousness of Jesus. You are secure in God's love.
On other less eternal matters, our truck is still in the "shop". The engine rebuild went well, but now the fuel injector pump is malfunctioning and the mechanic needs to take it and the injectors to Managua for rebuild and calibration. That is holding us up from getting the sand and stone to pour more concrete.
 The guys spent the week building the septic tank and working on the back porch. The front part of the second floor is ready to pour as soon as we get the truck back so we can get more sand and stone. We are using the old posts from the front of the house in the cafe area on the second floor.
Tim is building cabinets. The lumber here is especially challenging because you have to let it dry for a month, then the thickness is not real even, which makes wood joining a challenge. You just have to go slow and be patient with it.
 All of the electrical work downstairs is done. You can see the lights in this picture. These will be partially concealed by false beams when we are done.
Tim went two weeks without a cell phone, but finally broke down and bought another one. It was less than $30.00. We were having problems with Kim's cell phone and text messaging to the US has stopped working, which was helping us to stay in touch with the kids.
To reach Tim, you dial 011 505 663 9270. It is pretty expensive to do from a regular home phone, but on Skype or Vonage, it costs about 20 cents per minute, which is pretty reasonable if you don't spend an hour talking about the weather.
Jonathan made it through all the rain in Florida without any damage and he sounds pretty happy with the decision to move there.
Jason has finished up his AIT and is clearing out of Huntsville within a few days, hopefully. He is planning to come down here to Nicaragua for a couple of weeks before he ships off to Germany.
God bless you all,
Tim and Kim |
