July 2003 Adventures

July began and ended with traveling…  Last year, we had a mission team from California work at our church camp.  The leader of this team was Rev. Mike Goodyear, who is a former member of the MSUM Board of Directors, as well as a board member of Redwood Christian Park.  The team returned to California excited about the ministries in Paraguay.  Redwood Christian Park signed a 5 year covenant with the Paraguayan church.  To initiate the covenant, Redwood Park invited us to

attend a family camp at the Park.  We were privileged to attend the camp from July 5^th through the 12^th.  It was a great experience.  We had an opportunity to present several workshops about the overall ministries in Paraguay, and our Agua de Vida ministry.  We hope some of our audience will be joining us in Paraguay on a work team.

We returned to Paraguay to get ready to receive a work team from Boston, Massachusetts.  We moved to our central church to help with the team on July 19th.  They were a hard working group of young people, excited to be in Paraguay and working for the Lord.  We worked in Santa Rosa, our former Paraguayan “church home”.  The team helped to rebuild one of the structures on the church property into a Sunday school facility, with connected bathrooms and a kitchen.  We also held Vacation Bible School in the afternoons.  The children of Paraguay are always excited when they get to have a North American style VBS.

One event the team had for the children is a play about Joseph.  The play was done in segments, beginning on Monday and ending on Thursday.  The children were captivated by seeing the story of Joseph performed in front of them!  As always, we took the team to Brazil to visit Yguasu Falls.  This is always a highlight for the team, and keeps them coming back!

Last month we asked for your prayers for Ed’s mother, Martha Baker.  While working with the team in Santa Rosa, we were notified that Martha’s lung cancer was progressing at such a rate that treatment would not be successful.  We were able to return to the United States on July 29th and be with her for a short while.  She went home to be with our Lord on Friday, August 1^st; she was 76 years young.  We ask for your continuing prayers for her husband, Jim Baker.

We will be spending August in the United States, helping Jim adjust to life without his partner for the past 56 years.  We dedicate our 2003 ministry to Martha Baker.