Day Four: Kim Rhodes

Today was our third day at the church, and projects began wrapping up. The mural of Noah's ark in the Sunday school classroom was completed, and handprints filled the room with all the colors of the rainbow. Doors were freshly painted, and railings were finally dry enough to touch. 

Yesterday, Father Mike and I painted glue onto boards so the foam Lillian had cut could be attached. Today, there were two groups in charge of attaching fabric to the foam boards with heavy-duty staples. The purpose of all this was to make cushions for the church pews. No one expected this to be the easiest of tasks, but no one expected the problem we encountered. Anyone who's been on a mission trip knows that you can use almost anything, but the staple gun today had a special vendetta against anyone who wanted to use it and had a way of showing its displeasure: shooting staples at whomever and whatever was in front of it. After a while, everyone got tired of trying to hold the stapler exactly right , so we purchased a new one. The pew cushions were much easier to finish with a staple gun that actually worked. 

I mentioned a mural in the Sunday school classroom, and almost everyone at the church had a hand in making it -- literally. The rainbow above the ark was made of the handprints of our mission team and members of Cristo Liberador -- from the little kids to the little old ladies. 

There are plenty of fun stories that came from covering kids' hands in paint, but my favorite is that we invited kids playing outside to come and put their hands on the wall. Not all the kids were a part of the congregation, and it's a hopeful thought that maybe their handprints on a classroom wall might be enough to bring them back to the church for worship, and maybe by extension their families. 

God works in ways that no one can foretell, and this experience continues to be filled with surprises. I think that it would be awesome if the small things that we've been helping the members of Cristo Liberador accomplish like cushions and murals could be enough to help someon find a way closer to God's grace. 

Kim Rhodes

July 28, 2014