Roatan Mission Trip 2008 - Day 7

DAY 7: Hello church! As I mentioned last night, we were dumping photos onto my hard drive last night. Johan wiped his photos off his camera and I had accidentally wiped mine off my camera but had them on my computer too. We decided last night that we would back them up tonight (Friday). This morning when I opened my laptop I heard the "You've got mail!" tone and knew that my laptop was working okay. Five minutes later I went over to my computer to check my email and I had the blue screen of death. My hard drive had crashed and all of our photos were gone. How was I going to explain this to Johan, our official photographer, and to the rest of the team? I felt sick and was devastated that all of the beautiful photos - over 1000 of them - were gone and some moments could not be recreated in order to retake photos. We also had all of the VBS kids' photos taken in order to finish a craft project today to give them a framed photo of themselves. I tried everything I could think of to get my system to come back up but to no avail. I cried hot tears and prayed for it to work and explained my disappointment to God and kicked myself for not backing them up last night. I prayed for at least 30 minutes and finally laid hands on my laptop and prayed that God would fix it and give me one more chance to save those photos. I turned it on again and it started to boot up with familiar words and images and I got hopeful and excited and I continued to pray it along. Finally my desktop popped up and my photos were still there! God was merciful and worked a computer healing miracle for the team. We got the photos backed up and tonight while we watched a slide show of them, I was so grateful to God for healing my computer! Today was our last day of scheduled ministry tasks so I'd like to recap some of the neat things that have happened. About 30 homes have water that didn't have it last week! The men really worked hard on getting these pipes up the mountain to the homes and make repairs to pipes that had broken. The jail ministry has been fruitful and several people prayed yesterday to receive Christ also, even more than on Tuesday! We're hearing from people that we've touched their lives and that lives are changing. We've been invited into homes and have been able to pray with people. In VBS today, several children wanted to ask Jesus to come into their hearts and members of our team prayed with them. While the kids worked on their crafts, we could hear them singing the songs they had learned from us. I spoke with two boys looking into the school from the outside and had them read the Bridge trac in Spanish. They read it and said they wanted to accept Jesus into their lives and so we prayed together and it was so cool! After VBS we were presented with a gift from the teachers and the class. We were extremely touched by the generosity of these people who have so very little materially, compared to us, and then they go and buy us presents. We gave them the parachute and balls we used for VBS which they liked so much. When we were ready to leave, the little kids came up to us, without being prompted and just hugged us. It melted our hearts and I don't think there was a dry eye among us. Our medical ladies have been very busy at the clinic and their help has been very much appreciated by Miss Peggy. The medical supplies that were sent will be put to good use. Early this evening some of us took the van to the West Bay at the end of the island where we drove up through high mountains where road signs warned of dangerous curves. When we got closer to West Bay we could see the sea on both sides of us. The crystal clear water and sandy beaches were postcard quality and the water was teal colored with turqoise in other places. The beauty of this island is just absolutely breathtaking and there were lots of oooos and aaaahs as we drove along. I was praising God in my heart for His workmanship and thanked Him for bringing me here. We had grilled pizza for supper and as always, it was delicious. The Lairds are super hosts and we're going to miss them, their hospitality and their gourmet food! After dinner we had a time of team worship and several people shared their hearts about this experience. We wish we could come back soon. I want to bring my children back here to see this incredible place. Several of us cried, including one of our two new team members, Clifford and Claire. They are two homeless locals who have ministered with us this past week. Clair told us she's going to miss us and she broke down and sobbed. We're going to miss them too. We've been stretched and challenged and have had to do things we didn't know we could do. We've shared testimonies, preached, witnessed to people on the streets and in jails and climbed mountains, withstood extremely heat and humidity and we're humbled that God could use us and sent us to Roatan. Love from all of us, Gabra and Team Roatan 2008