Posted by Lance
Lance Liggin
May 12
Blog for Wednesday, May 11, 2011
We were up early at the Mission Center - preparing for the day and our teaching. It was still pretty early when Hermann's team started to arrive and they swung into action preparing the new buildings for the dedication on Saturday. There were three physicians, a dentist, Dietrich, Hermann's family and the interpreters all working on assembling furniture and all the other details that make a building habitable. They turned on the water and found that a plumber had put a cap on the end of one of the water lines without putting glue on it first! So, for a while, the Conference Center had an impressive indoor fountain (unplanned)! Mario (one of the physicians) was drenched and they all went to work to fix the problem and clean up!
Lance suggested to Hermann that the name of the ministry should be changed from MMM (Medical Missions Ministries) to PPP (Physicians, Pastors and Plumbers)! The only problem is that if you added a letter for every role carried out at MMM, you would have the longest acronym in the world.
The humility with which everyone serves in whatever manner is required was exemplified by a new member of the team, Gisela, who is a dentist. Gisela gave up a thriving dental practice to join Hermann's ministry full-time because she felt that her former patients could get good dental services from other dentists, whereas the people to whom MMM minister have virtually no options for dental care at all. That sounds somewhat familiar; "sell your things and follow me".
In the afternoon, we had lunch with Estuardo at Pollo Campero (for those of you who have been here) and then met to discuss the ministry and the past students and their businesses.
Then we started the teaching of Phase 1 last night and, as usual, we were amazed at the attitude of the students. There were about 25 students and their intended or existing businesses include a bookstore, a recruiting firm, a mechanic shop, a business that sells needed products to prisoners, a corn tortilla business, a carpenter, technical sales, a sidewalk food business, a printing shop, organic foods marketing and some others that got a little lost in the translation. We also had a new type of student: 3 students (late high school and college) who wanted to learn how to become businessmen. This is a promising new audience for discipleship in the marketplace.
The teaching went well and the students were engaged - and seemed to grasp the key concepts (based on the heads nodding and the comments that were made). Tonight we start getting into the scriptural basis for God's design for business and we are looking forward to seeing the response.
Thank you for your prayers and please continue. Lance's wife, Nancy, reported that the air conditioning went out yesterday - and we gather it was hot. It should be fixed today but your continued prayers for the protection of our families would be wonderful.
More later. God bless you all.
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