A team from Victory Life Church in Battle Creek, Michigan, brought home the bacon to three families when they visited the village of Xepacol last month.
Working with a local church and the Guatemalan association called ASELSI, the Victory Life team, built three pig pens — complete with pigs — to provide ongoing income for these families who live in mountainous area where making about US$ 7 a day is the normal wage for field laborers.
In an effort to not only sweep into a village and do some work and then just leave, the Victory Life team spent two nights sleeping in classrooms and storage rooms at a local church. The church leaders were so pleased to have them there that the pastor reported that after the team left, everyone was sad that they had gone.
Besides the work projects, the team took time to visit families, teach some interactive workshops on worship and children’s church as well as sharing dramas, music and teaching at the church service. A special outreach for kids was held on the final afternoon they were there.
The local church in Xepacol didn’t just sit back and watch. The local worship team opened the church service with a marching band parading down the dirt road and inviting the neighborhood to come to the service.
“I’m excited to see the long term impact of how the Victory Life team stepped into this community with a heart for relationship,” said Michael Shead a local missionary working with the team. “They didn’t just come in and do the work, but they came with an attitude to learn from the local believers and to share ideas, time, and to build relationship with them.
One of the highlights of the trip was when some of the team members went back to visit the families they had served two years ago when they visited Xepacol in 2013. One of the families for whom they built stoves was still using the stove for cooking their family meals. The team leaders reminded the family how God loved them so much that He sent Christ and the mother and father in the family decided to accept Christ right then.
The local pastor, Sebastian, is able to follow up with this family and help connect them with a local body of believers where they can be discipled, baptized and continue growing in Christ.
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