According to some, the World was supposed to end yesterday. For us, in many ways, it was just beginning.

Have you ever had one of those days when God just sends people to your door? Well, I had no intentions of having one of those days. We were going to head to the city to catch a movie…but God had other plans.

This was our day:

5am     Todd drives family to the airport…(not in the van pictured to the right).

8am     I get out of bed because men are coming to work on the roof…

10am    A Guatemalan friend from the city comes by with her mom and dad so we could meet them…

10:30am      A mom from El Tizate comes by with her oldest daughter and newest baby (see last newsletter to get the story about baby Carolina). The daughter needed to use a computer for a school project. I feed them lasagna for lunch. Mom shared how she does not have enough food for her children. I pack her a grocery bag full of food.  Mom brought me a plant from her garden as a gift…

11am    The gardener, who comes every Saturday morning, plants the gift for me with Emily’s help. We feed him every week, this week he got lasagna…

11:30am     Todd, accompanied by 2 of our kids, drives the mom and 2 kids to pick up medicine for the grandma and then drive them home…

1pm    One of Clay’s friends comes by…

2pm A Guatemalan friend, Fernando, and three of his kids (that I tutor in Santiago Zamora…see last news letter) come by to visit and talk. I give them medicine for a sick family member.

4:30- 6pm     Many missionary friends come by…

6:30pm    Our ministry driver (that we use for teams) comes by to tell us about a car accident he was just in (where God spared his life). We feed him dinner and give him medicine…

7pm    Clay and friends come back from Parque Central, where a young man that we connected with at the lake this week, has called and is in town to visit. We feed him dinner. He then slept on our couch…

The story that God was writing in my home this Saturday is better than any movie I was going to see in the theaters.

What did you do when the world didn’t end?

Ever wonder why we can’t get people clean drinking water…

Or why we can’t get enough food and medicine to rural parts of the world…

And yet, no matter where you go in the world you can get a coke?

Well, Melinda Gates wondered the same thing. Here is a short (20 minute) video on what NGO’s could learn from Coke. I watched it and was fascinated.

And then my mind went wild, these same concepts work for sharing the Gospel.

I encourage you to watch this video. The principles are priceless.

Not for one minute am I going to pretend that finding time for family devotions is easy. It is not. But that is all the more reason to make it a priority and fight for a time that works.

When living in the states, the few times that really worked for us were times when we were naturally together. Time in the car on the way to school or at the dinner table. The second hurdle we faced was what to do. Our kids range in ages from 10 to 17 so that posed a small challenge.

We have had some great success with the book “Voices of the Faithful” You just read a page a day and the focus is on missions. I also like The One Year Devotions series. They have One Year Devotions for Boys, for GIrls, for Kids, Teens and Preschoolers. But now that we are homeschooling we have devotions 5 mornings a week, at the beginning of the school day and though I could not be more thrilled with this, I have struggled to find something that they wanted to listen to daily.

Thanks to a friend I used to teach with, we have found the perfect book: A New View from the Zoo. I have used it in the classroom and now with my kids and in both settings the kids request it! “Are we going to read the zoo book today?”

The stories are true, some funny and some sad. They are a few pages long and tell of the adventures that Gary Richmond had while working for many years in a California zoo. At the end of each story he ties it into a story or lesson from the Bible. My whole family loves these, they are not just for kids!!

So whether family devotions are new to you or you have mastered the art, this book will not disappoint. Grab a copy and start reading it at the dinner table tonight.