Faith - Work Required - Huh??

Hello All,
We have had another great week! That is 2 in a row with actual good outcomes.

Sophomore restaurant:  Last Saturday, we were finished serving over 200 people and all cleaned up by about 10:30 that night!  We thought we would be there till 1 in the morning, so we were very happy.  The kids were great and did all their jobs wonderfully.  Some have realized that they never want to work in a restaurant.  The salad bar girl was in a panic most of the night and vowed to never work in the food service industry!  It was very funny.  Here are a few pictures:

The main dining hall

The fountain

Us serving up pies at a frantic pace

More Pies!

At another venue, we set up something for the little guys, serving bread sticks and marinara sauce with coke floats.  The kids were very happy!

The little guys were a wild mob and that was Jim's area!

At the end of the day, most people were pleased with the food and the service.  There were some issues, like the servers that were serving pizza, would go to their friends first and forget the adults sitting toward the back!  Lesson learned; brief the kids better and keep a better eye on them!

Something funny happened with Thursday night's dinner:  I was making pasta e fagioli (pasta and beans) using Nonna's recipe (from LaMaddelena).  We were so busy that day dealing with 2 important issues that, after dinner was eaten, I was cleaning and found the bag of pasta that I was going to use in the pasta e fagioli!  So, it was bean soup instead.  Just goes to show that when you get old, you forget things!

At the ladies bible study, we have been going through David Platt's series on Faith.  You can access the material at:
http://www.radical.net/media/series/series_list/?id=59
He is very challenging.  We are looking at the book of James.  James talks about having faith but doing deeds along with it.  What?  Romans 3:28 says, "For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law."  and in James 2:24 it says, "You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone."  Being saved in Christ is not a matter of doing things to get you there.  It is a free gift.  But, (here comes the hard part) once you get there, James is saying that you should work for His sake.  James 2:14-17
14 Dear brothers, what's the use of saying that you have faith and are Christians if you aren't proving it by helping others? Will that kind of faith save anyone? 15 If you have a friend who is in need of food and clothing, 16 and you say to him, "Well, good-bye and God bless you; stay warm and eat hearty," and then don't give him clothes or food, what good does that do?
17 So you see, it isn't enough just to have faith. You must also do good to prove that you have it. Faith that doesn't show itself by good works is no faith at all-it is dead and useless.
We have had some great discussions about this topic, but it really convicts us that we can't hide under the wing of God's mercy.  We can rest there, but there are things that need to be done and sometimes they are not so easy.  Moving out of your comfort zone to get those things done for Him is not always easy, but there is joy on the other side.  We watched a short video this past week called, "Mama Heidi."  It is about a family's missionary journey to Mozambique.  You can access their web site at: http://www.irismin.org/
It just struck us as awesome people doing an amazing work.

We are still moving forward with the sanitation project.  Things have happened this week (slowly) but none the less, have happened.  Jim and I are going to have established roles in the process that will actually allow us to have a say and enforce it.  The Engineering and Facilities Department here is doing a great job and we are all going to work together on this thing to get a properly working sewage system.  Have you ever know someone who gets so excited about sewage?!

Here is a picture of Sallie and her friend Janelle.  They are both ADHD and so much fun to have around together!

Thanks so much for all of your support.  We will be heading home in Aug for a short visit and will be happy to see as many people as we can.  We will also be sending a letter in July or so explaining our situation and asking for support (the money kind) so that we can remain to finish the project.  We will need only about $20,000 for the next 2 years, but that is still daunting enough that we are putting that one in God's Hands!

In His Hands,
Jullie T.