Uroco

So after our time on the mountain me and the guys on our squad got the opportunity to go away for 3 weeks and do ministry by ourselves. Uroco was an amazing location and I really loved it. So Uroco was probably the hottest place I think I have ever stayed in my life! Everyday the temperature was around 100 degrees with a 100% humidity. So to say we sweated was an understatement! I would take my temperature and it was so hot outside that it read I had over a 100 degree fever.

Our host while we where there was an amazing pastor named Ronnie. Our first interaction was finding out he knew very little English and we knew very little Spanish. But the first thing he said was God bless us and that it doesn’t matter the languages we speak the Spirit would still work and make a way! That spoke volumes to me and just how he knew God would make a way. Pastor Ronnie was such a great man. Him and his family where so kind and welcoming and would could almost every meal for us. We learned quick he absolutely LOVED Coca-Cola and at every meal and every break he would smile and nod slowly and say we all needed some. It became a running joke that every day we would drink at least 3 big things if coke!

So in Uroco with Ronnie and his church we got to work in the community doing house visits and just helping wherever we could. As a group we where able to deliver beds build a bathroom and paint a house for a family in need! But for me the best part was the church where we attended and where Ronnie was the pastor. The congregation was so welcoming and even our first days there they where all volunteering to cook us a meal and just spend time with us. And the kids there where so amazing. Our first service there (which we had 4 church services a week) the kids somehow picked out me and my teammate JD and the whole second half of the service it was us just playing with them and having a blast! These kids where such a blessing and made laugh so much. As soon as they saw us they would come and just start trying to tickle or jump on us and at the end of every service for the next half-hour it would be a big game of then chasing us all around.

One other big thing our team was able to do was build a house! Another organization in the area would come in and build houses for families and help fix homes in the town. And it was crazy in the span of about 7 hours we built a2 bedroom house with about 30 people! It was awesome everyone had a hammer and we all would be hammering away at once and just to see how fast everything went up was awesome! Building this house definitely made me appreciate owning a nail gun back in the states. Because after 30 minutes of hammering my arm was dead.

During our last Sunday there our team got to go our with the whole church which was about 40 people. We went to a river to baptize some of the members and just spend time with them. It was the first time I ever had the opportunity to baptize someone and it is a surreal moment. It is such a huge moment in there life and getting to share that with them is beautiful! I’m happy to say 12 people got baptized that day and a huge step in there journey with God and one heck of statement!

Uroco was such a blessing from getting to spend time with the guys and pastor Ronnie’s church! It was a honor to be there and have so much fun. It was probably some of the best times I’ve had on the race!

God bless and tell someone you love them!
Daniel J. Ford

P.s. I’m fully funded!!!!! Thank-you everyone who has supported me in this journey and you all have been a huge blessing to me and I’m so grateful for everything!!! I cannot wait to tell you all even more stories in person!