Being Thankful Even When Everything Goes Wrong

We took four carloads of teenagers to Campina Grande for a short campaign in the AME program. These kids spent three Saturdays (Morning and Afternoon) preparing to share Christ there. The plan was to hand out pamphlets, make friends with local teenagers, invite them to group dynamic games and to a Bible study at night. But once on the campaign, things did not go as planned:

The central park, which is always open and filled with tons of people, was closed for fifteen days for renovation,
Therefore local teenagers that had been invited had no where to meet up with us for the afternoon of games;
A new building for the church had been rented and was to be inaugurated during the campaign, but the owner delayed on fixing something and wouldn't hand over the keys;
So the meeting was set up outside in a yard with chairs, powerpoint projector, etc, but even though we are technically in a drought, it rained and everybody had to rush to cram indoors;
And one of our cars broke down.

Samuel McKinney (13) said the blessing before one of the meals, praying "Thank you, God, for this trip. Even though everything went wrong, we had a lot of fun." We did have some visitors, the young people learned that God still works even though things don't go as planned, and instead of the park we handed out pamphletes at a jogging trail - Samuel was an example of dedication there, running up alongside the joggers to tell about Jesus and give them an invitation to know more. Some ignored him, some were annoyed, but some stopped, and like the Ethiopian Eunuch asked to know more.
We thank God in all things.

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McKinney Report

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