Over the river and through the cave...

Ok, so maybe going through the cave wasn't absolutely necessary, but they sure seemed to enjoy it!  Steve's dad came for a visit this month, and last week the two of them had quite the adventure up in the mountains.  They trekked up to a couple villages where some small churches have been asking us to come.  

 It was several hours of hiking, first through the river bed...

 ...then you headed up into the mountains.

 After a couple hours of hiking, they arrived at the village, but since they had some extra daylight, they decided to go with a few of the villagers to visit a waterfall and cave.

 Beautiful!

 But of course, where is the fun in observing the waterfall from the bottom?  So they rock climbed their way up to the top and enjoyed the view through the falls as well.

 But why stop there?  There was a cave at the top of the falls, so they climbed through the cave (at times crawling on their bellies in order to fit!)...

...and were rewarded with this spectacular view when they came out the other side!

 Ok, back to business and the REAL reason they hiked to this village in the middle of the Sierra Madre mountain range.  In September, Steve taught several seminars about how to teach effectively by using the stories in God's Word. (See this post for more info.)  One of his goals during those seminars was to train this man so that he could lead future seminars.  

 Felipe has continued on and taught several seminars since that time, and it was such an encouragement to see him doing so well with the material in this new church.

In addition, another young man went with the group so that he could be trained how to lead the seminars.  It is such a joy to be able to pass off training to these men and watch them train others!

 We are also so thankful that Steve's dad gets to be with us for almost a month.  He and Steve will take 3 trips together during this time; 1 down, and they are on their 2nd one now!