Daily Life

It's been a typical week for the Faustino family. Lou has been busy preparing his sermons, and Amy is busy with caring for Grace. On Friday night, we had our unofficial youth group over our place. This includes Kaitlyn (17), Mark (17), and Joanna (20). We were celebrating Kaitlyn's birthday, and it was a good time of fun and fellowship. We have appreciated the opportunity we've had to get involved in each of their lives. Joanna will be getting married in June, and Mark and Kaitlyn will be off to college or other pursuits in another year and a half, so we're trying to maximize our time with them. We pray that God will bring more young people into the church.

Saturday mornings have an early start for Lou as he leads the men's Bible study at 7 a.m. They are currently reading Disciplines of a Godly Man by Kent Hughes. It is encouraging to see the men attend regularly to learn and grow in godliness.

On Sunday, we celebrated communion, and Lou continued preached on being "Dressed for Success" in Colossians 3 in the morning. We have been studying Colossians since we came here last January, and it has been beneficial to dive deep into this epistle. In the evening, Lou continued preaching out of 1 Thessalonians where he's been for the last few months. Before that, we studied the book of Titus and his ministry on the island of Crete.

Monday is Lou's day off, and we spent part of the day visiting Lou's parents and our niece Madelyn. They live about an hour and a half away from us, "off-Cape" or "over the bridge", as the locals would say. (Cape Cod is technically an island since the Cape Cod Canal separates us from the rest of Massachusetts.) We enjoyed our time with them, and they were glad to see Grace and how she's growing.

On Monday night, Amy led our church's ladies' Bible study. This group meets twice a month, and we are currently reading and discussing Feminine Appeal: Seven Virtues of a Godly Wife and Mother by Carolyn Mahaney. This has been both a convicting and encouraging study. Amy is still getting used to leading it; it's different than teaching kids! The ladies are gracious, though, and we've been encouraged to see most of the ladies in church participate in the study. We pray that God will use it to conform us into His image.

Lou had a deacons' meeting on Tuesday night. The three deacons-Paul, John, and Rich-have been a help to Lou since we first came here. Since there aren't any other elders besides Lou, these men have acted as a sort of advisory board, a checks-and-balances for Lou. Their encouragement and insight has been helpful over the last year. However, we do continue to pray that the Lord would raise up other elders, so that we would have a plurality as the Scriptures teach.

Tonight we have our mid-week Bible study. Since last January, we have studied evangelism, hermeneutics, escatology, and prayer (not exhaustively, of course!). Tonight, Lou's preparing a study on the doctrine of redemption...it should be good! Amy and Grace are the church with him, helping out with some administrative odds and ends since Lou doesn't have a secretary. Grace is great at filing...=)

Tomorrow is Thursday--laundry day for us. Since we don't have a washer/dryer in our apartment, Amy goes over to her parents to do the laundry there. This provides an opportunity to spend time with family. On Thursday afternoons, Amy meets with two other ladies and her mom for Scrabble and fellowship. One of these ladies, Nancy, is in her eighties, and she has been a joy for Amy to get to know. The other lady, Cindy, has five grown children and has provided helpful insight for Amy, as has her mom. It has become a sort of Titus 2 time for some of the older ladies in the church to teach the younger, Amy, and not just about the strategies of Scrabble, either!

So, there's a glimpse into our lives! This is ministry life on Cape Cod. It is a challenging place to minister; people sometimes seem as cold as the winters we're know for! Also, it's a vacation spot, so it's teeming with people in the summer and dead in the winter. They say the population actually triples in the summer, and most of the homes here are people's summer homes! In the winter, half the stores and restaurants are "closed for the season," and nothing seems to stay open later than 5 or 6 p.m. It's a bit of an adjustment after living in Los Angeles for almost four years! Nevertheless, we praise God for giving us a place to serve, and pray that He will help us to be faithful to that calling!