On the Road Again

I'm heading on on a 4 1/2 hour bus ride today to visit a mission family in another city and observe/discuss their work with university students. I'll be travelling back on Wednesday. Please pray for safe travel and for meaningful insights that I will be able to utilize when I return.

Spoiled . . . But Grateful

As I talked with my parents via Skype about my wish list for the package they are going to send to me with a volunteer team coming in May, I commented that I feel very spoiled. Dad immediately agreed that I am spoiled. When I think about early missionaries like Lottie Moon who were completely shut off from their friends and family and even from other missionaries and who endured great hardships on the field, I realize just how spoiled I am by technology, care packages, etc.

Church Visit

This morning I ventured out on my own to visit a church that was suggested to me. I met several women from that church at the retreat last weekend, and I knew where the church was located. The only information lacking was the service time. I was told that they probably started at noon, maybe 11:30. So, I arrived at about 11:40 this morning. As I walked up, I could hear that the service had already begun. Then I saw a sign at the entrance that said in Spanish, "God will speak to you today . . . but not by cell phone. Turn it off." While masking my amusement, I accepted a bulletin from a gentleman who informed me that there were seats in the front. Indeed, the very front row is exactuly where I had to sit. I had no sooner settled into the seat when I realized that they were greeting visitors. The pastor called me out. "Sister! This is your first time here, no? Stand up and tell us your name." After I did, the pianist explained to him that they had met me at the retreat. As they finally moved on from the public greeting, I realized that the bulletin said that the service started at 11. I was 40 minutes late!

During the greeting song, several people greeted me warmly, including women I recognized from the retreat. Oh, how I wished they were still wearing their nametags from the retreat! Several kids were also instructed to come greet me in English. In the midst of the sermon, the pastor actually called on me by name to agree with him on a point he was making, thus drawing more attention to me.

The service ended around 1:15 or 1:30 pm, and a spunky older lady from the retreat immediately attached herself to me and dragged me outside as the entire congregation was being arranged to pose for a picture. I was mortified to be in their picture, but between the closed gate and the suprisingly strong arm of my new guide, there was no possibility of escape!

There is a possibility that I may partner with some women from this church to reach other women. Please pray for God's guidance in this.

God's Abundant Provision

As fantastic as the turnout was for the retreat, the reality is that there are a lot more women who would love to participate but cannot get away for that kind of event. Robin has a great desire to bring the retreat to them, and God has been opening doors to make that possible. Her idea is to have a scaled down version of the retreat here in town in a few months, with a volunteer team coming to provide daycare, and with everyone spending the night in thier own home. For this to be possible, though, she needed a core group of women who attended the retreat this past weekend to step up and commit to helping lead the other retreat. We began to pray for God to provide 6 women who would make that commitment.

Sunday afternoon at the end of the retreat, one of the Gudalajara women challenged the women to prayerfully consider making this commitment to work alongside Robin to reach other women. She encouraged those who felt led to come to the front and verbalize this commitment they were making to God. It was quiet for a moment, and then one woman stepped forward and echoed the words of Samuel as she boldly proclaimed, "Here I Am." Within seconds another woman stepped beside her and repeated the proclamation. It was such a beautiful moment that brought tears to my eyes, and those tears multiplied as the number of women stepping forward continued to multiply.

When the women stopped stepping forward, Cherry reminded them of the seriousness of making a covenant with God and urged them to take it very seriously. She gave them the opportunity to step back if they were not serious about it. Nobody moved. As she prayed over these women and the commitment that they were making, we were all in awe of God's provision. He did not provide 6 women. He provided 17!

As they stayed after the commitment time to write the names and phone numbers on a list, some expressed their nervousness that God was calling them to lead when felt they had so little knowledge and/or ability. I knew how they felt. Please pray for these 17 women and for the upcoming retreat that will take place this summer.

Guadalajara Women

A group of women from a church in Guadalajara started helping with the retreats several years ago, taking on a role somewhat like "Big Sisters" to the newer believers in Aguascalientes. This year 5 women came from Guadalajara to help lead certain parts of the retreat.

One of their first contributions was a teambuilding exercise. Since the women attending come from various churches (or in some cases no church at all), it was really important to foster bonding. In this exercise, the women had to help one another over a rope that was pretty high off the ground. Different rules were introduced at various points in the exercise, but the mail idea was supporting, encouraging, and trusting one another. They also presented a few skits that were funny and yet also accentuated some of the main points of our conference sessions. Although I didn't understand every word, I understood enough to be impacted by these skits. They did a fabulous job!

Saturday night they had each small group of women perform an interpretation of a fairy tale. This part was primarily just for entertainment, which was especially meaningful since some of these women never really had a childhood and seldom have opportunities to do something "fun" like this. Between having a hard time hearing them and struggling to catch the language because they were talking so fast, I really didn't get much of what was said in the fairy tales. However, there was really a lot of physical comedy, and it was very clear that the women were having a fabulous time with it! In Red Riding Hood, one woman (in the grayish sweater in this picture) absolutely stole the show with her portrayal of Toto the dog. Throughout the weekend, this same woman continuously demonstrated her servant's heart. She was always looking for a way to help or to serve others!

This group was interpreting Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, and I was particularly amused by their version of the work song. Instead of "Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work I go," they sang something like, "Hi-ho, hi-ho, I'm not going to work, I'm not going to work!" Super funny!

The Guadalajara women also led a small group time that was very meaningful. The two smallest groups were comprised of women who are either new believers or women who had not yet made a decision. Before the end of the session, most had made a decision. The other three groups focused on the practical applications of our theme, "Sharing What You Know." We talked about reasons why we often don't share and God's view on those reasons/excuses. We were each given a bead bracelet and talked about the colors can be used to help explain the plan of salvation. Then a really cool thing happened. We were sent out 2 by 2 to go share with people who were visiting the water park that day. There was an immediate challenge to share with those nearby who needed to hear. (It was also a cool parallel to Jesus sending out the 70 in 2's as there were nearly 70 of us!) By the end of this sharing time, I think we had 6 reports of people in the park who had prayed to receive Christ after hearing the plan of salvation.

(Note the water slide in the background of this small group picture.)

Please join me in praying that all of us from the retreat will be bold in sharing what we know; that the people in the park who prayed to recieve Christ will seek to know Him more and will find believers who can disciple them;and that our "big sisters" from Guadalajara will be blessed and rewarded richly for their service, leadership, and love.

Women's Retreat

My teammate Robin annually hosts a retreat for the women from several different churches and/or Bible studies with whom she works, and this year I arrived just in time to help her with the last preparations for the biggest retreat ever. We had a volunteer team come from Arkansas to help with the retreat. After 2 days of shopping, we loaded up the vans on Friday morning and drove an hour and a half to the water park where the retreat was held. (Our state, Aguascalientes, is named after the natural hot springs that exist here. For this reason, there are several water parks featuring pools, slides, etc. that use this warm water instead of cold. Many water parks also have housing accomodations.) Note my quiet passengers below. Because I had taken responsibility for many organizational and financial aspects of the retreat, I worked at the registration table and was grateful that Myrna was able to help me communicate with the women. Her help made it go much smoother!

There were a total of 70 people registered for the retreat, and 66 were able to attend. (This includes 4 of us from the IMB, 8 women from Arkansas, and 5 women from Guadelajara whom I will discuss in my next post. The remaining 49 were the guests.)

We had some great times of praise and worship in the beautiful weather. Is there any sound more precious than sincere worship in one's heart language?

We also had some amazing conference sessions taught by Cherry and translated to spanish by Robin. The theme was "Sharing What You Know." While I was still in Guatemala, I had been sent the outlines for the sessions and was able to put them into powerpoint form that we could use to help the women follow along and fill in their outlines. It was a VERY good study that challenged me as much if not more than it challenged the women in attendance.

The women seemed to be paying close attention to every word, soaking it in.

The schedule also included a craft time led by the Arkansas women as well as the meals and snacks that they prepared. This beautiful, precious woman showing her craft in this picture will probably soon become my hair stylist. She has an amazing story of transformation and is truly a light in her community. I can hardly wait to know her better!

At least some of these women are members of a church where I will probably become involved. Such beautiful spirits shine through their smiles!

There were 5 different churches represented at this retreat (as well as some women who are participating in home Bible studies). Please join me in praying for opportunities to bond with these women and to form parnerships to work alongside them to reach their communities.

Thursday Bible Study

Thursday's Bible study was a bit rougher than Wednesday's. There were more kids, and most of the kids needed more individual attention (including some escape artists and some who were a bit uncooperative). Plus, we were crowded into a very small front yard right next to the moms. It was very worthwhile, though, as the expectant mom in this picture prayed to receive Christ before the day was over!

Flexible? Usable?

After a whirlwind first few days including meeting the AR team at the airport last Tuesday night, I was more than a little surprised last Wednesday morning when Cherry was going through the schedule and mentioned that I would be leading the kids at the 2 Bible studies that week. Since one of those studies was that very afternoon, I was reminded that the call to missions so frequently includes a call to be flexible. I could protest that I should have been asked sooner, or I could stop focusing on me and choose to focus instead on being usable. Thankfully Robin has a lot of ready-made activities just waiting to be used, so it came together relatively easily. We went to the home of a young family I had met in church the previous Sunday, and I led the story of Noah, a couple of related crafts, and taught the kids songs. I was so blessed to have wonderful team members who soon jumped in to help the kids with the crafts.

While we were working with the kids, Michelle was able to share a devotional while Robin translated for the women.

Then Mama Sam shared her testimony and led the women's craft time. It is always neat to see how God uses a team working together.

AR Team

Last week we had an amazing team of women from Rogers, Arkansas volunteer to come down and work with us. Here they are pictured along with my teammate Robin in front of my lovely big green van. While they were here, they helped with a couple of women's Bible studies/craft times (and activities to keep the kids occupied while the mom's were in the studies); shopping, cooking, and packing for women's retreat; and the women's retreat. This was a team filled with jewels, and I was SO blessed to become acquainted with these sisters in Christ. Thank you Cherry, Michelle, Bobbie, Gail, Mama Sam, Virginia, Ann, and Nancy. Thank you for coming, for investing in the women here, for encouraging me, and so much more. Looking forward to visiting Rogers when I return to the States!

I'M HERE!

After 2 months in Virginia, 6 months in Guatemala for language school, 3 days in Mexico City, and 1 day in Leon (MX), I have FINALLY arrived and started getting settled in Aguascalientes! I am looking forward to having internet access in my house so that I can update my blog more often, but for now I just wanted to share that I am here and to ask you to pray as I begin to work here. I am meeting a lot of people and helping one of my teammates Robin host a retreat for national women this coming wekeend (April 10-11). We have a team of women from Arkansas who are currently flying in to help us this week/weekend. Please pray for this team, for the retreat, for the women attending the retreat, and for me as I drive a HUGE van in this unfamiliar city with this volunteer team as passengers. I have to say that this combination makes me a bit nervous, but that's just all the more reason to pray for God's protection/guidance/wisdom!

Please hang in there with me while I get settled and am not posting much. I've taken the first step toward establishing internet at my house, but it may take a couple of weeks before it actually happens.

Boys Will Be Boys

Last Sunday at the bilingual church we have been attending, we ended up sitting behind a row full of Guatemalan boys of varous ages, with an older white gentleman at each end of the row. It quickly became apparent that they would provide either a distraction or some entertainment, if not both.

The youngest boy was sitting directly in front of me, and he chose to stay in his seat while the rest of us stood to sing. Before long, he fell asleep. The other boys pointed and laughed and then brought it to the attention of the man on the far end, who laughed and gave them a camera to take a picture of their sleeping friend.

Some of the boys were doing an exaggerated clap with the music, and my friend Ryan standing beside me joined their clap, which gave them something else to laugh about. When the serman began, one of the older boys decided to draw a picture of Ryan on an offering envelope. (I should point out that Ryan has allowed a beard to grow during his time in language school and is therefore looking a bit wilder than before he came here.) Between his appearance and his clapping performance, the boy decided to label him "Ryan Loco" ("Crazy Ryan"). When he gave the picture to Ryan and saw how funny we thought it was, he began drawing again, continuously looking over his shoulder at me. I must saw I was a bit nervous about what he might choose to include in his drawing. I have to saw that he was very kind, except I guess I was labeled crazy because I was with Ryan?

Then he drew Olivia and then Paul, but they were given the kinder label of Amigo (Friend). Ryan's picture was by far my favorite, but I have to say I was also entertained by his inclusion of Olivia's hairstyle that flips out at the bottom.

As entertaining as all of this is, I keep thinking about that row filled with boys and wonder what their story is. Where do they live? With whom? What do they know of our Savior? Although it is very unlikely that our paths will cross again, these silly drawings will prompt me to pray for them.

Light in the Darkness

Our weekly Bible study is in the home of an extremely poor family. They have suffered many hardships in life and struggle to get by, yet they extremely kind, generous, happy people. This evening they shared a testimony of how God has worked in their lives this week. They were obligated to buy a uniform for their teeenage son for his school, the electric bill was overdue, and other expenses were looming. Their electricity got turned off. Isabel said that she laid in bed one night talking to God, saying that she wanted to have faith in Him but couldn't escape the doubts that were invading her mind. As she cried out, "How, God, how?" she received His assurance that an angel would come to their door and provide for them. Each night with no electricity for TV or other activities, the family has gathered by candlelight to read and discuss the Bible and pray. They said that it has really been a blessing because without the darkness they would not have spent this time seeking the Light together. Then Isabel's father came to their door with money in hand and asked if they needed it. She immediately recognized it as God's provision and was able to go pay the bills. As darkness descended on our Bible study, she shared that the electricity should come back tomorrow but that it didn't really matter because they had the joy of the Lord in their hearts. She said people often ask them how they can have so much joy when their situation is so dark; what an amazing opportunity to share about God! It was so powerful to hear them share all of this tonight! Please pray for Luis and Isabel and this precious family. Please pray specifically for a job for Luis so that he can provide for his family.