¨School Visit

Today is our last day of reading sessions. One of my readers, Miguel (in the tan jacket in the front of the outside pic) is a substitute teacher and a Christian. He brought 18 of his secondary students, all ages 12-15, to meet us this morning. We spent an hour telling them about our work and answering questions. They wanted us to sing so we shared a couple of worship songs with them. Then they wanted to learn a song in English. I wrote the words to ¨Jesus Loves Me¨on the wipe-off board and we sang it several times to teach them. The picture above shows every student copying down every word to this song right in their school books! The last time we sang it, I told them I really wanted to hear them sing. One of our translators motioned for me to stop singing and just listen. I can´t tell you how hard it was to hold it together while listening to these sweet voices singing about a Savior many have never met. I knew I could never explain why the crazy American lady was sobbing so I managed to make it through their song. I am constantly surprised by the ways He works!

I am not like:

I am not like Marcela. Marcela lets us live all over her house. If we were not here, she would have the upstairs bathroom all to herself since her husband is in the states, instead she shares it with other people and tries to stay out of OUR way. She gives us full run of the kitchen, outdoor sink for our laundry, any food we see, television........ She currently has no key to her own house because we have them. She has absolutely no time to herself as she works her business about 12 hours per day then still has time to smile and love on us. She left for the US for 3 weeks during our stay and gave us no instructions on using ¨her¨stuff, she considers nothing off limits to us. When we say anything about being in her way, she motions to the house and says ¨only for use, only for use¨, meaning the only reason God gave it to her is so others can use it. She forgot when we were leaving, thinking we had about 3 more weeks here and teared up when we told her our departure date.

I am not like my reader, Melissa. Melissa is 17 years old, very wise and spiritual for her age. She is a fierce believer in God, keeping a promise to pray 1 hour each day for over 3 years now. She was very late for our session today. She had been to class at her English institute to pick up her final grade for the current session. She waited at the bus stop for the bus that would bring her to me and the bus did not come. She decided to walk 3 streets to another place. Along the way (a way she was not supposed to be going) she met an older man who is a family friend. He sells orange juice on the street for a living. He asked if she could go to his house and prepare breakfast for his mother who is 83 and blind. Melissa went, prepared the breakfast 3 times due to a problem with bitter water in the house, had to leave to go by more canned milk, fed the woman, listened to her for a few minutes. She arrived about 40 minutes late for our 45 minute session with a smile on her face and a love for ¨older ladies because they are so wise and know so much about God that they can teach her¨.

I am not like Millie, Luis, and Raul, our babysitters. They have each taken several hours a day from their ongoing responsibilities to make our work easier by being with us. And they have done it faithfully and without the hint of complaint or frustration for 6 weeks! Their jobs, studies, and families have not let them out of any responsibility, they just add the LST work to what they already do.

I am not like Miguel who opens up his life and shares his deepest fears, struggles, and secrets with a woman he does not know and who cannot speak his language. And is older than his mother!

I am not like Josue´who is openly and honestly letting me see the battle within his spirit as he tries to allow God to change a lifetime of thinking one certain way.

I am not enough like Jesus who I see in every face that shares my life here.

What Is Keeping You....?

I know you are praying so here is an update on my session with Josue yesterday. We read the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. We discussed the story itself and then I told him that I must ask him a hard question because it is so important to the text. I had him read the eunuchs words "What is keeping me from being baptized?" and then asked him to answer the question for himself. His first answer was "God is so powerful". I asked if he was afraid of God and he said yes. Then he said that God must be so busy with the problems all over the world. I said, "Do you mean that He is so busy with the rest of the world that He has no time for Josue in Lima?". Yes. I looked him dead in the eyes, made sure I had his attentiion and told him that was an absolute lie that he is believing. We looked at stories from the Word that demonstrate Gods love for us, stories that he is familiar with: leaving the 99 to search for the one, prodigal son, etc. Then we started talking about the sacrifice of Jesus that God made for him. I pointed to Erin and reminded Josue of our conversation when I said I would die for her. We took it a little further when I asked him if he thought I would let her die for him. He said no. Then I asked, "Okay, what if you were a horrible, evil person who had done terrible things to my family and hated us. Would I let her die for you then?" He said no way, then we talked about God doing that very thing and that He would have done it even if Josue was the only one who needed it. He was silent for a long time then told me that what God did was "unfair", especially to Jesus. Yes, it was! He said that we dont deserve that kind of treatment. No, we dont! He is overwhelmed with the idea of that kind of love (arent we all?) and said he cant accept that kind of love for himself...today. At our session this afternoon, we will talk about Cornelius and tomorrow we finish Acts. Our last session on Thurs, we will just talk and I will alk again. PRAY! Please go to battle for this lost soul.

Sorry for the long, detailed conversation replay but everytime one of them gets His message, so do we all. And I dont want you to miss it!

Party On!

Happy Monday everybody! We can´t believe we are starting week 6!!! Thought we´d never get here some days.

I feel a real burden to tell you when God is answering your prayers about our work. Josue´was at his first party last night! We played Scattergories (a revised version that I made up!) and I put him to work as one of the best English speakers in the room. He was one of the 5 readers who stayed for church last night too. I trust God´s timing with Josue´and all the rest of our readers but it is so exciting to see them taking even baby steps closer to Him and His people. I meet with him at 3 this afternoon. Keep praying! I will be a little bolder as our week draws to a close.

Just had time for a quick update. I´ll try to be back tomorrow. Will Spoon, you´re the best webmaster ever!

Places in the heart

Before you get all weepy over the price of gas, here's a reality check. Divide by three to get what you would pay in US dollars, You might want to grab hold of something to brace yourself.

We've met some really great people and planted seeds that we pray God will nourish. They have stolen our hearts and will have a place in our hearts until we meet in heaven. Here are just a few of the great faces that we see nearly everyday.


We are waiting for services to begin the great thing about this picture is EVERYONE in this shot is a reader!

Our team starts each day with a devotional.

We have had the best time at our "parties" and this one is the Oklahoma party. Guess what they are doing? No, it's not the remake of a Land Run. They are line dancing. These parties have been such a blast.

Talk about stealing your heart, this is Melissa. She has such a sweet spirit. Yes! I'm inside...YES! I'm freezing! I'll get you Kyle Graham!

Uberlinda's hospitality

This is our cook, Uberlinda.

You can imagine how fast we walk to our meals now that you know whose company we share. I mean come on, Uberlinda has some really classy clientele.

This is what the suite looks like of people who have a cook to prepare all of your meals. Eat your heart out!

Erin calling home.

Zoo Day

Who was praying about Miguel coming back???? The day after I posted news that he had missed appts. and asked you to pray, he waltzed right in the church building! Thank you for praying and thank You, Lord for listening to Your people! He has scheduled appts for every workday that we have left and is planning on joining us on our free day tomorrow, when he can spend some time getting to know our babysitter, the preacher. Sounds good!

Thank you, thank you, Will Spoon for getting pictures up so quickly! My blog access has not worked for a couple of days so you got to see pictures of our zoo trip before I wrote about it. But here is the story as promised:

After some major problems connecting with the LCU team, we finally get to the zoo about 12:30 pm. I wish you could have seen Booker and Marie trying to get off a jam-packed bus. We were at the back and it was so crowded that every part of your body was touching another person. Not nearly as exciting as it sounds! You tell the bus driver where you want to get off and he stops for approx. 12.2 seconds to allow you to do so. Booker is waiting for people to move out of the way so he and Marie could get off the bus and Erin and I are behind them. Finally I say, Booker, you just have to push your way out, buddy. So he does but we almost missed the short escape time! We walk around the zoo being entertained by the animals and Mark Brewer from the LCU team. By the way, a note to Sweeney friend, OUR Mark Brewer, I have told this young one that he is destined to grow up to be a great man! By 3 pm, we are dragging our behinds! Noone has had a meal and we are freezing and very tired. We perked up a bit when we got to the big cat cages. The poor things are in barred cages that you can walk up to within about 10 feet of. One pair of male/female lions was sacked out, enjoying a nice nap. The other pair was engaged in, how shall I put this.....R-17 rated activity, complete with sound effects. So there we all stand, stunned into silence. NOT something you see everyday. Then we all just cracked up and I swear when we started to walk away, that male lion winked at us! What a bragger. FYI, we had to pass that cage again on our way out (really) and darned if it wasnt happening again!

We were, as I said, starving so Raul took us to an outdoor mall/plaza. We were looking at the names of some of the eateries and noticed it listed Chilis. We thought, NO WAY is it the one we know. We walked around the maze and saw the most beautiful sight of the trip! We are not supposed to call attention to ourselves but we got more looks than usual when 7 of us cried out in joy at the same time! They had a choice of English menus, the same atmosphere, a real bathroom, and the food we know. We stayed for 2 hours! Ahhhhhhhhhhh.
The LCU team votes that we go again on our last weekend. Sounds good to us!

Gotta run, my little Isabel (she is 27 but only about 4 feet tall) comes every day at 2pm, in about 15 minutes and we have a walk back to the church building.

Love to all!