Tonight we had a bunch of the soccer girls over and also 2 girls from our softball team for dinner and s'mores making. We got to talk alot and after our mini bonfire, the soccer girls left. The softball girls stayed and we ended up having a sweet jam session on the roof with 2 girls playing the guitar, me playing the djembe, and all of us singing! We were playing a bunch of worship songs in Spanish and English. It was so much fun! I think we'll be hanging out with these girls a lot. They want to get closer to God because they feel like they've drawn away from Him quite a bit. They're such sweethearts so it'll be fun to start hanging out with them.
This is a short one but I just wanted to share that with you guys because I was excited about it! Love you and hope you're all doing great!
Guadalajara
Pan Am Games
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Mexico, Mexico, Mexico
Weeks are FLYING by right now. I don't know if that's good or bad. We've been having some great meetings with our girls (Alice, Abigail, Yun). We were at one of the Tec games last week. It had just ended and they had won by 1 and played really well. We met one of the girls' parents after and she said, "These are the girls from Athletes in Action that I was telling you about." They both got really excited and said, "Oh thank you so much for taking care of our girl. Her faith is so important and we're really happy that you guys can help her." They were really sweet. Starting on Monday, we'll be meeting with her once a week. I'm really excited!
Alice is really excited about the possibility of going on a summer tour with AIA (like the one that I did with basketball). The volleyball tour goes to Brazil (how sweet would that be???) She also might do her social service/practicum for her last semester of school with AIA. What that would look like, I have no idea. She might help us with the summer teams that are coming down. We're waiting for her to get the go ahead from her department. Please be praying for that!
We were at a staff meeting last week and the first question for us was, on a scale from 1-10, how are we feeling like things are going?? My response was about an 8.5. I'm absolutely LOVING what I'm doing and feel like relationships are going really well. The only 1.5 that I was missing was because I felt kind of overwhelmed by all the stuff I had to get done. I want to thank all of you for your prayers and support! They're definitely NEEDED and APPRECIATED!
Please also be praying for London, Mary who is STILL in the U.S. sick but getting better, and Yost's family who is going through some hard times. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Love you all a whole lot!
Alice is really excited about the possibility of going on a summer tour with AIA (like the one that I did with basketball). The volleyball tour goes to Brazil (how sweet would that be???) She also might do her social service/practicum for her last semester of school with AIA. What that would look like, I have no idea. She might help us with the summer teams that are coming down. We're waiting for her to get the go ahead from her department. Please be praying for that!
We were at a staff meeting last week and the first question for us was, on a scale from 1-10, how are we feeling like things are going?? My response was about an 8.5. I'm absolutely LOVING what I'm doing and feel like relationships are going really well. The only 1.5 that I was missing was because I felt kind of overwhelmed by all the stuff I had to get done. I want to thank all of you for your prayers and support! They're definitely NEEDED and APPRECIATED!
Please also be praying for London, Mary who is STILL in the U.S. sick but getting better, and Yost's family who is going through some hard times. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Love you all a whole lot!
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Almost 5 months in...
To start off, I wanted to give you a little update on my roommate, Katie. She's still in the States and is starting to feel a little bit better. She can still do minimal activity so she'll be up and doing stuff for a couple hours then just has to crash for a long time. Her appetite is back which is a blessing. She went into the doctor for blood work last Friday I think and should get results this week and will hopefully be back here in the next couple weeks!! Please keep praying... we miss her a lot. I've been meeting with Yun (the one who met with the witchdoctor) and she's really excited to start diving into the Bible. We met with her last week and talked about her starting to do the talks to a guys team where she has lots of connections and the coach requested that we help them. We don't have the number of staff to take on another team so we decided to help her along the way so she could do it. She's stoked about that too. She's a great kid who is really excited about lots of things in life... I'm excited I get to spend so much time with her.
This weekend we're babysitting John and Natalie's kids (4,3, and 11 months). They needed a well-deserved mini vacation. I'm learning alot about motherhood and how I'm not even CLOSE to being ready to be responsible for another human being. They are some good kids though.
We had our meeting with Alice yesterday. As she was walking up to meet with us, we realized she brought 2 of her suitemates, a soccer player and a track girl!! We got to study the Bible with all of them! As we were getting towards the end, one of the other volleyball players came up and sat with us, so we had 4 girls with us!!! It was awesome! Alice is really excited about growing in her faith and so she's just grabbing anyone who is willing to listen.
Thank you for all the prayers! It's cool to see all that's happening down here and see how God is working in the hearts of these girls. It has been amazing to get to know them more and see all they're going through but get excited about growing and learning new things... please keep praying! Love you all a whole lot.
This weekend we're babysitting John and Natalie's kids (4,3, and 11 months). They needed a well-deserved mini vacation. I'm learning alot about motherhood and how I'm not even CLOSE to being ready to be responsible for another human being. They are some good kids though.
We had our meeting with Alice yesterday. As she was walking up to meet with us, we realized she brought 2 of her suitemates, a soccer player and a track girl!! We got to study the Bible with all of them! As we were getting towards the end, one of the other volleyball players came up and sat with us, so we had 4 girls with us!!! It was awesome! Alice is really excited about growing in her faith and so she's just grabbing anyone who is willing to listen.
Thank you for all the prayers! It's cool to see all that's happening down here and see how God is working in the hearts of these girls. It has been amazing to get to know them more and see all they're going through but get excited about growing and learning new things... please keep praying! Love you all a whole lot.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Keep it coming...
It's Sunday night and I'm here anticipating waking up super early tomorrow morning to go to practice and do a Team Activity on unity. Yost and I were able to play with the Tec team in a scrimmage game yesterday. We lost. It was the same team that we played against in our first game when we came down 2 years ago... we lost then too. I'm still bitter. ;) It was so much fun to play in an actual game with the team instead of just practice. There's some major division going on however. There are 2 main cliques that just can't seem to get along. This week has been rough for them. They lost Tuesday by 4 to UDLAP, Thursday by 1 to UDLAP, and by 16 yesterday (my incredible number of turnovers probably didn't help the situation.) On Tuesday the coach asked me to sit with them on the bench as his assistant. Before the game he basically gave me the green light to tell him when he's being too negative or out of control and basically tell him what's up if he's going nuts. There have been quite a few of the girls who have told me that they can't perform with the way that he talks to them because he goes crazy, or gives up, or is just super negative. They're also afraid to approach him to tell him any of this. I'm going to talk to him tomorrow (hopefully) to see what he thinks about it. Please be praying.
Yost and I met with one of the basketball girls and she told us about how she had gone to talk to a witch doctor because her dad's secretary had recommended him. He told her things about her past and present that were apparently true and so it freaked her out (naturally). She was worried about her family because he had said that her step mom was going to do something dangerous to her dad and her and her mom were going to get sick (there was much more detail than that but that's the gist). We were able to pray together and look at lots of Scripture that speaks against the work of the Devil and how we already have victory through Jesus' death. We gave her a Bible the next day and she said, "You're going to show me how to use this right?" So now we're meeting with her too!! She considers herself a Christian and a Buddhist (I'm still trying to figure out how the 2 go together). Keep praying for her!
Alice (volleyball), Yost and I have been meeting twice a week and last Friday we had our first Bible study on God's character. We had a really good talk and even started talking about baptism :) She's excited to learn more about God.
Sheri Johnson (one of Abbey's great friends and mentors) came to visit and did a talk for all the teams... well, all the teams were invited. We probably had about 30 which is a good turn out for our first talk. I had to translate (not my greatest skill but still a good experience). She spoke on what she would have liked to have known as an athlete in college (she did track at U of Wyoming). She spoke on how many things that we can control (training, eating right, listening to our coaches, treating people right, etc. will never guarantee a positive outcome. The only guaranteed outcome we have is where we'll spend eternity if we know Christ. John came up and shared the Gospel at the end. It went well I thought. There are a couple girls from the basketball team that are starting to come to Casa Verde (the other college ministry in Puebla) and one is Becky and her roommate that I shared about in my newsletter and another one is Pili, one of the captains that we've been meeting with. Be praying they continue to come and want to know Jesus!!!
This is a long one... hopefully you made it to the end! I hope you're all doing GREAT! Love you all!!
Yost and I met with one of the basketball girls and she told us about how she had gone to talk to a witch doctor because her dad's secretary had recommended him. He told her things about her past and present that were apparently true and so it freaked her out (naturally). She was worried about her family because he had said that her step mom was going to do something dangerous to her dad and her and her mom were going to get sick (there was much more detail than that but that's the gist). We were able to pray together and look at lots of Scripture that speaks against the work of the Devil and how we already have victory through Jesus' death. We gave her a Bible the next day and she said, "You're going to show me how to use this right?" So now we're meeting with her too!! She considers herself a Christian and a Buddhist (I'm still trying to figure out how the 2 go together). Keep praying for her!
Alice (volleyball), Yost and I have been meeting twice a week and last Friday we had our first Bible study on God's character. We had a really good talk and even started talking about baptism :) She's excited to learn more about God.
Sheri Johnson (one of Abbey's great friends and mentors) came to visit and did a talk for all the teams... well, all the teams were invited. We probably had about 30 which is a good turn out for our first talk. I had to translate (not my greatest skill but still a good experience). She spoke on what she would have liked to have known as an athlete in college (she did track at U of Wyoming). She spoke on how many things that we can control (training, eating right, listening to our coaches, treating people right, etc. will never guarantee a positive outcome. The only guaranteed outcome we have is where we'll spend eternity if we know Christ. John came up and shared the Gospel at the end. It went well I thought. There are a couple girls from the basketball team that are starting to come to Casa Verde (the other college ministry in Puebla) and one is Becky and her roommate that I shared about in my newsletter and another one is Pili, one of the captains that we've been meeting with. Be praying they continue to come and want to know Jesus!!!
This is a long one... hopefully you made it to the end! I hope you're all doing GREAT! Love you all!!
Thursday, February 2, 2012
One of the basketball girls, Becky, said she had to talk to me the other day and it was urgent. We went on a walk (she was on crutches at the time so it was a very slow walk) and she was telling me about all of the things that were going wrong in her life and how she wanted to leave Puebla. There were some parts of her story that I couldn't understand. Sometimes I have to ask about 200 clarifying questions to Spanish speakers to make sure I'm understanding what they're actually saying. Poor girl had me asking all kinds of questions. She was telling me she was at her limit and couldn't take anymore!
That was about a week ago. The other day I texted her and said I had been thinking a lot about what she was telling me and wanted to talk to her. I really felt like I was supposed to share the Gospel with her but maybe that other day we were talking wasn't the right timing. We went and had breakfast today after practice and she just broke down and cried in the middle of the cafeteria. She's been with her girlfriend for over a year and they just broke up. She's really afraid of being alone and is just really hurt by the break-up. I shared the Gospel with her telling her that God is the only one that has helped me when I felt like I was at my limit. She was very receptive of it and is really searching. We had a really great talk about how she blocks all her problems out and refuses to think about anything which makes it impossible to process things which in turn just makes feelings and problems drag out much longer than if they're just dealt with. I challenged her to write in a journal, or on anything really, for at least a half hour each day for the next week and a half in order to get some of her feelings and emotions out. Otherwise she's just going to keep them bottled up and never dealt with. She also said that she was afraid to be alone becuase she was afraid she'd do something to harm herself. She has some support here in Puebla but I'm praying that she gets the right support and guidance from the people who care about her. Please be praying for Becky, that she can experience God's comfort in this hard time and also that she feels encouraged to know God personally.
Thank you thank you!! My next newsletter will be out in the next couple days just a fun fact. I hope you're all doing great! Love you :)
That was about a week ago. The other day I texted her and said I had been thinking a lot about what she was telling me and wanted to talk to her. I really felt like I was supposed to share the Gospel with her but maybe that other day we were talking wasn't the right timing. We went and had breakfast today after practice and she just broke down and cried in the middle of the cafeteria. She's been with her girlfriend for over a year and they just broke up. She's really afraid of being alone and is just really hurt by the break-up. I shared the Gospel with her telling her that God is the only one that has helped me when I felt like I was at my limit. She was very receptive of it and is really searching. We had a really great talk about how she blocks all her problems out and refuses to think about anything which makes it impossible to process things which in turn just makes feelings and problems drag out much longer than if they're just dealt with. I challenged her to write in a journal, or on anything really, for at least a half hour each day for the next week and a half in order to get some of her feelings and emotions out. Otherwise she's just going to keep them bottled up and never dealt with. She also said that she was afraid to be alone becuase she was afraid she'd do something to harm herself. She has some support here in Puebla but I'm praying that she gets the right support and guidance from the people who care about her. Please be praying for Becky, that she can experience God's comfort in this hard time and also that she feels encouraged to know God personally.
Thank you thank you!! My next newsletter will be out in the next couple days just a fun fact. I hope you're all doing great! Love you :)
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