What a summer :)

Well it is done!  Our time in Oaxaca this summer has come to a beautiful end. :)  We have seen so many people have an interest in learning more about Jesus.  We have pasted out around 17 bibles and had a bible study with around 15 people of all ages.  People are truly seeking and Erica, Zoe, and I have the Lord to thank for it all.  He provided everything.  One of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen was the last day we were there.  We taught them "how to pray" and "how to teach the gospel" to others.  The last day we were there we were practicing so they feel confident in doing so when we are gone.  I started weeping right in the middle of it all.  The people helped each other pray and taught the gospel together.  It was amazing to see how God used everyone in that Bible study to share His beautiful words.  I don't even know if they really get what they are saying just yet, but God is present in their lives and working in them.  I am so excited for the future of that village!

Please PRAY for this village and the continuation of this bible study in this village.  There are people coming to this village after us, but it will be about a month and a half before they get there.  This time period will be where we will see who truly is interested in having Jesus as Lord of their life.  We are so excited because we know that even though we have left God is still with them and loves them more than we ever could.

Thank you for your prayers and support the entire summer.  I am so excited to come back and see all my family and friends and share about this life changing experience God gave me.

I have nothing to say, but Thank You God, and you do as well for this summer no matter where you were at.

I love you all,

Jordan :)

2nd to last week

Hello everyone!  Hope you had a great week. :)  This was the first week where we did not have a set schedule.  We have always had a schedule from teaching at the middle school and other schools and this week school was out.  So each day was completely held in the Lord's hands and it was amazing!  We spent a lot of time with our closer friends and developed even deeper friendships with them.

Sarah and her son now regard us as family.  We have spent so much time over there this past week and it is another home there.  We even made a piñata for her son's birthday party!  I just love Sarah so much.  She is like a mother figure to Erica, Zoe and I out there.  Also, Sally, Jessie, and O are over at our house all the time!  We even started a BIBLE STUDY WITH THEM!  We are so excited about it!  They were the ones that asked to keep it going everyday last week.  THEY EVEN INVITED OTHER PEOPLE TO IT! By the end of the week we probably handed out around five bibles.  To a place who have never had people living in the village bringing the gospel, this is HUGE.  I never thought this would have happened in just 6 weeks, but God opened the door and we took it!  Pray for Jessie, Sally, and O as we continue this coming week.  Also, pray for Joe, G, and Al since they have been a few who have also come.

We hope to free up our schedule again to let the Lord work this final week out in the village and leave these people knowing God will be with them when we are gone.  Also, please pray for incoming teams coming into the village to continue the mission there.  We do not know specifics on this yet, but we know people are coming.

Finally, prayer for my team will continue to be much appreciated.  We have all struggled physically this week with health related issues.  I have suffered a lot with this.  I had to go to the doctor while in Oaxaca and found out I have had a bacterial infection in my stomach.  I believe I have probably had this for about a month now and it just got really bad this week. This caused me to be sick in the village a lot this past week.  Sarah was able to take good care of me though. :)  I'm glad God provided an opportunity for that. So God has been able to work through it, but prayers that the medicine I am on now will work would be much appreciated. :)

We head back to the village tomorrow and will get back next saturday.  This has been one of the best experiences of my life and I'm excited to finish it out strong for the one who has provided the way thus far and for us all.  Love you all and I'll see you in about a week and a half!  I'll update you again before I head home!

Much Love,  Jordan :)

Week 3!

     Hola! I hope everyone's past week and a half has been great!  We had a great week out there in the village!  We spent a lot of time cooking for friends, making them spaghetti, fajitas, and chicken.  We have made a lot of great connections doing this, and it has been a great way to get to know our friends better.  At this point we have a lot of strong friendships in the village, and about 10 really strong friends that come over to our house whenever they want.  We are very excited about these stronger friendships because they started asking us about our faith a lot this week. They notice that we read our bibles, and ask us questions as to why we do so.  This has opened the door to Cindy asking us to teach her the bible! Our first person to initially ask us to teach her the bible.  She is engaged to another one of our closest friends, Luke, and we hope they will follow through with their curiosity.  Of course every good thing comes with some complications.  They have to leave for the next 2 weeks to share with the family about their engagement.  So that cuts our time with them really short since we will leave the village on the 27th to get home on the 30th.  However, God's hand is in it all and we know the people coming after us will be able to continue what God has started in their hearts.
      We have continued teaching at the middle school this week, and taught at the preschool a couple of times!  It was so cool to see!  We had three of our middle school students help us teach the preschool and it was amazing how God is able to reproduce what we have taught our middle schoolers to others without our help.  Reproducing ourselves is the best thing we can do with our short time here!
     We hung out with the Christians in the village this week and really enjoyed our time with them.  We got to teach them a bible study about the crucifixtion as well as meet more of their family.  It has been great to see how God is teaching these people with us being there.  I love being encouraged knowing we are discipling them as much as we can with our time here.
     Also, our wonderful middle schoolers graduated this past week! Pictures of that are below.  We had a lot of fun at this graduation because we knew all the kids graduating.  One of our students even asked us to sit with him and his family which was so nice of him!
     We hope to continue with our Biblical conversations we started last week this upcoming week.  We also pray that God will open more doors to talk about Him.  We have a little over 2 weeks left out in the village since we will have one more break this month before leaving back home.  I pray we can finish strong.

Prayer requests for the next week:

• That Cindy and Luke have safe travels and that God works on their hearts even away from the village.
• That the Christians in the village would continue to learn what the Bible actually says and allow God to teach them the false things they may have heard in the past 25 years through studying the Bible.
• Pray that my team and I continue to rely on God's strength out there.  It is so emotionally draining being out there all by ourselves, and with a few weeks left physical exhaustion is sinking in.
• Prayers for all of our health would be much appreciated as well.  We are all struggling with health problems in our own way.
• I am going to throw some more names your way.  Pray for Sally, Jessie, O, Joe, Sandra, and Jim.  All of these people we have discussed the Bible with in some way, and we hope to continue those.
• Also, continue to pray for Sarah and her son.  They remain one of our closest friends and we hope to continue to get to know them more.  We love them so much.

We will be starting tutoring at our house this week since school is finally out for all grades.  We will be teaching people from all ages so prayers that God can work using that and not make us too busy for Hm to do His work.

Thank you so much for all your prayers!  We all appreciate it so much.  I look forward to seeing all of my family and friends so much.  However, I am excited to finish this journey out strong first.  Thank you for supporting us to do so.  I love you all and thank you.

Jordan :)