Hello everyone! I hope everyone has had a great week. We had a great week as well! Since we have been out in the village 8 days there are a lot of new stories to tell that we are very excited about. :) The Lord has brought everything to us and it has been amazing to see how much He has provided for us.
When we got back we had dinner with Sarah and her four year old son. We had a traditional Oaxacan dish, Tlayuda, and it is was huge! The size of this tortilla was the size of my head (seriously, maybe bigger), filled with beans, cheese and pork. It was a fun experience and the food was good! The most important thing of the night was that Sarah opened up to us in such an amazing way. She told us about her life and we were able to open up and encouraged her with the Lord. It was amazing to see this door fly open. Later on in the week I took Sarah on a walk with Zoe and she talked even more about her life. She has such a joy about her in the midst of talking about her pain and I paused and told her that she is not meant to carry the weight of her past and she started crying. She knows she doesn't have a relationship with the Lord, but she told us she knows we are here for a reason. This was probably my favorite moment of this experience thus far. We are all excited to see where this relationship goes.
As far as our teaching goes, we continued teaching the middle school kids everyday this week. We taught them about 25 verbs as well as reviewing everything thus far, the ABC's, basic Introduction questions and answers, and numbers. That has all been in a week and a half! We have focused a lot on pronunciation with all of these lessons and they have improved a lot. So naturally as a good teacher would, we gave a test. haha The teachers there decided they wanted it to be for a grade. So the students took it seriously. We were very happy with the grades they got. We also taught at the elementary school two times this week, and lets just say it was a lot different than we thought. The kids we not as dedicated as our middle school students so it was harder to teach, but we are happy for the opportunity.
We also got to encourage Luke a lot more this week. He is a great person to know and he has brought a lot of people to us. He told us about some of his past and we were able to encourage him in the Lord, as well. Sarah and Luke are the only ones we have been able to really open up too, and we are excited to continue these amazing relationships.
So something special this week was the high school graduation! The entire town came out for this event and the students had prepared a lot of traditional dances for it. It was amazing to see! A lot of pictures of this are below. The graduation was followed by a dance which was a lot of fun and we got to dress up! Probably the only time this summer that I will haha. This is one of the biggest celebrations of the village each year and we were happy to be a part of it.
To update on the four believers of the village that were there before us. I know I said last week how it was really sad how these people had not been discipled and how much it showed in their confusion of the gospel and what living for God really means. Well this week we went back. Since we had only talked for a little bit last week, we thought that was what this week was going to be. NOT! We got there and they asked for us to lead a bible study. Since we did not have any english bibles I had to recall what I knew of a gospel presentation I had done before and go with it. God definitely led that bible study and incorporated us all in it. I think they really learned a lot and they asked for us to do that again. We are excited about furthering this relationship, but can also use prayer in how to continue this relationship.
Also, this week brought a lot of excitement about my hair. Some of our friends decided they wanted to do my hair in a fancy way and with one person asking naturally five came over to help. It was a lot of fun. I had people at the graduation just come behind me and pet my hair with out even asking! It made me laugh. :)
Prayer requests:
- Continued prayer for the four believers in the village thus far, and how to further those relationships.
- That God will continue to help Sarah see that the only way she has made it this far is because He has been with her. We pray that she will give her life to Him someday, whether we see it or not. She seems the one most open to hearing about Him thus far. Sarah and her little boy are probably our closest friends so this relationship is more personal than others so prayer that that relationship will continue would be much appreciated.
- We hope to continue to get deeper with a few of the other younger girls in the village this week. So prayer that God would open those doors would be great.
- Also, prayer for our team as individuals is always needed. Week three came with a reality check and some culture shock for me personally. Prayer that God would continue to show me He is all I need would be much appreciated.
Thank you everyone for everything! It is so great to know I have family and friends back home praying for this trip. How blessed we are to get the opportunity to miss special people to us. Talk to you all on the 5th of July!
Love you all,
Jordan :)
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