Part 2 of Week 2

Whew.  Monday- Thursday flew by!  We did so much stuff and worked like crazy!  I was so tired on Friday when we returned to Oaxaca!

Monday:  Monday morning we woke up, and I got to spend time with MB just talking about life.  Our friend, Y, came over to our house to meet us to go to the elementary school to find out if we can teach at the school.  The teachers agreed, and we planned to start the next day!  That night we also go to teach English to Nikki!  It was neat to see how God used English to continue to build that relationship!  Below is a picture of Brittany teaching at the hotel!

Afterward, the gringas went to play basketball at the center, and let me tell you, the whole town was out to watch!  No lie,  there was so many people came and just watched us play with some of the guys from the church.  We had a blast!  I went home and was exhausted!

Tuesday-Thursday :  Okay, a brief summary of the next couple of days!  We have started teaching three times a week at two different elementary schools!  One is at 7am-8am, and then the other we teach at 11am-12:30pm.  God has really built alot of relationships through that!  The teachers have also approved for us to tell Bible stories to the kids to teach English, so we are able to share God's Word with these sweet kids!  Here are some sweet girls from the school that we have loved getting to know!

God has allowed for continued relationships with them!  We were also able to tell a Bible story with our neighbor and shared with him how God is powerful through the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego!  We also played more basketball and soccer with the kids and with guys from the church, and we also got to share a Bible story in a person's home and talk about how Jesus calms every storm in our life!  God is moving in this village guys!  God is working and all powerful!  His provision is wonderful!  We are building and continuing to develop relationships with those people.  I do have some prayer requests!

• That God would allow for a continuation of us getting to share His Word through stories or whatever He wants.
• That our relationship with the church would continue to deepen and grow.
• That our relationships with people in the community would open opportunities for us to share Bible stories with them.
• Protection against spiritual warfare!
• Our Spanish!  Haha this always needs prayer!

God is good always, and He always provides in each circumstance!  I won't be back in Oaxaca until the 17th, so this will be my last blog post for a while!  Jesus is going to do big things these next 3 weeks!

Gloria en lo alto!  

Week 2

Wow.  Another week has flown by in the village.  We were so busy this past week, I feel like I barely had time to breathe!  God definitely sustained me and the team in magnificent ways, meeting needs and wants in unique ways.  It's amazing how He does it.  When one of us is tired and can't seem to function anymore to entertain people or make connections, it seems He always provides the other two with an extra boost of energy to get the work done with a joyful spirit.  It's amazing each time it happens.  Or, when one is going through culture shock, the other two are just content with life.  God definitely provides in each and every circumstance.  If there is any element of truth that He has continually reaffirmed in my life this trip, it is that He provides.  Always.  Physically, mentally, spiritually, etc.  In every form and fashion and even in ways we cannot see, He provides.  Always.  Amen!  Hallelujah to that!

Anyways, so, hang on to your hats because this week was beautiful but bumpy.  Before we begin, I must also introduce someone!  Our previous translator got sick, and so he couldn't come with us that week!  We were very sad.  However, we had another translator!  We will call her MB!  MB was such a Godsend!  Having her with us allowed for so many open doors with many different types of people. (She's the girl in the picture with the popsicle!)

Okay, let's get started.

Thursday, June 18th:  We wake up and get ready to leave Oaxaca to head back to the village.  I am getting nervous about this next week.  After being in the city for a couple of days, I didn't want to go back to the village and experience culture shock again, even though I knew what to expect.  I was praying that God would give me a joy and excitement to return and calm my fears.  And, God always provides such sweet, tender peace.  I could almost hear His voice saying "Kate, I'm here."  Anyways, we begin the trek to San Caliente* which includes a four and a half hour van ride through the mountains, a 20-30 minute colectivo ride, and then another hour colectivo ride.  We arrive in San Caliente at about 6 or 7pm that night.  As we are coming in, some of the kids come running up to us! It was such a sweet greeting!  After that, we go to find food because we didn't bring any groceries with us. So, we walk to the area where many people are playing soccer and bought some empenadas from these street vendors.  Then, we stayed there and began to stuff our faces!  Haha!  We looked up at one point, and I kid you not, like ten people were watching us!  I could almost hear their thoughts.  Wow, Hungry Gringas! haha!  I went to bed with a full belly and a happy heart! 

Friday:  Friday, we had a team meeting about everything we wanted to accomplish that week, and then went to Hualtulco to get groceries!  We ate ate this nice cafe where they had wifi because we all wanted some kind of American food.  I had a wonderful burger and frappucino!  :)  I know that I'm so white girl right now, but hey!  You got to have that frappe every now and then!  Anyways, we got our groceries, and it was the funniest sight!  Three gringas and a Mexican walking around, lugging our groceries through the streets of Hualtulco!  We all looked at each other at one point and just died laughing!  Like, what is our life right now? Anyways, we got a colectivo back to the village, and our taxi driver was so much fun!  We were laughing and joking with him.  At the end of it, we ended up getting to pray with him!  I attempted a prayer in Spanish, and it was rough! Haah!  But anyways, one of our friends Y came over to our house that night to hang out with us.  We sat on our front porch and started talking, and he started sharing some of his testimony/story.  His testimony is pretty intense.  He started sharing about how four years ago, he had this alternate person inside himself that he wanted to be, but then, the person made him start doing bad things.  Basically, he was demon-possessed and would do really bad things.  It was kind of rough for MB because she heard all the details of the story in Spanish, and she didn't want to translate everything for us because it was so intense, but she was really frightened.  It was weird because he never got to a part that said and Jesus made them leave or whatever, but he said he dealt with it four years ago?  Anyways, so we prayed over him and also shared the story of the demon-possessed man with him and talked about how Jesus heals all things, and that in the name of Jesus, the enemy has to leave.  It was a pretty intense story with details that I won't give you, but it was creepy.  We prayed together that night before we went to bed that God would protect us from the enemy.  And, God always provides.

Saturday:  Saturday morning we get up ready to go to the youth service at 10am!  We start walking there, and then, we find out that they aren't having it because they needed the guys to work on the roof of the kitchen.  So, then, we decide, okay!  We are going to accomplish some things.  Brittany and MB went to the hotel to ask Nikki* if we could have classes at the hotel, and Anna Beth and I went to change and start working on preparing stories and other things.  Brittany and MB get back and said that Nikki told them to come back at 6pm that day to teach.  We were like uhhh...lol.  So, we started prepping for the English lesson. We started to prep and realized it would be much easier if we had one person in charge of each lesson, and Brittany decided to teach the first one.  So, we modeled and practiced a greeting in English, went over the alphabet, and also did numbers and time.  That day, it was so hot.  Even hotter than last week.  It was like a blazing fire on my body constantly.  It is like a constant state of stickiness from the sweat.  Anyways, we headed to the hotel that night at 6pm, ready to teach, and it turns out that she just wanted to discuss and talk about having English classes!  Praise!  Because we were a little nervous about teaching right then!   We scheduled to come back and teach her and her friends on Monday at 6pm.  God provides!  Anyways, one of our friends named Eva* was with us this entire time.  She's a younger girl and is really seeking a friendship with us!

This is her!  She is a sweetie and is patient with us when we try to understand and speak Spanish with her!  

Sunday:   Sunday, we wake up, and I am not having it this morning.  All of sudden, I was experiencing culture shock big time.  I didn't want to go to church.  I didn't want to go see people.  I didn't want to do anything.  We got to church, and I was just so angry the entire time.  I was tired and exhausted.  I get home from church and don't even go to cook lunch.  I just needed to lay down and rest.  So, I nap for only like 5 minutes because it was so hot.  I couldn't sleep.  Even with a fan.  The fan was blowing hot air making me sweat even more.  Anyways, I get up and go outside and there are people at our house.  Let me explain something about this culture.  People just come by to your house at whatever time.  They don't just stop by to say hey.  It's like hey, I'm going to come sit and visit with you on your porch and expect that you provide coffee and crackers.  So, you literally have to drop everything you are doing and go entertain these people.  At this point, I am like no.  No.  Tell these people to leave.  I don't even know who they are, but God provided strength to smile.  I asked the other girls if it was okay if I got MB to ask the people to leave in kind words because we still needed to make lunch.  It was like 2:00pm at this point.  So, she did, and we invited them to come back later to our English class that night after church.  That afternoon, I stayed on our porch with my teammates, and we listened to American songs.  Once again, God provides.  Just listening to American music lifted my spirits.  That night, Anna Beth taught at the church.  She taught a story called Creation to Church which gives a brief overview of the Bible in about 6-8 minutes.  She shared this story and asked questions, and then got one of the church members to repeat it back.  The church we are working with do not outreach very much to their community.  So, we tried to teach them a story that they could use to tell people whenever they want to share the Gospel. We told them that this is a tool we use to share the Gospel with different people, and that it is a tool they can use as well.  It was so good to see how God opens doors for teaching opportunities for us and for them!  God provides!!   Afterwards, we had an English class with the church, and it was so enjoyable!  The people that had come by our house earlier that day came to the church for the service and for the class too!  The people were so excited to be there, and it was so cool to see them work together and have fun with all the games too!  I went home that night excited and ready for the week!  God provides joy in every circumstance!

Okay, I'm going to finish the week out on another post because this one is getting long!  God provides in each and every circumstance!  Praise!  Gloria en lo alto!

Village Life Part 2

Things ended up settling down...kind of. At this point, Tuesday night, I am so exhausted, I don't even want to think about life.  Thank goodness for J.  I was so exhausted I couldn't even attempt to understand what people were telling me in Spanish.  My brain was dead.  But God provided strength each time to keep pushing on.  At our orientation, they told us multiple times to choose joy.  So, I definitely tried to do this.  Though I failed some times, God gave me grace through each moment.

At this point, it is also important to note how useless I felt.  The people in the village speak very fast, and it is hard for me to keep up.  I didn't understand at that moment why God had chosen for me to go there, and I still don't.  However, I know that Psalm 73:6 says "My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."  His Word also says in Isaiah 55:11 "So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it."  Amen.  God is Sovereign, and He always accomplishes His purposes.  His ways and thoughts are higher than mine, and though I may never see the fruits of the labor, I trust He has purpose in the labor.  So, to continue with this saga, let's pick up where we left off.

Wednesday:  The entire barn outside our house (not really a barn, but the pigs, rooster, and dogs) woke me up again at 4 am.  I was so exhausted.  I remember praying again asking God to shut the mouths of those animals just like He shut the mouths of the lions with Daniel.  Every time, He answered.  Either I fell back asleep, or He shut their mouths.  Either way, I am thankful for a God that takes EVERY prayer and request and answers them.  They may not always be answered in a way that we want, but He answers.  Praise Him.  Later that morning, we went with the Crosspointe Team to the beach.

The name of this beach is San Diego.  It was so beautiful! We played in the water (The Pacific Ocean) and had a great time.  We went back to our house around 1 pm or so, made lunch, and tried to finish organizing the house.  I took a small nap, and then, church was that night at 6 pm!  We went to church, and I remember having no idea what was going on.  Pastor H ended up getting JO, another translator that was helping the Crosspointe team this week (he works with the Holemans in Oaxaca), to translate so it made it much easier for my brain.  We also had dinner with the Crosspointe team that night. Sadly, the only picture I have of us and the team is the following one, and it's blurry.  Also, some people's heads are missing.

My selfie game was strong this past week.  Anyways, we went home that night and we were all looking forward to a peaceful night of sleep.  However, the enemy had other plans.  I woke up at about 12:30 am that night to glass breaking.  I got out of my hammock and realized C and Anna Beth were at the door.  Someone else was at the door, too.  It was raining, and I couldn't see anything because it was so dark.  Anna Beth turned the light on, and we realized that it was a drunk teenager at our door.  C walked him outside the gate, and everything was fine.  He accidentally bumped one of the glass panes while coming to our door.  It just interrupted our sleep time and kept us up for a little longer that night adding to our exhaustion.  (To assure you that I was never in any danger, we spoke with the owner of the house and the pastor, and they contacted the police and gave us the numbers for the police.  They said that it usually is not something that happens and that this is peaceful, safe village, so we know it was just the enemy trying to freak us out and add to our exhaustion.  God is Sovereign and our Mighty Warrior.  He protects in each and every circumstance, and we haven't had an issue with it again at all.  Our house is very safe; we have a locked door, and a gate that locks. )

Thursday:  We wake up and get ready to go to the English class at 10 am that the Crosspointe Team.  The English class was at the church with several kids.  It was so fun to see the kids learn and sing songs about The Lord.  Each day, the Crosspointe team taught a Bible story that went along with the words that they were teaching the children.  After the English class, we had lunch, and went back to our house.  Praise The Lord for giving me rest because I took like a two hour nap in my hammock and felt amazing when I woke up.  He is so good to provide rest.  Anytime I get rest now, I am reminded that He alone provides eternal rest for our souls.  That night, we had another English class at 6 pm at the church.  This time, Brittany, Anna Beth, and I helped to teach.  Anna Beth played a song with her guitar, Brittany reviewed words, and I reviewed one of the Bible stories with the kids.  It was so much fun.  I got a little dramatic with my retelling of the story and acted out as much as I could.  It was so sweet to see the kids giggling and laughing at my ridiculousness.  Lol!  That night, we ate with the Crosspointe team for dinner.  We got into our beds early that night with hopes to have a wonderful sleepy night.

Friday:  REST!  BEAUTIFUL REST! Wow.  I woke up feeling so refreshed.  God is gracious.  We met the Crosspointe team for coffee after they had breakfast to say goodbye.  It was so great to be encouraged by them and for them to help us with things we needed at the house.  After they left, we cooked lunch on our element, makeshift stove.  C left soon after that to head back to Oaxaca.  She was there to help us get set up in the house and get ready to work in the village.   After that, J taught us how to wash clothes by hand!

We hung them up on our clotheslines and felt so empowered.  Haha!  At least I did.  The church has a service/Bible study on Friday nights at 6 pm, and M, the pastor's wife, invited us over afterwards to teach us how to make gorditas.  So, the service was good (I understood more of what he was saying in Spanish), and then we met up with the women to learn how to make the gorditas.  While cooking, some of the women shared their testimonies with us about how their husbands left them when they began following Christ.  They are such strong women.  They kept saying how they know God will provide.  Once we made the gorditas, all the youth in the church (or most of them) ate with us, and we had so much fun!  We bonded with them and talked about things they liked to do (play guitar, futbol, etc.) and just got to hang out and laugh together.  This was such a precious moment to me because for the first time I felt like I had relationships with these people.  We went home that night, and I couldn't stop smiling and finally feeling at home in our sweet village.

Saturday:  Saturday mornings, the youth of the church have a service at 10 am where they sing a few songs and share different things about passages of scripture.  It was so neat to be able to worship with them.  Anna Beth got to share her testimony with them, and once again, I saw God working in a big way by helping us to forge those relationships.  We got home and started cooking lunch.  It took a while, but Brittany made these awesome quesadillas for us and J and Y.  At three, we had planned to meet with some of the youth to go to the aguaje which is this natural spring where people can go to wash clothes and wash themselves.  We went in order to  swim!

We had so much fun, splashing around in the pool.  After that, the guys invited us to go play futbol (soccer) and basketball!  Anna Beth and I went to go play with them, and we played for three hours on a concrete court.  If you know me, then you know that I love sports, and I had the best time getting to play with them and make those relationships even deeper.  I was so tired that night though that I had no problem falling asleep.

Sunday: I woke up early this morning because we had invited J and Y over for breakfast that morning.  We made pancakes, eggs, and beans.  They liked the pancakes.  Not many people make pancakes in that area, so it was something new for Y.  We left our house and went to church to be there for the 10:15 am service.  This time, I understood a little more of what Pastor H was saying in Spanish.  Slowly, but surely, I feel like I'm understanding more and more.  Praise!  After church, Hector asked if any one of us wanted to share tonight with the church.  I said yes, I would like to, and he said The pulpit is yours.  I thought oh my goodness.  I didn't realize he meant preach.  Lol.  That afternoon was spent studying and praying, asking God to show me what He wants me to preach on.  I ended up going with Mark 1:16-20.  This is about how God chose ordinary fisherman to be his disciples and how we don't have to have some kind of awesome training or understanding of the Bible or incredible skills to be effective.  We just have to be obedient.  J translated everything for me.  While I'm preaching about this, I was so humbled.  I don't have to know everything in Spanish or full of every piece of knowledge about Jesus and the culture.  I just have to be obedient.  God will provide!  Amen.

Once again, I was so thankful for J.  At one point, I was ready to start talking, and J was like you need to tell them to sit down, and I looked up and everyone is still standing!  Hah! After church, we packed up all of our stuff to go back to Oaxaca.

Monday:  After six hours, we made it to Oaxaca!

As I'm writing this blog, I'm in awe of all the incredible ways God provided this past week.  In every situation where the enemy wanted to tear us down, God provided sweet, precious moments to remind me that He is in control!  Gloria en lo alto!

Week 2: Village Life Part 1

Wow.  I cannot believe it has been an entire week of life in the village.  The team and I just returned to Oaxaca for a few days to gather supplies, rest, debrief, and create an action plan about what we are planning to accomplish this summer.  Before I begin divulging all the crazy stories of our time in the village, I need to introduce a couple of people!  First off, is the lady on the left of me in this picture!

This is an incredible woman that we will call C!  She is a career missionary in Oaxaca and has helped our team travel to the village (about 6-7 hours away from Oaxaca), has helped us get supplies for our house, defeat the swarms of bugs, taught us how to flush toilets with buckets of water, how to shower without an actual shower, and so many other things.  Seriously guys, this woman could write a book on Survival 101.  Before she came to Oaxaca, she was a missionary in the jungle in Peru and also in Bolivia, so we were in very capable hands.  

J!  Ya'll, we probably would have never been anywhere on time or ever understood what was going on without our awesome translator.  Don't let the glasses and dimples fool you though.  He can be sarcastic and witty which who wouldn't be if they were working with three gringas?! (American women)  But seriously, this guy is so cool.  He also taught us how to hand wash our clothes, make authentic salsa, and killed a wasp's nest that was forming in our window for us.  But really, we wouldn't be able to have any relationships with people in the village without him helping us to speak Spanish correctly and interpreting our Spanglish nonsense to the other villagers.  

So, I have to warn you.  I'm going to be brutally honest in this blog.  I might share more information than you wanted to know.  However, I think it's important to understand the struggles in order to celebrate the victories.  So, here we go.  I'm going to try to do a day by day recap to give you a better idea of everything that happened this last week.

Monday:  Anna Beth, Brittany, and I pack up and are ready to leave by 9:30 am!  Our clothes had some issues in the washer the night before and were soaking wet when we put them in the dryer at 2:30 am.  At 9:30 am, they are still wet.  "What a great way to start off," I thought to myself.  But I have resolved to try to not complain about any situation.  After all, God is Sovereign, and He has purpose in each and every situation.  C and J met us at the strategy house, and we begin our six hour car ride and basically force J to like us (Anna Beth, Brittany, and me).  Poor guy.  He probably wasn't expecting us to be so crazy, loud, and full of bad dance moves, but by the end of the car ride, we were already like family.  Or at least we made him like family. Haha!  San Caliente* is a coastal village, and so of course, we had to stop at the beach.

After our small detour, THE GRINGAS HAVE ARRIVED!! We get to the house, and I think I hit a world record with how much I sweated the first minute we were there.  It is SO HOT!  Try to imagine being inside of a boiler room.  Then imagine twenty people are in there with you.  Then multiply that by 2.  That is how hot it was at first.  It took me a little bit to get used to.  Anna Beth was smart and brought a camp shower.  It is like a bag that you put water in and hang on something.  It has a small nozzle to let water run out.  We have a large cement above ground tank outside our house where that we fill up on Wednesdays and Sundays (those are the days the water is turned on by the city so that the villagers can have water), and a large drum in our bathroom that holds more water.  Brittany's church, Crosspointe, had a team in the village to teach English classes.  We ate dinner with them (some delicious gorditas that the church women made) and got to meet them that night.  J is staying with a family from the church that has a son that is our age we will call Y.  We brought J to their house, and I am like barely functioning at this point so all I can say is "Estoy muy cansada."  Which means I am very tired in Spanish.  Wow. Great first impression on these gracious people that we are going to be working with all summer.  We return to the house, and while setting up the bag to take a shower, there was a large roach that was eyeing me.  After unloading everything all day and getting used to life in the village (flushing toilets with buckets of water, not being to walk around barefoot for fear that small worms could get in my feet, and the intense heat), I was exhausted and just wanted to cry because I couldn't even shower without fear that a bug was going to latch itself to me and suck my brains out.  The Amazing C saved the day though.  She brought some essential oils that are relaxing and put a few drops in the bathroom, so I could shower with the bag in a more calm state. At this point, you might be thinking wow this is so intense did anything go right for them? But, there is good news guys!  Our house has electricity!  We have a microwave, a small fridge, and some heating elements that we can use to cook on.  The pastor and his wife let us borrow one of their fans to help cool the house off.  We also slept with all the windows open so the cooler night air could roll in.  I set up my hammock that night and tried to get as much sleep as possible. 

Tuesday:  I woke up at about 4 am to a rooster crowing.  Our neighbors also have pigs that began making alot of noise as well.  Not to mention the dogs that roam the streets and bark all day.  At this point, I was praying, Lord, please quiet those animals like the closed the mouths of the lions when Daniel was in the lions den. For my sanity, please Lord.  And either He shut the animals up, or He helped me fall back asleep because I quickly fell back asleep.  I woke up in my hammock at about 7 or 8 am and saw a bug that was about to try to cuddle with me.  I freaked out so bad that I flipped out of my hammock and hit the floor.  Good morning.  C was already up.  We had bought some mangos on the way to the village yesterday, and so we sliced those and put them in our yogurt.  We didn't have any pots and pans yet or vegetables, fruits, and meats.  In this village, there is a market that comes on Tuesday that has fruits, vegetables, eggs, meat, knives, forks, spoons, etc.  So, we went to the market that morning to buy our food for the week.  We also got some utensils while there.  We also met the woman that runs the hotel.  She was formerly a he.  We asked her if she would be open to allowing us to have English classes at the hotel so that people could come and learn English.  Some people in that village are not going to go to the church even if its for an English class due to intimidation or scars from the church or whatever, just like in America.  Also, this allows us to build a relationship with her.  She was extremely excited about us doing that and just wanted to know when we wanted to start.  (We aren't sure of our schedule yet at this point, but we are planning to start classes there once we get back to the village. ) That afternoon, we went to Huatulco, about an hour or more away, to get more supplies.  The women from the church are so sweet.  They gave us pots, pans, and dishes to use while we are staying there, but we still did have some more supplies to get like fans, clothespins, ropes, and stuff like that.  At this point, I was in some intense culture shock.  I hated Mexico, Spanish, and all bugs everywhere.  I hated the heat, and I just wanted to go home.  Brittany, my amazing teammate, reminded me though that this is just satan trying to steal our joy.  Satan wants us to be miserable so we will be ineffective for God's kingdom.  Wise words.  I just began praying that God would provide strength and joy.  We got all of our supplies in Huatulco and started heading back to the village at about 8:30 pm that night.  C's truck was loaded down, and we got caught in a bunch of rain from a tropical storm.  At this point, I'm in the back seat, and I can get carsick on some curvy roads.  These roads wind back and forth through the mountain, and so they are like the curviest of curvy roads.  Anyways, I feel as if I'm about to puke, and so C stops the car, and I go out in the rain and try to throw up.  It is at this point that I start hysterically laughing at the crazy events of the day.  I couldn't help but think to myself, Oh my goodness, I'm in the middle of Mexico, with a fan on my lap, in the middle of a tropical storm, trying to puke on the side of the road.  This is ridiculous.  Anyways, I couldn't throw up, but my other amazing teammate, Anna Beth, let me sit up front since I was struggling so much.  It is also helpful to note that J, Anna Beth, C, Brittany, and I ALL get car sick.  So, we were all praying the prayer Lord, please give us stomachs of steel.  Anyways, we finally made it back to the village, alive, and without any one puking.  Thankfully, it wasn't raining as hard when we returned, so we unloaded everything at like 10:30 pm.  Then, we took showers and nestled into our hammocks to try to fall asleep.

The above picture is a picture of one of the paved streets of the village.  The church is on this street, and as we were walking to it, we saw the fog descending on the mountain.  Beautiful.  This blog post is literally the first two days.  They were pretty intense.  I'm going to write another blog post tomorrow about the rest of our week in San Caliente*.  I want to make a huge point though.  God is gracious.  While the conditions are kind of rustic, we have more than some people have in our house.  Electricity, water, hammocks.  Some people must go to the springs in order to shower and wash their clothes, and don't have electricity in their houses, but God has graciously provided for us a nice home with fans and plenty of space.  He is so gracious to me even when I don't deserve it.  Gloria en lo alto!

Week 1: Greetings from Oaxaca!

Hola from Oaxaca, Mexico!  I am happy to say that I have been in Oaxaca for a week now and have completed orientation!  I arrived in Oaxaca late on Monday night on June 1st, and we began orientation the next day.  Since many people in Oaxaca and the surrounding villages are illiterate, our focus is to share Bible stories with people.  So, we practiced storying segments where we shared Bible stories with one another and incorporated worship and discussion time to use when teaching in the villages.  However, "storying" as they call it (where a person tells a Bible story and then asks questions about it) can be used to share with anyone that we meet.  (For example, I shared a Bible story in Spanish to some locals in the market).  The people here in Oaxaca are generally friendly and helpful.  The girls have been staying in a house in the city during orientation week.  We've learned how to use the bus system, use pesos, and take out the trash (which is a little harder than you think).  To expound on that last one, the "trash man" drives down the street and rings a distinct bell.  At this moment, everyone drops what they are doing and runs down the street to bring him all of your trash.  He usually comes two-three times a week, but we never know what time or what day that might be!  Anyways, there are many students that are serving in Oaxaca this summer and below is a picture of all of us at Hierve El Agua.  

Hierve El Agua is a spring or springs of water that come out of the mountains.  In the above picture we are standing in one of the pools of water (which is on top of a mountain) with the more mountains behind us!  It was breathtaking.  The students in the above picture make up four different teams.  There is a Sports Ministry Team, an English as a Second Language Team, a Zapotec Village Team, and a Chontal Village Team.  I happen to be on the Chontal team!  Below is a picture of my two teammates!

In the picture on the left is Brittany, and on the right is Anna Beth!  We will be traveling to a village that we will call San Caliente where this people group live.  We will be working with an established church of about 20-30 members to encourage, teach, and reach out to the nearby community.  We will be teaching English at market places, teaching Bible stories to different families, and building relationships with the people in the village.  This village is about six hours away from the city of Oaxaca, so we will actually leave on June 8th and stay in a home until June 15th in the village.  We will return to Oaxaca on June 15th to rest, stock up on supplies, and debrief for two-three days and then head back to the village!  We will have a translator with us called J.  However, the girls and I have been learning as much Spanish as possible so we won't have to be as dependent on our translator.  We are excited to embark on this journey and are excited for village life!  We do have some specific prayer requests!

1.  Please pray for the people of the village that their hearts would be open to hearing the Gospel and that we would be able to build many relationships in our time there!

2.  Pray that God would open our ears to hear and understand Spanish and give us ability to speak back!

3.  The house we are staying at in the village does not have running water and is quite a "rustic" home. Sharing a home with two girls is already tough with the normal conveniences! Therefore, please pray that the enemy would not use the lack of conveniences as a means to divide up our team.

4.  Also, please pray for our translator, J, as he has to put up with three crazy Americans all week! ;)

I'm so excited to see what God is going to do through us this next week!  Thank you for your prayers and encouragement!  In the meantime, enjoy this beautiful picture of the mountains here in Oaxaca! :)