Is there anyone interested in adopting a family?  We have two famliies in need of help.  One is Johanna.  She has 2 daughters, and needs help with school expenses.  For the past two years a family has been sending $25/month, but they aren’t able to do so this year.  Any volunteers?

Hilda also needs help.  She has three kids, two boys and one girl.  She’s a single mom and also needs help for school expenses, probably about $40/month or whatever you are able.  

Thanks!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas!!  We’re sure did, but the fun’s not over yet.  Yesterday we got up to have hot chocolate and open presents.  David got me a beautiful crystal vase, a gardening kit, a round brush (which works amazingly great!), and a juicer.  I got David a Frank Sinatra CD he’s been wanting forever and a workout bench something or other.  I knew he’d know what it was if I wrapped it all up (plus I couldn’t move the thing), so I took out the seat and wrapped that.  At first he thought it was extra cushion for his jeep, but then he figured it out.  It was lots of fun I have to say.  We took the rest of the day off, which means we did everything we don’t have time to do normally.

At 3:00 the ladies class had a party.  It was lots of fun too!  Carolina gave the lesson reflecting on what we did this year and what we need to do next year.  We all shared blessings of this year and goals for next year.  Carolina and I have a goal to take a group of the ladies to a sewing class each Saturday for 3 months.  We hope to learn to reuse old clothes to make new things and learn to make uniforms for the students.  Plus, I need to make some curtains!  Carolina’s mom teaches the class and she is an excellent seamstress (That made me think that one time at David’s Bridal a mother said she was going to make the bridesmaids dresses and I jokingly said “Oh, are you a sewer?” and she quickly responded “The word is seamstress.”  Oops.)  She made Renata’s wedding dress (she was upset her daughter asked her to make a scandously strapless wedding dress!)

After the lesson, we played a game and then did a Chinese gift exchange.  At first, no one was stealing gifts, then one of the ladies stole and the other got a mad!  But, we worked it all out and everyone left happy I hope.  I learned that the younger ladies are much more apt to steal than the older.  After a meal it was time to head home.  I didn’t take many pictures because I was playing!!!

I almost forgot…Sunday we gave away presents to all of our kids.  I think it was the best give away we’ve ever had.  Usually there is complaining or forgotten kids and scrambling to get something together, but this year we had lots of extras so even visitors kids were able to go home happy.  Julito got a big toy car and he told me it was exactly what he had been wishing for.  Manuelito got a baseball among other things and he said “How did you know that’s just what I wanted!  I love to play baseball!”  Yeah!  When I dropped the kids off after class they were already making plans to get together and play.

 

This Sunday we finished up our 4 day Encouragement meetings.  We invited preachers from neighboring congregations to come and teach on reasons we should be encouraged.  Here, December and January can be tempting months.  With so much going on and so many Catholic holidays it’s easy to not make time for God, so we wanted to have a special reminder for all of us about the great things God has done for us.

Sunday was a full day.  After morning services we had a congregational meal, and I was in charge of all of the cooking.  This was my first time cooking for such a large group (usually Giovanni plans it), and it was quite a task, but I prayed a lot that everything would go well, and it sure did.  I made a mix of pot roast and carne disminusada.  Roast (shredded), with yucca (tapioca for those who don’t know, or yuca spelt in English - it’s a lot like a potato but less grainy and I think absorbs more flavor.  It has lots of iron and Vitamin C which lets your body absorb the iron, so everyone should try it), carrots, onion, bell pepper, celery, and garlic.  All poured over rice.  When I told one of the ladies what I was making, I could tell she was skeptical, but afterwards everyone said it was great, and that I’ll have to make up a name for it.

After that we had our last encouragement meeting, and then our Kid’s Year End Activity.  Our littlest kids sang “I’m a little frog and God loves me.”  They were soooo cute.  We dressed them up in green crepe paper and made head bands with frog eyes on them.  Carolina did all of that - she is so creative. 

 

(You’ll notice the little girl crying.  I’ve learned it’s hard to keep the little kids from crying because they are so cute that when they come out everyone laughs and then the kids think that they are laughing at them and get embarrassed)

Then our middle kids did a skit about the mustard seed.  The little ones were seed, then with trees that grew behind them, and the oldest held the Bible and talked about the power of the gospel to help us grow.  They then sang “Read your Bible and pray every day.” 

 

Then we had some sing “I’m in the Lord’s Army” and one of the guys did their costumes and did a great job.  They had missles and rifles and horses and airplanes.  

 

We wrapped it up with Sara saying 10 memory verses.  We got off count and thought she only said 9 so she was racking her brain to think of the other, but then her brother came to the rescue with the correct count of 10 (or so we think).  It was a fun day, and we had over 200 in attendance! 

This past Sunday two of our youth graduated high school, a great accomplishment in this country where many drop out of school to cut costs or work to add to the family income.  Carla graduated, you might remember her brother and sister, Cruz and José graduated last year.

We had a congregational meal after the graduation.  Giovanni is the best griller around!!  (Well, he didn’t actually grill, but he prepared the meat and it was deeelish!)

I was able to teach ladies class this Tuesday and we talked about what the Bible means when it says “world.”  I studied all the texts where the word “world” or “earthly” was used and found there were basically three meanings.  1 - the literal world (ex: Jesus left heaven and came to this world). 2 - a group of people.  There a 4 groups A) everyone (ex: the whole world is following Him), B) Gentiles (ex: the failure of the Jews to accept Jesus was a blessing to the world, to the Gentiles), C) Unbelievers (ex: the world won’t know us because they didn’t know Jesus), and D) Sinners (ex: Satan is prince of this world).  3 - An idea.  There are two ideas.  A) physical needs (ex: a husband must think of things of this world, how to please his wife) B) Sin (ex: you are still worldly because there are fights and quarrels among you).

We concluded that not everything in the world was sin, but all sin comes from the world.  This was important because many times people here condemn something because it is “like the world.”  For example, you can’t celebrate mother’s day because it is “what the world does.”  Or women can’t wear pants because “that’s what the world wears.”  We learned that we can’t use this excuse just because we don’t like something and don’t have a Biblical means to support it.  We finished with Col. 2:8 & 16ff where Paul explains that these man made rules are actually worldly.  Isn’t it ironic that what people do to be more spiritual is based on worldly wisdom?  I mentioned a man I read about who literally died of hunger because he couldn’t decide what foods were approved of God (this is from the late 90’s).

We finished up learning that some things might seem wrong to us but if there is no Biblical basis, we shouldn’t demand that others live by our opinions.  We decided that the hardest part of this is actually having the humility to realize that something is just our opinion, especially when it seems soo reasonable to us!