We're at Rick and Tammie's doing our laundry... and when you are at some one else's house doing your laundry, there really isn't much else you CAN do besides wait.
Because I have not been a very faithful blogger in the past few weeks, I decided today would be a good day to catch you all up!
Rick and Tammie came back... YAY! As we all anticipated, there were changes and adjustments to be made, even aside from just moving back to the Second Floor. God is a good God and holds our hands through changes and all is well. We're really excited to be working with Rick and Tammie and it has been great to get to know them better in the last two weeks. Our schedule changed drastically because we are no longer visiting all the churches in the region. It's funny because as crazy as it was to go to church every night, I'm now realizing how much I miss the people from all the different churches. It feels weird to not see everyone at least once a week. I guess you don't realize how much you really appreciate people until you don't see them. (Gee--that doesn't sound famililar at all...)
Instead of hopping from church to church each night, we have been split up (the three of us) between the churches and are working directly with one pastor each to support him and his church. There are now four churches in the Maneadero area that we are working more closely with, and out of those four, each intern has been assigned a church. I am with Faustino and his church, "Camino de Cristo".
In addition to being assigned to a church, the three of us are also going to be teaching English classes at the Boys' Home that was built by short-term teams coming down here and is being run by a member of Faustino's church, Juan. We are still working out the kinks of trying to find a curriculum and resources, but this should be getting off the ground in the next week or two. Please be praying for the boys and for us as we try to figure this out. Sarah has some experience teaching English, and I have teaching experience, but without guidelines, this is kind of a hard task to tackle. Perhaps my teaching training will be my downfall because I need units and organization for the lessons... I'm thinking about this like a teacher. So please be praying for all of us as we figure out how this is going to work.
And apart from all of this, we are helping Rick and Tammie with short-term teams when they are here. It is a really funny dynamic to be the intern on this side of a short-term team and not one of the team-members. We had our first team last weekend and it was a good experience. I definitely have a lot to learn, but I think this is going to be really cool. I was telling Tammie that I was having a hard time separating myself as an intern and not becoming part of the team. I'd really appreciate prayer for that as we have teams coming in--Tammie replied with a resounding "YES!" when I said that because what they need is people to help them run the ministry, not extra short-term team-members. So separating myself and understanding my role as an intern and not a short-termer will be a challenge, but that too will come with time.
In other news... I had a birthday last week. Haha... it was a great day--very sunny! I think this was my first birthday ever in which I wore a T-shirt outside and was sweating... a very strange feeling for November. It was a very different day because we still didn't have internet, so I wasn't able to Skype my mom or sibs... Believe me--this isn't a pity party... I'm actually trying to tell you how wonderful it was to be here on my birthday in spite of all of that! I woke up to quite a few texts from friends here wishing me a very happy birthday, followed by phonecalls and visitors! It was pretty sweet. Then in the evening, we had a surprise birthday dinner at Rick and Tammie's.
I think the best part was the adopted Mexican tradition of the "mordida" (little bite). When it's your birthday, after they sing to you and you blow out the candles, everyone starts chanting "mor-di-DA! mor-di-DA!", meaning they want you to take a small bite out of the cake. I'd seen it once before and they SHOVED the guy's face into his cake... I leaned forward to take a bite, certain of my pending doom, and my face was shmooshed into the cake by Jon (Rick and Tammie's oldest son). For as scared as I was for them to do it, it really wasn't all that bad--other than having icing all over my face and up my nose. For pictures of the lovely evening, check out Sarah's blog. There's a link to the right.
And thus endeth the very short recap of my life in the past two and a half weeks. Things have been crazy, fun, busy, changing, different, and always full of growth! I feel really blessed to be able to serve down here with Rick and Tammie and all these churches. God is showing me a lot about what it means to really serve and to follow Him where He wants us.
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