Algunas Razones de Regocijo

Youth Ministry Class (Clase de Ministerio a Jóvenes)

These past few semanas have been very 1. ocupadas for me. First, Glen Bowman, from Mississippi, arrived to give a class on youth ministry. I feel espeicalmente grateful that he was able to give the class, because it´s algo that the cristianos here don´t think about much but that they really need to hear. I only wish that more estudiantes could have come to learn more about why jovenes are so importantes in la iglesia and how to encourage them best. José Luis particularly benefited from the class since he was the only one who actually works directly with young people currently; the others were mostly older men who want to preach or teach but have more contacto con adultos. As part of the class, the students had to present two different lessons to teens during the week, and most of them had never worked with, much less taught, that age group before. They improved greatly just from the time they taught the first 2. tema to the time they taught their second. I only hope, as siempre, that they will take to heart the things that Glen taught and try to help more in the great work of teen evangelismo.

Painting the School (Pintando La Escuela)

The first week of Glen´s viaje I translated for the clase each noche, and this week we have spent mucho tiempo painting the outside of the escuela. We invited the congregación to help us paint on Saturday. Tres hombres and siete jovenes came to help. We had quite a time getting the school looking nice. First, the store we originally wanted the buy the 3. pintura from upped its 4. precios and didn´t want to give us the same discount as before. So we had to search for another paint store with the same 5. calidad of paint at lower prices. In our haste to buy just the right amount and just the right color, we completely forgot to buy trays to roll the paint in. Glen insisted that we needed the trays to keep from wasting the paint, but the first men who arrived started using the rollers before we could stop them. They insisted that we didn´t need anything else and had no idea what the roller trays even were. Many of 6. ellos also could not understand why we wanted to paint the building the same color. As you can see from the pictures, the second story had never been painted. So we first had to paint the entire building, top and bottom, a light blue primer color, then paint over everything in the main blue color. But the Mexicanos could not understand our logic. First, they thought we were done after we painted the primer color, then they couldn´t understand why we wanted to go through so much trouble to paint the escuela the same color as before. Mexicans don´t put nearly as much 7. trabajo into fixing up their casas as we Americans do (mainly because of the lack of dinero); even if they have just plain cement blocks or their paint is old and peeling, they take great pride in where they 8. viven and don´t see much necessity to change it.

Unfortunately, grafitti is very common here (both on houses and businesses). We have no idea who put the graffiti on the side of the school are probably never will. We´re just hoping that they don´t come back to do it again anytime soon, now that we have painted everything!

So we finally started painting, and 9. basicamente the jovenes were rolling and dripping paint all over the place! I don´t know if they don´t have much experience painting or if they just weren´t thinking, but I constantly had to remind them not to leave the rollers on the sidewalks, not to paint around the 10. ventanas and 11. techos with rollers, etc. Some of them did not even paint in a straight 12. linea. The men painted up top, while the jovenes and I painted 13. abajo. As you can see from las fotos, the men had to stand on a narrow ledge, and there were power lines all over the place. To reach the highest parts, Glen actualmente had the guts to stand on nothing but a paint bucket! I was scared just watching him! But we had a good time and managed to finish the main partes on that first day. And amazingly, no one got hurt! Then Glen, José Luis and I spent dos días más making touch ups and painting the trim. Here´s a foto of the producto final:



A Birthday Celebration (Celebración de Cumpleaños)

After painting on Saturday we had a little celebración de cumpleaños for one of the older muchachas from our grupo, Carmelita. Carmelita is a very buena persona, but muy diferente from most other girls her age (including me : ) She is originally from an indigenous comunidad, and she just learned to speak Spanish a few years ago. For the past few años, she has been living with one of the larger familias from church as a live-in helper. Basically she helps wash 14. ropa, 15. preparar comida, and clean in exchange for having a place to live. She is very 16. timida, but very hard-working. I don´t think she has completely learned yet how to relax and enjoy herself because she is so used to doing housework all the time. Anyway, her guardian family decided to invite all of the jovenes to a surprise lunch for her after we finished painting on Saturday. In order to surprise her, they made her go to the school even though she didn´t want to paint. And as soon as she arrived, she told me, ¨I´m going to clean your 17. baños.¨ I told her again and again that she didn´t have to do that and to just relax and enjoy herself, but she told me again and again that it was no problem; and that she preferred helping me with things than just standing around, bored. Not only did she thoroughly clean all of the bathrooms with 18. acido, but she also tidied up some and cleaned some glass windows for me—things that I have been wanting to do for so long but just haven´t gotten around to yet! I was very grateful for her help, even though she didn´t want to use any of the cleaning products I offered her (because they´re not the same cosas she normalmente uses to clean ; ) When we finished painting around 2, we walked to her casa and ate mole—the traditional Mexican birthday meal. Then we spent about another hour playing basketball in a local parque.

Top picture: José Luis, Glen, and Bella Lisbeth. The bottom one is a picture of Carmelita (in the middle) with Josue and Claudia, two of the teens she lives with.

Since Glen is a 19. ministro de jovenes and the kids here are mostly all out of school now, we wanted him to be able to spend time with the jovenes as much as possible. Plus, he was 20. originalmente going to come with a grupo de jovenes from his congregation, but things didn´t work out for the teens to come with him. One day we went and played soccer for about two hours (he was anxious to see how much better the Mexicans play!), and on his final night we watched a movie together in the school. We are very grateful for the class he gave and the time he spent with us. Now I have just one more día to get rested up before the next maestro americano arrives!

Kids Class Enforcement (Reforzamiento para la clase de niños)

A few weeks ago, Ani, the preacher´s esposa, asked me to talk to some of the muchachas about the clase de niños. Lately not as many of the ladies have wanted to teach the clase because they get easily frustrated and burnt out. As I have mentioned in previous blogs, there is just one class for all edades de niños and a lack of ready-made materials. As a result, the kids sometimes don´t listen very well or treat the class as ¨play time¨. So Ani hopes that some of the younger girls can start helping teach the class. I felt very honoured that she asked me to talk to them since I sometimes have the same problemas in the class as anyone else. But luckily I was able to draw on my education classes and previous experiences teaching to give the girls some helpful tips. We talked about how to begin and end the class, how to engage the kids at the beginning of the lesson, what kinds of actividades to use, discipline and positive reinforcement techniques, etc. Luckily I was also able to show them some of the Bible class materials I brought back from Mt. Juliet as ejemplos. Only 4 came, but I feel like those who did come participated well and have a strong 21. deseo to help make the classes 22. mejor. We discovered, unsurprisingly, that all of us who have taught before experience the same difficulties; the most común are that the younger kids want to play with 23. jugetes too much, and the older kids want to talk and bully too much. But we discussed soluciones for each of the most common discipline problems. I also suggested to Ani that it would help a lot to have two teachers work together: one with more experiencia who serves as the main teacher, and one with less experience who starts out as a helper.

Update on Jesús and Marisol (Reporte sobre Jesús y Marisol)

The situation with Jesús and Marisol has not changed much since my last blog. We have been to visit Jesús one or two more tiempos. He has not been there, but luckily his wife has been willing to open their casa to us and 23b. estudiar with us. The weird thing is that she never seemed 24. interesada in studying before, when we were studying primarily with Jesús. She told us that Jesús drinks a lot and sometimes hits her as a result, and that currently they are separated. However, she was very open to what we had to say and said she would like to study la Biblia some more. We have a feeling that she only wants to study and go to church when Jesús is not pressuring her, and vice versa. Marisol has been back to church a few times, but every time I try to go and study with her she´s not able to. One of her aunts has been 25. enferma, so Marisol has had to take care of her and her two young niños. And her tia lives further away, which is why Marisol says she hasn´t been able to study and come to church as much. So I only hope that´s 26. cierto and that she has not grown discouraged.

The Death of a Saint (La Muerte de una santa)

Two Sundays ago, after the evening servicio, a few of us decided to have a culto in the house of an hermana that had been bedridden with cancer for the last few months. Her situation had been grave for quite some time. This lady, Maria, was a very faithful servant to the Lord and a grand example for some of the younger ladies of the congregation. She herself established the congregation in her hometown of Nueva Leon, where two of our preaching students conduct worship services each week, by talking to people she knew about the 27. evangelio until they decided to get baptized. She lived in a tiny wooden house no bigger than most people´s living rooms with her granddaughter and granddaughter´s family. Her granddaughter, Amelia, is a miembro de la iglesia, but has not attended worship services in quite some time. So about the time her situation became more 28. serio, Maria started saying that she hoped Amelia would reconcile herself with the Lord before her 29. muerte. That noche while David and others were in the middle of the worship service, Maria said once again that she didn´t want to die until Amelia reconciled herself. A few minutes later, Amelia stated that she would come back to the church. David said, ¨You can rest in peace now.¨ They said a prayer, and by the time they finished praying, Maria had passed away. We had a viewing for her just a few horas después in 30. el local de la iglesia. I hope and pray that Amelia will come back to church as she said and that she didn´t just say she would in order to satisfy her abuela.

I hope that a lot of people are still reading my blog and that not everyone has forgotten about me ; ) Do me a favor and leave me a comment if you are still reading it. I love to read all of your comments and always feel more encouraged after I do. But the lack of comments sometimes produces the opposite effect : (

¡Que Dios les bendiga!
Elizabeth

Title: ¨Some Reasons for Recjoicing¨

1. busy

2. lesson

3. paint

4. prices

5. quality

6. them

7. work

8. they live

9. basically

10. windows

11. roofs

12. line

13. down low

14. clothes

15. to prepare

16. timid/shy

17. bathrooms

18. acid

19. minister

20. originally

21. desire

22. better

23. toys

23b. to study

24. interested

25. sick

26. true

27. Gospel

28. serious

29. death

30. the building/location