Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Feliz Cumpleanos

Yesterday was my sister's birthday. It was a huge hooplah around here! She has a really amazing group of friends that planned her a surprise birthday party and made the day really special for her. It was so much fun around here, we all had way too much sugar, played a bunch of group games, and finished the night off with a movie. I really enjoyed the time together, even after 7 hours! We all surprised her at our house when she got home from work at 5, and the movie ended at midnight! I was really excited that we were able to make the day so special for her, and I really love birthday's and surprises! (For those of you that know SNL, you could say I went a little nuts!) What a great start to a week.

Yesterday, in the morning, we also had a meeting with our supervisor Gustavo Leon. That part was actually a little intimidating and overwhelming. Last week Grant and I choose to invest time into two ministries so that we could be effective in both of those areas, instead of trying to do a little for many ministries. But, during the meeting today we found out that there are already a number of different times already scheduled for us to teach or lead another ministry. In fact, this Thursday we are supposed to teach a 2 hour class for the Missions Ministry that we just found out about yesterday. In English that would be challenging and overwhelming for this short amount of time, but to try and do it in Spanish seems impossible. Grant and I do not even know very much about the Missions Ministry, the only thing that we really know is that it is more like a Church planting group. They have the calling to go around to the Church plants and encourage them and help them out with any needs that they have. As Grant and I pray about this and try to prep for the class, please pray that we will be effective and that we will listen to God during this time. Neither Grant nor I feel gifted in the area of teaching so it is definitly going to be a challenge. I think that this first week we may try and learn about their ministry and get a grip on that and potentially try to do a little workshop to help them set a mission and vision for their whole ministry. They are a new ministry and do not have alot of direction.

This week actually really jam packed with planning 'stuff.' Our schedule changed dramatically this month, we went from having 20 hours of Spanish class a week, to only having 6 hours. We went from observing six or seven ministies a week to only focusing on 2 or 3, and we went from having little planning time to planning all of the time. This week we have four main things to work on at the Church. We have to write a ministry plan for the Sunday School, we have to teach and plan a class for the Missions Minsistry, we have to work on ideas and planning strategies for Discipleship, and we have to set goals and objectives for our whole experience here in Ecuador as part of our Practicum requirements. As we enter into this week knowing that it is going to be challenging and stretching, please pray that...

1. we will be wise with our time. Having alot of free time is challenging, please pray that we use it effectively and that we work efficiently.
2. we will listen to what God wants us to do in all four of the above areas. Working with ministies is very exciting for us, but it is also really intimidating sometimes.
3. we will not get overwhelmed at the task at hand. Please pray that we will depend on God and His strength to get us through and not our own.
and 4. please pray that our work and learning will be honoring to God and effective for His kingdom.

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