Day 1: -couragements

en- well, we all got through security this morning; which was a blessing since el Presidente del republico was actually on the campus of the Tec today! (i think he's campaigning, heh). We broke into smaller groups and went to meet people; Javier, Carolina and I teamed up and had a couple of very friendly, if shallow, conversations. They were good relationship starting places though! Also, we and one of the other groups met people who were already committed, plugged-in believers (rare).

dis- after lunch, we split into different groups. I was teamed up with Chrissy and Carolina this time and our conversations took a deeper slant and we tried to get into the gospel, but got rejected pretty blatantly. We left the guys we talked to with some good truth to chew on i think though.

en- for dinner, we went and got some authentic Mexican tacos. Oh moses, they were delicious ("did you say moses?" yes). The overall most encouraging thing though has been seeing the difference in Javier, Carolina and Lulu:

Javier, along with Andres, is in charge of us this trip. It's the first time students have been responsible for the missions trip and Javier has grown so much in both confidence and humility. He's just enjoyable to be around and will make a great leader in the church.

Carolina is a girl we met this summer. She has since gotten involved in the church and is going to be baptized this Saturday. She is out evangelizing with us (in a support role right now) and being discipled in the church. I got to talk to her a little today and she told me her outlook on dating and marriage, which has changed a lot in a biblical way.

Lulu's birthday was today. We got to see her briefly and Sheryl got to go to class with her and encourage her a lot. Lulu was in a very unstable position when we met her last summer and had a lot of questions. When we hung out with her today; she seemed much calmer and much more confident.

Being able to see the things God has done and is doing is the biggest encouragement for me and trumps any discouragement i feel. Testimony to what God is doing :)