We're getting really close.
the T-minus 10 days kind of close.
the "oh-dear-will-we-raise-the-money-in-time" kind of close.
But, we trust God wil provide and I am so excited to see how God works through our team :D
Monday, February 25, 2013
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Team. Team. Team. (A-Whoop)
It is official. This weekend, we had out team training on Saturday and we have our official team roster.
I'm leading the team
Sheryl S is, of course, going again.
Greg Stadter is reppin' GCM Staff from the 242 church in San Marcos.
Bethany Garay is also hailing from Texas State.
Jeffier Dawson is joining us for her first mission trip and first time out of the country.
Erica Love joined our team recently, which was super encouraging to me.
So, we are 6. Pastor Rodger can't come due to a scheduling conflict. I'm glad Greg will be there, it will make me feel a little better as the "leader" to have a real live Staff person with us :)
Our training time was fantastic! We prayed and trained and prayed some more. Our focus, of course, is on Evangelism and encourging the church. We will leave late Friday night, stay the full week, and come back late Sunday morning for a total 9 1/2 days in Mexico...
I am so excited, please be praying that we will be Spirt-led, wise, and bold!
I'm leading the team
Sheryl S is, of course, going again.
Greg Stadter is reppin' GCM Staff from the 242 church in San Marcos.
Bethany Garay is also hailing from Texas State.
Jeffier Dawson is joining us for her first mission trip and first time out of the country.
Erica Love joined our team recently, which was super encouraging to me.
So, we are 6. Pastor Rodger can't come due to a scheduling conflict. I'm glad Greg will be there, it will make me feel a little better as the "leader" to have a real live Staff person with us :)
Our training time was fantastic! We prayed and trained and prayed some more. Our focus, of course, is on Evangelism and encourging the church. We will leave late Friday night, stay the full week, and come back late Sunday morning for a total 9 1/2 days in Mexico...
I am so excited, please be praying that we will be Spirt-led, wise, and bold!
Monday, January 14, 2013
Gearing Up - 2013
It's insane to think that if this year was last year we'd already be in Mexico.
As is, we are just starting the process of getting ready to solidify our team. At Pizza (or Chinese Food) and Vision, I made a last-ditch plug for our trip to the students at Fellowship Church. We currently have 6 people on the team; three from Fellowship and three from our sister church, 242, in San Marcos. I'll post about our team members once our team is solid.
For now, just know that we are getting ready, though God has been getting us ready for much longer than we can imagine, in ways that we cannot see. I am so excited for his Spirit to move in or lives and in the hearts of the church there.
Our main goal is to glorify God by serving the church there and spreading the gospel.
I. Am. Excited.
As is, we are just starting the process of getting ready to solidify our team. At Pizza (or Chinese Food) and Vision, I made a last-ditch plug for our trip to the students at Fellowship Church. We currently have 6 people on the team; three from Fellowship and three from our sister church, 242, in San Marcos. I'll post about our team members once our team is solid.
For now, just know that we are getting ready, though God has been getting us ready for much longer than we can imagine, in ways that we cannot see. I am so excited for his Spirit to move in or lives and in the hearts of the church there.
Our main goal is to glorify God by serving the church there and spreading the gospel.
I. Am. Excited.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Day 7: almost anticlimactic
Short version: we went to church in the morning and flew home : )
The End
The End
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Day 6: throwing the car
I don't understand why either.*
This morning (11:30ish) we went to Don Samuel's house to use his brand new pool... for baptisms, that is. I love that the first water in his pool was to baptize students in the church. Superchido. Ha, anyway, Carolina and Jay got baptized, depsite it being a little bit chilly (around 17 C). Jay's mom got to come, which is special (she kept saying thank you to everyone who talked to her). I was very proud of Carolina, because she chose to get baptized (she picked a day when we would be here) despite some opposition from her family. I realize every now and then just how blessed I am to have a family that is on God's side. (hi mom, when you read this)
For the early afternoon we went downtown to a touristy shopping center and just hung out. Very relaxing, very fun... Got some fantastic pizza for a late lunch...right before we went to play futbol (not on the list of good decisions) at the fields with the church and a few contacts.
So...playing futbol here is really good for me (read: humbling). I am really quite bad at it (coordination? huh.), but it's so much fun and the church here is so loving (i.e. they know how to make fun of you without tearing you down*) that I just stop caring how bad I am (eventually) and enjoy having fun with the church.
After futbol we all had dinner in a restaurant in Cumbres...Dustin, Ana and I sat with Mario, his sister Ana and Henry. So. Much. Laughing. Mario told jokes and stories the whole time we were eating (all of them technically "politically incorrect" (read: offensive) but hilarious*), then switched to youtube videos on an iphone (ew) afterwards...
* There is an expression in Spanish, Tirar el carro (throw the car), that means to make fun of people. Regios (people from Monterrey) are especially good at making fun of people kindly. The only thing a Regio can do better than make fun of you, is make fun of himself. Most of the jokes here have Mexicans at the receiving end...
wow, three asterisks all explained in one point... well done self
This morning (11:30ish) we went to Don Samuel's house to use his brand new pool... for baptisms, that is. I love that the first water in his pool was to baptize students in the church. Superchido. Ha, anyway, Carolina and Jay got baptized, depsite it being a little bit chilly (around 17 C). Jay's mom got to come, which is special (she kept saying thank you to everyone who talked to her). I was very proud of Carolina, because she chose to get baptized (she picked a day when we would be here) despite some opposition from her family. I realize every now and then just how blessed I am to have a family that is on God's side. (hi mom, when you read this)
For the early afternoon we went downtown to a touristy shopping center and just hung out. Very relaxing, very fun... Got some fantastic pizza for a late lunch...right before we went to play futbol (not on the list of good decisions) at the fields with the church and a few contacts.
So...playing futbol here is really good for me (read: humbling). I am really quite bad at it (coordination? huh.), but it's so much fun and the church here is so loving (i.e. they know how to make fun of you without tearing you down*) that I just stop caring how bad I am (eventually) and enjoy having fun with the church.
After futbol we all had dinner in a restaurant in Cumbres...Dustin, Ana and I sat with Mario, his sister Ana and Henry. So. Much. Laughing. Mario told jokes and stories the whole time we were eating (all of them technically "politically incorrect" (read: offensive) but hilarious*), then switched to youtube videos on an iphone (ew) afterwards...
* There is an expression in Spanish, Tirar el carro (throw the car), that means to make fun of people. Regios (people from Monterrey) are especially good at making fun of people kindly. The only thing a Regio can do better than make fun of you, is make fun of himself. Most of the jokes here have Mexicans at the receiving end...
wow, three asterisks all explained in one point... well done self
Day 5: Work and Play
or: sounds like a plan
The original plan for our Friday activities looked something like this: sometime in the morning do something to serve somebody. In the afternoon rest or do something and in the evening have the party to connect our contacts to the church. Well, I guess that is exactly what we did. In the morning we helped one of the families in the church pack stuff into boxes in preparation for moving. I love packing stuff into boxes, by the way; it's like tetris (which I've never really played much, but think is brilliant). The choice of service project was very strategic as well: the grandparents in this family (who don't know Jesus) were visiting. So, while the kiddos (i.e. our team and Javier and another friend) were packing and playing (ninja), the adults (i.e. Rodger and the grandparents) talked about everything from healthy living to, yes, Jesus.
After lunch we headed back to the hotel for a little while, then half of the team went to the Tec to reconnect with contacts and half the team stayed to rest. I chose the resting half; which was mostly mental rest, reading and running.
Then, we partied. The point of the party was for our contacts to get to know the church and for the church to get their follow-up information to invite them to stuff later. We invited ev.er.y.one (like 130 people everyone). Of course, not that many came, but we still had around 40 people at the party (10 or so of our contacts (which is really good)). The most encouraging thing about the party was the way the church interacted with the new contacts: sometimes it's hard to get everyone to interact with people they don't know, but last night everyone was talking and having fun and playing games and no one looked lonely ha... Heck, even I had fun and I don't like parties. Although..there was one pretty sad part...I lost, for the first time, in Jenga.. Anyway, the party went to 12:45, which is the latest we've had a party in Monterrey..
The original plan for our Friday activities looked something like this: sometime in the morning do something to serve somebody. In the afternoon rest or do something and in the evening have the party to connect our contacts to the church. Well, I guess that is exactly what we did. In the morning we helped one of the families in the church pack stuff into boxes in preparation for moving. I love packing stuff into boxes, by the way; it's like tetris (which I've never really played much, but think is brilliant). The choice of service project was very strategic as well: the grandparents in this family (who don't know Jesus) were visiting. So, while the kiddos (i.e. our team and Javier and another friend) were packing and playing (ninja), the adults (i.e. Rodger and the grandparents) talked about everything from healthy living to, yes, Jesus.
After lunch we headed back to the hotel for a little while, then half of the team went to the Tec to reconnect with contacts and half the team stayed to rest. I chose the resting half; which was mostly mental rest, reading and running.
Then, we partied. The point of the party was for our contacts to get to know the church and for the church to get their follow-up information to invite them to stuff later. We invited ev.er.y.one (like 130 people everyone). Of course, not that many came, but we still had around 40 people at the party (10 or so of our contacts (which is really good)). The most encouraging thing about the party was the way the church interacted with the new contacts: sometimes it's hard to get everyone to interact with people they don't know, but last night everyone was talking and having fun and playing games and no one looked lonely ha... Heck, even I had fun and I don't like parties. Although..there was one pretty sad part...I lost, for the first time, in Jenga.. Anyway, the party went to 12:45, which is the latest we've had a party in Monterrey..
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Day 4: getting robbed and stuff
or: the tacos may have been worth it...
Irony is just one of those lovely things.
This morning, I talked to the team a little about spiritual warfare and we had an extended prayer time before we went to the Tec. Once we got there, Chrissy and I teamed up and promptly found someone I had already met (a good thing). So we hung out for a while and talked, then we walked around together, then she invited us to her marketing class (um... yes, please). So we had a really good contact with her and she should be coming to the party tomorrow.
"wait, did you say you got robbed?"
whoa, stay on target.
We all met up for lunch and hung out and talked about theology and stuff (nbd) with a girl I had met (Priscila) that we kept running into and that got along really well with Javier. After lunch we were slow to start back up, but we finally headed out. I started up in a team of four (Ana, Javier, Carolina and I). We all kinda knew that the most you can easily evangelize with is a triumvirate, but we thought we'd give it a try. We split into 2x2 after our first try and Javier and I struck up a conversation with a Brazilian atheist. He insisted that we speak in Spanish so that I could practice and our conversation touched everything from dating to jobs to grace and faith. Good stuff.
"that's cool, but...did you really get robbed?"
is this going to be like the witchcraft thing from this summer? we'll get there.
After leaving the Tec our team split into guys and girls for the evening. The guys went to hang out with the worship band at their practice and the girls went...somewhere else and did...something else. We loaded the instruments, went to the practice place, unloaded the instruments and then decided to go get some dinner while the singers were learning their stuff.
"did someone steal the instruments??"
ok, seriously, just be patient. this is making me feel unoriginal.
So, the running joke for my trips to Mexico (thanks to the pastors here) has been that i would fall in love. Well, it happened tonight. I just didn't expect it to be with a gringa... Gringo, by the way, is a Mexican word for "American," it started out slightly offensive, but nowadays is generally used lovingly. Apart from meaning (in so many words) "white girl," a gringa is also a type of taco. We tried gringas tonight at a place that made them with avocado and all kind of painfully delicious sauces. I have not enjoyed a meal that much in a long time... We ate tacos and hung out at the shop as the evening wore on (that is a nice phrase, "the evening wore on." With your permission, I'll say it again: "The evening wore on."), then rounded up our stuff and headed back to the car.
that's when we saw that the car's window was broken.
("whoa, you did get robbed.." yea, i told you we'd get here)
See, what had happened was...various times Andres has warned us not to leave stuff in the car if it has valuables in it. Apparently there is a contraption that allows one to know if there is a lithium-powered anything nearby (i.e. camera, laptop, mp3), so, by leaving my backpack in the car and by leaving my camera and mp3 player in my backpack... you see where this is going, but we can go together anyway: someone sensed my stuff and broke into the Handal family's car to steal my backpack. (net loss: 1 window, 1 backpack, 1 bible, 1 camera, 1 mp3 player, lots of time tomorrow). Insurance will replace the window for free, but it will still leave the Handal family down one car for tomorrow (busy day, bee tee dubs).
Irony: we talked about spiritual warfare today, i thought about taking my camera out today, Rodger offered to take my bag into the hotel today, someone joked about us getting robbed today.
So, you probably know that I'm a sucker for guilt. If I mess up or do something wrong or (heaven forbid) hurt someone, I can shut myself down for days and weeks just feeling like an idiot. So, I'd like to say that because of my pep talk and foresight I overcame this spiritual attack and everything went smoothly. But... I didn't. The good news is, Jesus saw me about to derail and intervened. So, the Handals are ok; they're joking about it, Dustin spoke some timely truth to me...crisis averted. I still feel bad, but I'm not harping on it.
It raised a question though: What if it hadn't been ok? What if I made a mistake that really and truly turned out bad? Why do I let these things have such hold over me? I've been told it's my pride, and there's certainly some truth to that, but it feels different than just pride.
Irony is just one of those lovely things.
This morning, I talked to the team a little about spiritual warfare and we had an extended prayer time before we went to the Tec. Once we got there, Chrissy and I teamed up and promptly found someone I had already met (a good thing). So we hung out for a while and talked, then we walked around together, then she invited us to her marketing class (um... yes, please). So we had a really good contact with her and she should be coming to the party tomorrow.
"wait, did you say you got robbed?"
whoa, stay on target.
We all met up for lunch and hung out and talked about theology and stuff (nbd) with a girl I had met (Priscila) that we kept running into and that got along really well with Javier. After lunch we were slow to start back up, but we finally headed out. I started up in a team of four (Ana, Javier, Carolina and I). We all kinda knew that the most you can easily evangelize with is a triumvirate, but we thought we'd give it a try. We split into 2x2 after our first try and Javier and I struck up a conversation with a Brazilian atheist. He insisted that we speak in Spanish so that I could practice and our conversation touched everything from dating to jobs to grace and faith. Good stuff.
"that's cool, but...did you really get robbed?"
is this going to be like the witchcraft thing from this summer? we'll get there.
After leaving the Tec our team split into guys and girls for the evening. The guys went to hang out with the worship band at their practice and the girls went...somewhere else and did...something else. We loaded the instruments, went to the practice place, unloaded the instruments and then decided to go get some dinner while the singers were learning their stuff.
"did someone steal the instruments??"
ok, seriously, just be patient. this is making me feel unoriginal.
So, the running joke for my trips to Mexico (thanks to the pastors here) has been that i would fall in love. Well, it happened tonight. I just didn't expect it to be with a gringa... Gringo, by the way, is a Mexican word for "American," it started out slightly offensive, but nowadays is generally used lovingly. Apart from meaning (in so many words) "white girl," a gringa is also a type of taco. We tried gringas tonight at a place that made them with avocado and all kind of painfully delicious sauces. I have not enjoyed a meal that much in a long time... We ate tacos and hung out at the shop as the evening wore on (that is a nice phrase, "the evening wore on." With your permission, I'll say it again: "The evening wore on."), then rounded up our stuff and headed back to the car.
that's when we saw that the car's window was broken.
("whoa, you did get robbed.." yea, i told you we'd get here)
See, what had happened was...various times Andres has warned us not to leave stuff in the car if it has valuables in it. Apparently there is a contraption that allows one to know if there is a lithium-powered anything nearby (i.e. camera, laptop, mp3), so, by leaving my backpack in the car and by leaving my camera and mp3 player in my backpack... you see where this is going, but we can go together anyway: someone sensed my stuff and broke into the Handal family's car to steal my backpack. (net loss: 1 window, 1 backpack, 1 bible, 1 camera, 1 mp3 player, lots of time tomorrow). Insurance will replace the window for free, but it will still leave the Handal family down one car for tomorrow (busy day, bee tee dubs).
Irony: we talked about spiritual warfare today, i thought about taking my camera out today, Rodger offered to take my bag into the hotel today, someone joked about us getting robbed today.
So, you probably know that I'm a sucker for guilt. If I mess up or do something wrong or (heaven forbid) hurt someone, I can shut myself down for days and weeks just feeling like an idiot. So, I'd like to say that because of my pep talk and foresight I overcame this spiritual attack and everything went smoothly. But... I didn't. The good news is, Jesus saw me about to derail and intervened. So, the Handals are ok; they're joking about it, Dustin spoke some timely truth to me...crisis averted. I still feel bad, but I'm not harping on it.
It raised a question though: What if it hadn't been ok? What if I made a mistake that really and truly turned out bad? Why do I let these things have such hold over me? I've been told it's my pride, and there's certainly some truth to that, but it feels different than just pride.
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