The Weekend

Saturday -

I spent the morning and part of the afternoon cleaning my room and doing laundry. It felt really good and was actually kind of fun!

We have a washing machine - it's just a little different from what we are used to in the US. To wash my clothes, I use a hose to put water in the washing machine, add laundry detergent, my clothes, and then turn the dial to fifteen minutes. After the clothes have been washed in the machine, I squeeze the water out and rinse each item in the sink with fresh water. Then I squeeze that water out, remove them from the sink and dunk each item in a pail with fabric softener. I squeeze the water out one more time and put the clothes in the "spinner" on the other side of the washing machine for about five minutes. Finally, I take the clothes out and hang them on the line to dry. The clothes dry on the line very quickly after going through the spinner. My forearms got a workout from squeezing the water out so many times, especially from the big towels. They are heavy when they are wet! It was kind of fun, though. I felt domestic! We will see if it's still fun in January! :)

Saturday afternoon some of the youth and I went into Los Multis, the neighborhood behind my apartment, to talk to some of the kids in the neighborhood. We have reserved Saturday afternoons/evenings for outreach in different communities. I guess we started in "our backyard." We gathered some supplies that the teams left behind - coloring sheets, children's books and crayons. The youth and I planned a short drama - the story about The Good Samaritan. We prayed and put on the Armor of God then went into the neighborhood.

We invited any kids we saw to come to the basketball court for a Bible class. We sang several songs, did the skit and then we split into four small groups - one in each corner of the basketball court. We had four children's books about the story of David and Goliath and coloring sheets. We read the books to the students in these small groups and then gave them the coloring sheets. It was nice to be able to do this in small groups. The leaders were able to learn the names of each kid and give them more attention this way.

Before we ended, we prayed together with the kids and invited them to come to Bible school in the morning. We showed them where the bus would pick them up and what time to be ready. It was really neat because I saw some of the girls there this morning!! Praise the Lord!! I hope they continue to come, and I hope we can continue to invest in these young people who live right in our backyard!

Again, I am reminded of Dr. Wess Stafford's plea to remember the children and make them a priority in our ministry!

Saturday evening the youth invited me to join them for an "outing." We walked to a park and hung out there for a while. There was a few foodstands nearby. They bought an empanadia and a glass of juice for each of us. How do I describe an empanadia?? It was like something we would get at the state fair. Deep fried with cheese in the middle. I guess you can order it with ham or other meats, too. They also bought me a hotdog on a stick!

After that we just hung out for a while and entertained ourselves by taking pictures. We can have a lot of fun with a camera!! It was a fun night! I hope we do things like this often.

Sunday:

This morning we went to church for Sunday School classes. Teresa, Naty and I missed the bus. We thought Carlos was coming back for us. We waited for a long time and started walking because we didn't know if anyone was coming for us. We didn't get too far. Wascar came to the rescue with the red truck and picked us up. I was thankful for that. It was hot this morning, and I wasn't wearing my walking shoes! :)

After church on Sunday mornings Pastor Carlos usually takes his family and several others out to lunch. It's a way of saying "thanks" to those who stay back to clean the church, drive the trucks and help people get home safely each week. The picture here is of us at the Chinese Restaurant. We had chicken, rice and fried plantains. I don't completely understand why they call it a Chinese Restaurant. I guess the rice is a little different...more like fried rice...but it's chicken and plantains like we have every day. I don't know, but it tastes good! :)

I included a picture of a loaded truck for you tonight. This truck is on its second trip returning people to their homes after the Sunday night service.

Again, I don't really know what tomorrow or the rest of the week will bring. The youth and I will meet again tomorrow in the morning. We will continue to read from the book of Matthew, asking God to teach us and looking for how Jesus interacted with non-believers. We will have time to talk about what we are learning and hearing from the Lord. We will also spend time praying together.

At some point, I would like to read James 1:22, "But don't just listen to God's word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves." It's important that we don't just talk about God's word, that we don't just discuss how wonderful it is and think about how we could potentially live it out if we wanted to some day. We actually need to be obedient and DO what God commands us to do in His word!

Please continue to pray for us this week. And, if you'd like, join us as we read through the book of Matthew! There is a group from Pastor Carlos' church going to La Vega to work on a the church there, so you can pray for them as well.

Mi Dios es bueno!!!

Thanks everybody & love to you all!!

Kristin