More College Group Fun!

Semilla Escogida, the Horizonte college group, is going quite well! We had our fourth meeting this past Sunday. We had 9 young people, and had a lesson on worshipping God. We are trying to involve the students in programming and giving the lesson, so Ulises, one of the students, helped give the study.

Here is Vicky, Lluvia, and Ahide hanging out after group time:

We also want to privide lots of opportunity for fellowship in the college group, so we went out for tacos at night! Ahide and Brisa enjoying pork and beef tacos:

Jana, Ulises, and Juan at the taco booth:

Please continue to pray for Semilla Escogida, that it will be a ministry that helps the students grow in their relationships with the Lord, be a good time of fellowship between the students, and also have an impact on those who don't have a relationship with the Lord!

Engaged!

Yep, Jean Paul and I are getting married! Most of you know that by now, but here's just a couple pictures for you, and the story!

This past sunday after church, Jean Paul and I went to eat at an italian restaurant. He was kind of distracted, and kept getting phone calls from one of his friends from school. I was getting a little irritated with this friend for calling so much, and finally Jean Paul said that his friend was outside the restaurant wanting to talk to him - that the friend was having a rough time with some stuff. So Jean Paul left for a few minutes, leaving a somewhat disgruntled me sitting alone in the restaurant. After several minutes, a stuffed cow comes walking into the restaurant, greeting all the people. While this isn't the strangest thing ever, I had a feeling he was there for me! Sure enough the cow had a laptop with him and set it down on my table. He had a presentation that begun like this:
"Hello, my name is Happy Cow." "Are you Jessica Stoner?"
I said yes.
"Someone who loves you very much has a question for you. Are you ready?"
I said yes.
The cow took off his front feet and his head, and sure enough it was Jean Paul in the cow outfit. He pulled a ring out of his sleeve and asked me if I would marry him! I said yes! We are praying about possibly getting married in August of 2008. The wedding will be in Queretaro at our church, Horizonte.


And the picture of the ring that some of you had asked about:


Thanks for your support in our engagement and our future together! I'll post more details as plans come along, I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!!

Semilla 2

NOTE: The picture of me in the blog is a DISGUISE, it doesn't reflect my true state of being...

That being said, let me explain the fun that was had last night!
We had our second meeting of Semilla Escogida college group, and decided to have a fun night that would help people to get to know each other a little better. We decided on a photo scavenger hunt in the Centro! We took pictures earlier in the week of some obscure things around Queretaro's downtown, printed the pictures, and each team of students had to find the things and take pictures of them. They also had to look for me, Justin, and Lluvia, but we were dressed rather differently than normal...

Come on now, who's going to think that some pregnant lady is ME?! I thought it was pretty good, despite the fact that I couldn't find a cheap wig or glasses or anything to REALLY disguise my face. I did stick the blondest part of my hair (the top layer that's always in the sun!) under my hat, and used the miracle of concentrated NesCafe smeared on my face to darken my complexion a bit! One team of students actually DID find me!

Afterwards we went out to dinner. Here's what some people ordered... it's called penca, and it's a gigantic nopal (cactus) leaf with a "guisado" inside. I make guisados a lot, they're generally some kind of meat boiled together in maybe a tomato or pepper sauce with vegetables. But this one was mostly nopal... Because I know most of you haven't tried nopal to know why it grosses me out, I'll describe: when cut up and cooked, nopal looks like green beans soaked in snot. The texture is terrible. But lots of people like it, and I've been about to handle eating it when served it at someone's house...

Some of the students hanging out in the restaurant:

Who looks better in Justin's wig??

Dany (Daniel):

Juan:

Or Dany (Daniela)?

The "What Do You Believe In?" Card

A few months ago, a random student came into Global and gave me a small square box of cards. She told me she'd like to give it to me for if we wanted to use it for English classes. I accepted the box and looked at the cards inside. There are maybe 50 square cards, each with a nice black and white photo on them, and they each have a question or phrase to finish (in english). They are sentences such as, "I think television is..." and "What is your favorite taste?"

The box sat in the Global office until the end of September, when Rebecca decided to use the cards as a way to make conversation with her english student, Arturo. They talked for a few minutes about things like, "What do you do for fun?" and "Why is the past important?", then, the next card in the pile asked, "What do you believe in?" Arturo told a bit about his beliefs, which I believe included unbelief in God or any god. Then he asked Rebecca what SHE believes in. I was amazed at hearing her basically tell the plan of salvation to Arturo, all because the "What do you believe in?" card came up! She invited Arturo to church, and he came once, although I think he's a bit skeptical... He came to Semilla Escogida (see entry below) last Sunday, and seemed to hit it off well with the guys from Horizonte, and I think he's interested in coming back!

So today, I had my english class with Mariana (a different Mariana from who I've mentioned before). She's a 19 year old student who I'm helping a bit with english. I took the box of cards with me and purposely put the "What do you believe?" card as the second one down. We did touch on that, although it didn't have the same astounding results as with Arturo and Rebecca. But now I know that Mariana does believe in God, and that He's good and loves people, but that she doesn't want anything to do with church because it's boring and doesn't add anything to her life. Her dad is catholic, and as far as I can tell, Mariana's only ever been to catholic church. I'm inviting her to Semilla Escogida, and hope that she'll come and find that God/the Bible/Jesus really ARE relevant to our lives, and also be able to form some friendships with other students who live out their faith in a relevant way! Please pray for Mariana and our classes over the next 6 weeks that I'll be in QRO!

Semilla Escogida

This past Sunday marked the beginning of the new youth group spefically for college students. It is for students from Horizonte church, and students who don't go to any church. Previously, we'd been having the college kids on saturday nights with the junior high and high school kids, but that wasn't working out so well. So we've created a new environment for students between 18 and 25 years old! It's called Semilla Escogida [seh-MEE-yah es-coh-HEE-dah] (chosen seed, in english), seed is for growth in Christ, and chosen is because we're God's people! It does sound a lot cooler in spanish... The students picked the name on sunday.

Here are some of the students who attended:
We want this group to be a place where students experience spiritual growth, community within the group, and impact on other students outside the group. We also want the sunday night meetings to be a non-threatening place to invite friends who are not Christians.

Our first meeting was a kick-off party. We had a TON of snack foods, games, and lots of time to hang out and get to know people who you didn't know before!

Here's one of our crazy games (my idea!) - Arturo and Rebecca trying to feed Dany and Lluvia donuts hanging off strings!

Too much donut, no use of hands!

Another game - the other Arturo feeds Chalio baby food!

We had 12 in attendance (not including leaders). Three of those don't regularly attend Horizonte or any church. They all said they liked the group and plan to come back!

Please be praying for Semilla Escogida that it will be a group where the students WILL experience spiritual growth, friendships, and impact on other students. Pray that non-believing students will feel included and want to come, and that they'll come to have a relationship with Christ! Pray for wisdom for the leaders, that we'll see the most effective way to minister to the students!

ROJO!!!!!!

Last friday, we took several of the youth group kids to a concert of the band Rojo here in Queretaro. It was a benefit concert for Pan de Vida orphanage!

Getting there was interesting though... The concert was held in a really really big meeting room in the Hotel Real de Minas, and for those of you who are familiar with QRO, you know how that area of town gets on friday nights... On the same side of the highway all clumped together are: the hotel where the concert was, Cuernos Chuecos rodeo and the bull ring, the movie theater, the casino, and three popular friday night restaurants. There was NO parking anywhere, we ended up parking in Jardines de la Hacienda (a neighborhood not terribly close to the hotel).

Anyway, despite the crazyness outside, the concert was wonderful, and I think all who went really enjoyed it!


For me, one of the highlights of the concert was when they played "Never let go" by Matt Redman, but in spanish. You've probably heard the song in english:

Oh no, You never let go
Through the calm and through the storm
Oh no, You never let go
In every high and every low
Oh no, You never let go
Lord, You never let go of me

Here's Andrea, Julieta, Alma, and me enjoying the concert!

And after the concert, all the girls, plus Paco who needed to be in every photo!

The Styrofoam Church

I go to church in a styrofoam building.

You think I'm joking, don't you?! Nope. The church auditorium at Horizonte is made out of wire mesh and styrofoam, covered in a layer of concrete. It's been there for like 10 years, so apparently it's not as flimsy as it sounds, but we DID have a rather large problem... for about 8 years!

I remember for independence day (sept. 15-16) 2006, I was one of the first people to arrive to set up for the festivities, and it happened to have been raining rather hard. To my dismay, the stage had a big pool of water on it, and the green/white/red fabric decoration on the back wall above the stage was soaked. Water was leaking in the wall like a small waterfall.

What happened when it rained was that, the part of the back wall that is styrofoam had basically been washed away with the rain. There was no concrete on the outside of the back wall. Only the top half of the back wall was styrofoam, the bottom being concrete block (the normal building material here).

Well, in the sunday morning services, we are studying Nehemiah. Chapter 2 talks about how the people of Jerusalem had gotten used to the city walls being ruined and it didn't really bother them much any more. Of course, the main point of the sermons on this chapter were "what things in our lives have we gotten used to that are hurting out lives." But Martin also used that chapter as an opportunity to do something about OUR broken wall. He did the first sermon on Nehemiah 2 in August, then went on with a completely different series of sermons that had to do with evangelism. We came back to Nehemiah 2 the middle of October, and in that down time, a family in the church volunteered to pay for the fixing of the wall.

So during the sunday morning service, we did this:
In the picture above, Jesus, Juan, and Levi are taking out the styrofoam part of the wall... Quite a shock to church members! But it's for a good reason!

Here's the new wall going in - the top is now made out of bricks!

The construction part of the wall re-building is done... just waiting for the concrete to dry to paint it!

Anyhow, it was (still IS actually) an interesting sermon series on fixing the broken parts in your spiritual life. And with such a shocking object lesson, I hope people won't forget the point of the message soon!

Santa Rosa

Ok, I'm WAY behind on blog updates... Just wanted to share a few pictures of the Horizonte youth group trip to Santa Rosa (a town just to the north a Queretaro) to help paint a the Horizonte church there!

Jana and Alma Rosa looking enthusiastic! -

Gaby (she's my mexican sister, we live together), me, and Alma showing off our handiwork!

Horizonte kids and Sta. Rosa church members at the end of a long day of painting sunday school classrooms and the outside of the church!

This was a good time for the Horizonte youth to step out and lend a hand to other instead of just participating in "fun" activities like bowling or going out to pizza. It was rather hard work, but everyone said they had fun doing it!