Where will you and JP live??
Well, we'll live here:
Yes, we found the perfect house to rent!! JP is moving in this weekend, and I'll move in after the wedding!
Here's me in my new kitchen!!
If you want to see more pictures, click HERE!
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
The Answer...
To what some of you have been asking...
Where will you and JP live??
Well, we'll live here:
Yes, we found the perfect house to rent!! JP is moving in this weekend, and I'll move in after the wedding!
Here's me in my new kitchen!!
Where will you and JP live??
Well, we'll live here:
Yes, we found the perfect house to rent!! JP is moving in this weekend, and I'll move in after the wedding!
Here's me in my new kitchen!!
School Time
I found some recent pictures of Jean Paul's school that I thought might be interesting! JP studies International Commerce at the UNIVA university.
Here's part of the school from the outside:
Classmates during classtime. In Queretaro, you stay with the same students all the way through your school years, so you get to know them really well! All JP's classes are with the same bunch of students every semester.
Most of JP's classmates goofing off!
We know Bruno (guy in the back with the pen in his pocket) and Gaby (girl kneeling down in front) the best, and have been able to share about the Lord with them. Please pray for Bruno and Gaby (and the rest of the class!) that God will open their hearts to know Him!
Here's part of the school from the outside:
Classmates during classtime. In Queretaro, you stay with the same students all the way through your school years, so you get to know them really well! All JP's classes are with the same bunch of students every semester.
Most of JP's classmates goofing off!
We know Bruno (guy in the back with the pen in his pocket) and Gaby (girl kneeling down in front) the best, and have been able to share about the Lord with them. Please pray for Bruno and Gaby (and the rest of the class!) that God will open their hearts to know Him!
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
5th of July
On July 5, we here at Horizonte Church be holding an outreach event for the youth (ages 12-25) of Querétaro. We aim to invite non-churched, non-christians, especially the friends of the youth at Horizonte. We plan to follow up on the new students who attend the outreach event, and are planning regular events that cater to the needs and desires of non-christians who have somewhat of an interest in spirituality.
PLEASE PRAY for this event that God will use it to bring more students to a growing relationship with Him, and that we will be able to follow up with all the new students.
PLEASE PRAY for this event that God will use it to bring more students to a growing relationship with Him, and that we will be able to follow up with all the new students.
Friday, June 06, 2008
What Not to Do
I've learned a lot of things in my time living in Queretaro, and in my cross-cultural experiences prior to that. I was thinking the other day about some of the funny things that I've done, trying to be creative or have fun, that just didn't turn out right!
Creativity is a valuable commodity as a missionary. Unfortunatly, I don't excel in that, although when someone has a creative idea I'm able to help carry it out efficiently. So I guess that's my gift instead of coming up with the creative ideas. I just want to share with you some of the things I've learned NOT to do over the past few years!
When being a guest teacher in a 3rd and 4th grade sunday school class in the US, it's a good idea to refrain from bringing your spanish-english Bible to teach out of. Why? Well, on the front of the Bible it says, "Holy Bible - Santa Biblia." To me this is completely normal. However, to english-speaking children, "Santa" only has one meaning... and it's not "holy." I was horrified to hear "Our teacher has santa on her Bible," coming from the students after class, especially since I know that most or all of the childrens' families don't do santa clause for Christmas, and definitely don't want their kids learning about santa in sunday school! Oops!
Be careful about the seemigly harmless materials you use while doing games for college students. I was in charge of games for one of our college group meetings one night, and I had been thinking about a game where there are two teams each lined up and each team has an object such as a water baloon or a wet sponge and must pass the object down the line of the rest of the team members using only their knees. (The object get placed between the knees of the first person, standing upd, who then passes it to the next persons' knees, etc.) Well, since it was November and cold out, and we'd be indoors, I wanted to choose a not-wet object to play this game, but something in a shape that would be hard to pass from knees to knees. I chose a banana. Never, under any circumstances, take a group of college students and tell them to put bananas between their legs. I was horrified once I saw the first people place the bananas and everyone started laughing... My bad...
When doing games for groups of adults, pretend you're doing games for Junior Highers. I've had two bad experiences with adults and games...
The first was in Honduras, a group of young adults went to check out a campground for a youth camp, and afterwards we all decided to have a nice friendly game of frisbee football. The score was somewhere around a lot to zero, and it was getting late, so Michelle - who was the person in charge of the whole camp thing - wanted to end the game and said that the next team to score a goal would win. It ended up that the team I was on (score of zero) actually scored a goal, therefore "winning" after Michelle's new rule to end the game. On the opposite team were several guys between the ages of 24 and 26. They absolutely threw a fit! They were so adamit about needing to win (and they HAD scored like 10 goals, WAY more than my team!) and were so outraged that Michelle had made that new rule and the lousy team won... I had NEVER seen young men act like such little kids in my entire life!! It set a bad tone to the drive home too, just because they HAD to win, and even when we said that they actually won because they'd scored so many more goals that us, they STILL wouldn't let it rest!!
The second incident with adults and games happened about 6 weeks ago at Horizonte. Phil and I were leading games for a group of about 60 adults. I made a "bingo" game where everyone has a sheet with 16 boxes on it, and each box has a characteristic (like "someone who has been to South America," or "someone who was born in the same month as you.") You must find a person with that characteristic and have them sign that box for you. The first person to have all the boxes filled and come to the stage wins. Sounds harmless enough. I purposely picked things that I was 100% sure would be present at the event. I got "someone born in Veracruz" (I know at least 4 people born there, that were at the event), "someone with a drivers' license from a state other that Queretaro" (if no one else, mine's from Oregon...), and so on. However, I made a little mistake. I put "some who uses contact lenses." Those are moderately common here, and I know several people who use them... but none of them came to the event. Soon, most people had all the boxes filled except the contact lens one, and everyone got upset because there was no on who had them. I said no one wins then, the game's over. That caused an uproar "We just did ALL THIS for NOTHING?!?!?!" The purpose of the game was actually to meet people you didn't know before, but whatever... I yelled, "Ok, the next person to bring a black watch to the stage wins!" Someone right below the stage pulled off a black watch, tossed it to me, and I pronounced her the winner. There were about 10 people who got rather angry and came to talk to me about how I was rediculously unfair and how they were really the rightful winner. Phil and I were absolutley agahst at the reaction to a simple little game!!
This is getting long, so I'll stop for now. I hope you enjoyed a few stories about attempts at good going wrong! :)
Creativity is a valuable commodity as a missionary. Unfortunatly, I don't excel in that, although when someone has a creative idea I'm able to help carry it out efficiently. So I guess that's my gift instead of coming up with the creative ideas. I just want to share with you some of the things I've learned NOT to do over the past few years!
When being a guest teacher in a 3rd and 4th grade sunday school class in the US, it's a good idea to refrain from bringing your spanish-english Bible to teach out of. Why? Well, on the front of the Bible it says, "Holy Bible - Santa Biblia." To me this is completely normal. However, to english-speaking children, "Santa" only has one meaning... and it's not "holy." I was horrified to hear "Our teacher has santa on her Bible," coming from the students after class, especially since I know that most or all of the childrens' families don't do santa clause for Christmas, and definitely don't want their kids learning about santa in sunday school! Oops!
Be careful about the seemigly harmless materials you use while doing games for college students. I was in charge of games for one of our college group meetings one night, and I had been thinking about a game where there are two teams each lined up and each team has an object such as a water baloon or a wet sponge and must pass the object down the line of the rest of the team members using only their knees. (The object get placed between the knees of the first person, standing upd, who then passes it to the next persons' knees, etc.) Well, since it was November and cold out, and we'd be indoors, I wanted to choose a not-wet object to play this game, but something in a shape that would be hard to pass from knees to knees. I chose a banana. Never, under any circumstances, take a group of college students and tell them to put bananas between their legs. I was horrified once I saw the first people place the bananas and everyone started laughing... My bad...
When doing games for groups of adults, pretend you're doing games for Junior Highers. I've had two bad experiences with adults and games...
The first was in Honduras, a group of young adults went to check out a campground for a youth camp, and afterwards we all decided to have a nice friendly game of frisbee football. The score was somewhere around a lot to zero, and it was getting late, so Michelle - who was the person in charge of the whole camp thing - wanted to end the game and said that the next team to score a goal would win. It ended up that the team I was on (score of zero) actually scored a goal, therefore "winning" after Michelle's new rule to end the game. On the opposite team were several guys between the ages of 24 and 26. They absolutely threw a fit! They were so adamit about needing to win (and they HAD scored like 10 goals, WAY more than my team!) and were so outraged that Michelle had made that new rule and the lousy team won... I had NEVER seen young men act like such little kids in my entire life!! It set a bad tone to the drive home too, just because they HAD to win, and even when we said that they actually won because they'd scored so many more goals that us, they STILL wouldn't let it rest!!
The second incident with adults and games happened about 6 weeks ago at Horizonte. Phil and I were leading games for a group of about 60 adults. I made a "bingo" game where everyone has a sheet with 16 boxes on it, and each box has a characteristic (like "someone who has been to South America," or "someone who was born in the same month as you.") You must find a person with that characteristic and have them sign that box for you. The first person to have all the boxes filled and come to the stage wins. Sounds harmless enough. I purposely picked things that I was 100% sure would be present at the event. I got "someone born in Veracruz" (I know at least 4 people born there, that were at the event), "someone with a drivers' license from a state other that Queretaro" (if no one else, mine's from Oregon...), and so on. However, I made a little mistake. I put "some who uses contact lenses." Those are moderately common here, and I know several people who use them... but none of them came to the event. Soon, most people had all the boxes filled except the contact lens one, and everyone got upset because there was no on who had them. I said no one wins then, the game's over. That caused an uproar "We just did ALL THIS for NOTHING?!?!?!" The purpose of the game was actually to meet people you didn't know before, but whatever... I yelled, "Ok, the next person to bring a black watch to the stage wins!" Someone right below the stage pulled off a black watch, tossed it to me, and I pronounced her the winner. There were about 10 people who got rather angry and came to talk to me about how I was rediculously unfair and how they were really the rightful winner. Phil and I were absolutley agahst at the reaction to a simple little game!!
This is getting long, so I'll stop for now. I hope you enjoyed a few stories about attempts at good going wrong! :)
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
New Arturo
I think "Arturo" must be a common name here in Mexico, as this will now be the third Arturo who I've mentioned in this blog!
Ok, so, in preparation for the "KidStuf" that I mentioned in the previous entry, we needed a little bit of help with the acting part of the production. Someone in the church recommended that we talk with a guy named Arturo, who is a professional actor in Queretaro, and is also studying for a Masters degree in Theater. Arturo, who is 24, was very happy to help out with KidStuf, even though he's not a Christian and didn't really have any interest in church.
Throughout the KidStuf rehearsals, the other actors (young-adult Christians from Horizonte) began to hang out with Arturo outside of rehearsals. He invited everyone to his house a few times for snacks and a movie, the Horizonte actors went to one of Arturo's plays, and they all began to have a good friendship.
After the first KidStuf, Arturo volunteered to continue helping with future productions, and the leader of KidStuf felt that it was a good idea. Last week, Arturo showed up at Horizonte for the 11 am service. He hadn't actually attended a church service before, but said he felt comfortable at Horizonte because he now has a lot of friends here.
After the service, Arturo was talking with some of his friends - Phil, Sara, and Alma Rosa. He told them that the music at Horizonte had some really interesting words about loving God and knowing Him, and he didn't really understand what that is all about. I wasn't there, but one of the people talking with Arturo said that he almost seemed a little bit irritated to be thinking about God, but at the same time, he knows that there's something different about his new friends from Horizonte. These friends worship God, but are also really cool and fun to hang out with. So we know God is working in Arturo's life, and I believe that soon he too will have a relationship with God!
I didn't have any pictures of Arturo, but I found this picture of backstage after the first KidStuf on Phil's website, so I stole it to show to you all! Arturo is the smiley guy in the middle.
Ok, so, in preparation for the "KidStuf" that I mentioned in the previous entry, we needed a little bit of help with the acting part of the production. Someone in the church recommended that we talk with a guy named Arturo, who is a professional actor in Queretaro, and is also studying for a Masters degree in Theater. Arturo, who is 24, was very happy to help out with KidStuf, even though he's not a Christian and didn't really have any interest in church.
Throughout the KidStuf rehearsals, the other actors (young-adult Christians from Horizonte) began to hang out with Arturo outside of rehearsals. He invited everyone to his house a few times for snacks and a movie, the Horizonte actors went to one of Arturo's plays, and they all began to have a good friendship.
After the first KidStuf, Arturo volunteered to continue helping with future productions, and the leader of KidStuf felt that it was a good idea. Last week, Arturo showed up at Horizonte for the 11 am service. He hadn't actually attended a church service before, but said he felt comfortable at Horizonte because he now has a lot of friends here.
After the service, Arturo was talking with some of his friends - Phil, Sara, and Alma Rosa. He told them that the music at Horizonte had some really interesting words about loving God and knowing Him, and he didn't really understand what that is all about. I wasn't there, but one of the people talking with Arturo said that he almost seemed a little bit irritated to be thinking about God, but at the same time, he knows that there's something different about his new friends from Horizonte. These friends worship God, but are also really cool and fun to hang out with. So we know God is working in Arturo's life, and I believe that soon he too will have a relationship with God!
I didn't have any pictures of Arturo, but I found this picture of backstage after the first KidStuf on Phil's website, so I stole it to show to you all! Arturo is the smiley guy in the middle.
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