How God has Recently Answered my (& your) Prayers

• My friend Juan went home to be with the Lord after nearly 12 years (all but 3 months of his life) suffering, in extreme pain from cancer. And, God continues to give his mom great peace in this difficult time, keep praying for her. The rest of his family doesn't know Christ as their Savior; they still need your prayers.
• I was able to clearly present the Gospel in a 5 min.  video interview. Now, I continue to pray for the teacher and students of the class that will see it.
• A little girl in my church has been struggling to understand the Gospel. However, yesterday, during a time of "practice sharing the Gospel," an 11 year old girl explained the Good News once again to her. This time God made it so she understood and trusted in Christ as her Savior!
• Recently, two of the children's Sunday School teachers have devoted extra time preparing their lessons and have been faithful to pray for their students. Their class was so good this last Sunday that the kids didn't want to leave and refused to take a break in between services!

Clowns

Unfortunately, I don't always understand Spanish. Today, that happened (ok, well, everyday that happens, but this time it was super funny).

We had just gotten off the bus to go to a friend's birthday party, and we were waiting for him to come show us where his house was. Well, my friend asked my other friend a question. I missed the question, but heard the answer. The answer...that I heard...was "payasito".  This answer mixed with pointing in a certain direction, made me look for these payasitos (clowns). I looked, but didn't see any. Then, I thought..."Oh, must be the name of a store or something." Nope, wasn't that either. So, I finally ask them...where's the payasitos? "No," they said, "Pa' llasitos." Basically, they'd mixed the sounds together of "para + alla" and added "-asitos" to it all. So, they were really saying, "Over there somewhere." At this, we all burst into laughter, and I admitted to having been looking for a clown! Just then, our friend came walking to meet us...so, I cleverly added, "There's the payasito!"

"I feel happy."

This Saturday was our once a month Kid's Club activity. I had the opportunity to lead the Bible lesson; the story was on Abraham and his faith. After the lesson, I was asking the students why Abraham was counted as righteous. While presenting this Gospel message, I noticed that one kid knew all the answers; however, this was the same kid I had talked to a couple of weeks earlier who wasn't too sure what he thought about this "Good News". So, you can imagine my shock to hear him readily answer every question relating to the Gospel. As soon as club was over, I called him over and said, "It sure sounds like you understand the Gospel now; where you at?" In a questioning voice he said, "In God's hand?" (Referring to John 10). Not long after, he was sitting with me and with his aunt. He told his aunt that he had some questions for me. So, she told him that he should just go talk with me inside. Inside we went, but seeing as the building was full of people, it was hard to even find a somewhat quiet place to talk. Finally, the kitchen proved a good place to chat. Not knowing what he was thinking, I asked, "Well, what questions do you have?" That proved to be too broad a question. So, I asked, "How does someone go to heaven." And, he very clearly said that one must believe that Jesus died in their place and rose again the third day and that he needed to repent of his sins. That led me to ask him what he believed. So, he repeated that he believed he was a sinner and that he believed Christ died in his place and rose again the third day. Well, I quoted to him Romans 10:9,10 and told him that it sounded like he understood. To which he responded, "But, I don't know how to make this decision." I said, "You've told me; now, tell God. And, how do we talk to God?" His response was, "by way of prayer." "What are you going to tell God?" I asked him. And, once again he said that he believed and repented of his sins. So, there in the kitchen, we both prayed. He asked Christ to be his Savior, and I thanked God that he finally understood the salvation message. Afterwards I asked him if he'd still be saved if he sinned tomorrow, and he said, "Yes, because I'm in God's hand!" Then, while doing a strange wiggly dance (you know, the kind of thing you do when you've just hit a homerun, scored the highest grade on a test, etc) he told me, "I feel happy!"

So, be praying for this kid. He's the only one in his family saved. Pray for his growth and his desire to know God more and to serve Him. Praise God!

Keys

You've heard the expression, "When God closes a door, He opens a window." Well, this event is somewhat related to that saying.

I had just moved into my new apartment and had spent the day hanging curtains with a friend. After having finished hanging all the curtains, I need to go down and get some things out of the car (to bring up to my apartment). So, I left the door open just a crack, so I wouldn't have to bother opening up the door again (besides, I was just going to be gone for a minute). Well, seeing keys in my hand, my friend assumed it was all right to shut the door. Unfortunately (only unfortunate in this instance), the door locks automatically when shut. In horror I looked at my friend and said, "My keys are inside. What do I do?" Her response was, "Yeah right, your keys are right there in your hand." Opening my hand up, I showed her that the keys were undoubtedly VW car keys and not my apartment keys. Trying not to worry, I said, "Let's go ask the guard what to do." Downstairs we went. Most ashamedly I told the guard that I had locked my keys inside and asked him what I should do. "Well," he said, "Did you leave a window open?" "YES!" I said. While putting up curtains we had opened almost every window in the apartment. So, off he went to get a ladder. Much to my dismay the ladder barely reached the 2nd floor. It was a good 4 feet from the window, but I told the guard that if he'd hold it, I'd climb the ladder. It was at this moment we began wishing we had a camera. Up I climbed. I made it to the very top rung of the ladder and reached up to the window. From there, I pulled myself up into the window, but my hips didn't want to go through. "Argghh" My belt was caught on the window sill. At this point, my legs are flailing outside the window. (Truly, a sight to be seen.) Reaching in the window, I grabbed the step stool and finally managed to lift myself over the part where my belt was caught. From there, I just fell inside (not ceasing to laugh at this point). Gladly, I recovered my keys and immediately separated the second copy of the keys (and left them at some friends' house).

Needless to say, that guard still laughs at me anytime he sees me. I only wish I had a camera in that moment. You'll just have to picture it for yourselves.

An interesting week...

This past week...

Someone came to me and asked how to receive Christ...

I ate a sandwich and rice for breakfast...

My Sunday school students asked for more homework...

I saw kids drinking watered down soda that was being poured into their mouths through a dirty sock...

I slept on the floor (with three mattresses)...

I ate rice 5 out of 7 days...

I barely spoke English...

Kids asked me constantly how many people can play at a time in basketball (I guess they thought it could change)...

I saw over 60 kids drink water from the same 8 glasses, without washing the cups in between...

We played games in the rain for over an hour and were frozen for the rest of the day...

I couldn't convince myself that it was worth it to get out of bed at 5:30 just to take a freezing cold shower...

Someone told me that knockout is a verb in Spanish...

I found that kids here thinks it's fun to be hosed down with water while army crawling in the mud under a maze of ropes...

I learned that when I'm really tired, I don't understand a word of the sermon (when it's in Spanish)...

I find I still have a hard time understanding directions fully...

Eggs were team mascots...

Coffee just doesn't cut it when you're overly tired...

It helped to use soccer terminology to help the kids understand the rules of basketball...

I ate meat with my hands since there weren't any knives to cut it with...

I was glad that my phone has a flashlight...

Lots of kids made life changing decisions around a campfire...

And, I had some great conversations about God with lots of young people.

All in all, a good week.