Saturday, November 08, 2008

First group!

So I'm here. It almost feels like I never left. I've had so many warm welcome backs. It's so good.
My roommates for the next year are Casey and Kourtney. Casey if from a small town in NY and Kourtney is from New Jersey. Not a small town but definitely smaller than Vegas! Kourtney's birthday was a couple days ago and here are some pictures of her mordida at Rick and Tammie's. Mordida means to take a bite of the cake but it's code for get your face shoved in the cake. She looks good, huh?

We got our first couple groups this weekend. A group of 12 from Big Bear came late late on Friday night. It's a group of high school students and leaders. They're actually from the church Neal went to in Big Bear. This morning, after breakfeast they built a bathroom for Iglesia Rosa de Saron (Pastor Reynerio). They put the whole thing up in just a few hours. Painted and all. After lunch (my first sandwich of my year here. many more to come.), I took them to La Montana (The Mountain) to do a distribution of clothing, socks, and blankets to the men and women and candy, juice and animal crackers to the kids. It felt so good to be there. It was fun to start right where I left off. Leading groups on my own. For a very short period of time. Before coming to Mexico I really never thought I had much leadership skill. God has shown me here and stretched me in ways I'm not comfortable to learn about myself and grow.
The other group was from San Diego. They got into Maneadero (the city I technically work in) at 10:30 am and left at 4:00 pm. Just a quick day trip. They did a distribution at Iglesia Rosa de Saron of clothes, bags of beans and rice, juice, candy, and toys. I only spent about 45 minutes with them but their church is a great support to the ministry here and it was good to have them.

Here's a quickish breakdown of how a distribution works. Because there will be more to come. We try not to do a whole lot because we don't want the people to become dependent and cause more harm than good. We're very careful. First, we do songs. Worship songs for both kids and adults. Then, there are a couple testimonies of what God's done in the lives of people from the group. This group did a skit after that. Then, there's a short message about Christ. Finally, prayer.

It was so neat to see 20 or 30 women walk forward and ask for prayer. Tomasa (Pastor Faustino's wife) and girls from the team walked around and prayed for people in both Spanish and English. Total there were 40 or 50 women and over 70 kids. There were just a few men because most are working out working or just out. But I wanted to share some pictures of my day with you. So this was my today...







I'm reading my Spanish/English Bible and loving it! Thank you guys so much for praying for me. Please pray for unity in love among Rick and Tammie and us girls. Also pray for unity in the church here.

I love you guys!

2 comments:

Paige said...

Sarah your pictures made me a little teary. i forget how much I miss it there until I see pictures and it all comes back. I miss you and Rosie too. I've gotta find a way to get back there. Gonna email you now. LOVE.

Neal Benson said...

Sarah, keep rocking it. We are praying for you!