Los Jovenes
I need to give ALL the glory to God. He can take any situation no matter WHAT the challenges are and work it out for HIS glory. Receiving the challenge to lead a band that primarily speaks only Spanish was SUCH a challenge, but it all worked out!!
Tonight was my FIRST youth group experience and it went awesome! My brother, and four others including myself arrived around 6pm to rehears for the worship set. We practiced one song together since it is our first time singing in Spanish. Tonight we sang ''Poderoso y Fiel" which was re-written by Hector as a version of "Mighty to Save'' I loved it. After singing that song my brother and I taught the group a song in English, we sang ''Open the Eyes'' which I knew they knew in Spanish so at least the melody would be familiar to them. It was so amazing hearing everyone singing ''Holy, Holy, Holy'' and then "Santo, Santo, Santo'' in both languages. We serve a multi-lingual God which just amazes me! I love how he can be worshiped in any language. For some reason that fact alone humbles me... because my knowledge of worshiping God is SO limited to my experience and my culture. I hope during this experience that my mind can be open to new and different ways of offering up praise to our God. He is good.
Sibling love...
I want to give a shout out to my brother... Eduardo Berrios, because he did such a great job tonight leading the band in worship AND he also planned games for the group and instructed them completely in Spanish. It was a lot of fun and was a great ice-breaker for everyone! After the game we met together in one big group and then broke up into four smaller groups. Each group was responsible for writing down different characteristics of Joseph at different seasons of his life... my group got the paper titled: José sin vender. My brother and I were confused at first... we were like.. "Joseph... without to sell??'' haha then we realized it meant before he was sold into slavery by his brothers. That was fun. We then all got together and discussed our parts of the story of Joseph's life. Hector spoke for a while, and I tried my best to really focus and listen to what he was saying. I remember at some point he was telling a story about a dog. I understood a little bit but when he came to the punchline of the story and every one began laughing, my brother and I looked at each other totally confused because we didn't understand. lol We still have a lot to learn... it feels good though not to be alone in the confusion department. I get a kick out of it though, I wonder what the others think about us when we don't laugh at the ''funny'' parts.
Bailando :)
I'm sure a certain someone I know who teaches Zumba and ALSO loves to dance would have loved this part of the youth meeting.... after we finished our Bible study and prayed, Hector had the youngest boys serve all of the rest of us with small cups of soda and ice cream cones with cake batter flavored ice cream!! (My FAVORITE) Before I received mine I decided to go to the bathroom.... WELL while I was washing my hands, I thought I heard the words ''vamos a bailar'' and to my surprise he then hooked up his laptop and started blaring DANCE music!! Jaden was having a blast taking center floor and showing off all of his latest dance moves! THEN Hector played my FAVORITE music of all... salsa Y merenge!! My friend Chingi made me put down my soda and took me to the dance floor! Almost everyone was dancing.. including my brother... who struggles from time to time with that natural hip movement (lol) I even got a chance to dance with our school director! I taught my gringa friend here, (Jennea) who is from California, some salsa... and I must say that for a white girl... she did GREAT! <3 To top off the night, one of the volunteers had a car and offered Jeannea and I a ride home!! What a TREAT! Had he not offered us that ride we would have had to wait at the bus stop for an hour for the 10 o'clock bus! Thank you Jesus for getting us home safely! :D As we were driving home, one of the other girls in the car mentioned that in La Suiza there is a place where they do Kareoke and invited us to come one night! I am going to take her up on that offer!! I am so thankful to God that He is providing me with more and more opportunities to meet locals here. The most important part of this immersion experience it to just get to know the people around you, and to involved yourself in social activities as much as possible. I feel those experiences have forced me to learn and speak more Spanish than ever... even more than the classroom setting. Pray that God continues to open more safe and social avenues for learning!
Prayer Requests
Please continue to be praying for Jaden's recovery. He is doing MUCH MUCH better thank God. As a way to offer other students the opportunity to grow in their English and a way for us students to grow together in unity and in God, I really want to start a Bible study. I honestly have never lead a Bible study on my own before. I'm not really sure where to start, if I should be researching studies online, or just read through a book together... or study an actual book, such as crazy love and tie it INTO the Bible study... i'm ranting, but basically I'm open for suggestions... please leave comments of any words of advice you can offer me, I feel unequipped, but I think that's why God is challenging me to do this... because HE will enable me to do it. Peace and love. I miss everyone at home! More posts to be coming soon... WITH pictures.
