surprise. you're teaching english.

SURPRISE!!! we are teaching english!  

so... on monday we started work at buckner's community transformation center and a small school they partner with. we are teaching english. for those of you who know me well, you know that my spanish is not very good at all. caitlin, kimberly  and luis have a class full of about 47 niños at the school. they are so precious and so eager to learn but don't quite have the attention span for a two and a half hour class. pray for the kids to be able to sit and learn for that amount of time and pray for caitlin and kimberly that they would not grow weary over the next seventeen days of teaching. sarah, karla and i are teaching english classes at the CTC to volunteers anywhere from 14 to early 20's and we have one older student, the pastor who gives up his weekdays to help the kids and families being helped by the CTC and a few older women. i am so excited about this! learning another language at this age is so hard! (i know from experience). they pay such close attention and give us so much respect. on tuesday i had everyone wear a name tag. i am determined to know all 25 or so of their names by the months end. i am hoping to learn spanish while they learn english. tuesday was good. sarah and i underestimated what we could teach in two and a half hours and had to improv a little bit but it all went well. we taught them some description words and they were so funny. there is one boy and as soon as he learned the word for guapo was handsome, he kept saying it. then when he learned that soy meant i am, he added that to handsome. so we would say at random times "i am handsome" and smile. so great! haha. (funny story about tuesday a few paragraphs down.)

we work at the CTC in the mornings, break for lunch and then head over to Casitas Kennedy. on monday kimberly and i were with the older girls making bracelets and coloring pictures in the craft workshop. sarah and caitlin played with very rambunctious little monkeys. they were so so funny and the girls were so tired when we left. while kimberly and i were with the older girls i was sitting by a girl named any (annie). about an hour into the workshop she walked over to the window and began to cry. any (not a typo that is how you spell it in spanish) was sad because she has gone a great deal of time without any of her family coming to visit. i didn't want to ask too many questions so i didn't ask where her family was or why she was in the orphanage. i just made her a bracelet, took her hand and told her, "te quiero mucho y Dios te ama" (i love you and God loves you). pray for her please. i cannot take pictures so i will describe her to you. any is fourteen years old with beautiful olive skin and a lighter brown hair. she is tall and thin with beautiful almond shaped brown eyes... i got beautiful pictures from two of the girls, maria and angelica. they are all wonderful. yesterday caitlin, karla and i played with the toddlers. we colored for a while, sang "Cristo me ama" and then went outside. they are crazy people! haha. caitlin calls them her little "monos" monkeys. i love it. today and the rest of our stay here we will be teaching english to a different age group each day. please pray for their attention spans and desire to learn. and pray for us as we teach. this is all new to us. 

the Lord is growing me so much. my reading choice for the plane rides here was johnny mac's keys to spiritual growth. i didn't know just how much God would use it to grow me. i am usually a fast reader but i am just now at the halfway mark. i am reading, processing, reading, processing and reading again. in the second chapter titled, "the master purpose, the glory of God" johnny mac mentions the catechism question "what is the chief end of man?" -"to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." have you ever just sat there an contemplated the glory of God and all it means to glorify Him? God WILL be glorified. think about it. He has been displaying His glory for forever. before we were, He was showing his glory. His creation echos His glory.- psalm 19:1, isaiah 6:3, colossians 1:16. God manifested His glory to adam and eve in the garden- genesis 3:8. He revealed His glory to moses when moses the shekinah (a visible manifestation of God's glory) in exodus 34. verse 29 tells us that moses' face shone because he was talking with God. God also in the old testament displayed His glory... visibly to Israel again in the Tabernacle- exodus 40:34 and 35. there are so many examples of our God displaying His glory to His people. God's plan for the ages is to bring glory to Himself.  perhaps the most beautiful, thoughtful, merciful displays of God's glory is His incarnate Son. God in the flesh dwelling with His beloved in human form. fully God and fully man. -"who, though in the form of God, did nit count equality with God a thing ti be grasped but made himself nothing taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men." philippians 2:6 and 7. though wicked men wanted to get rid of the greatest expression of God's glory, they could not extinguish that glory. Jesus Christ our Lord rose from the dead, His earthly work was finished, and He ascended to Heaven. 

here's the part of the chapter that i think i forget too often when i should let it be a driving force in my life. we know from scripture (matthew 24 as well as others) that God's glory will return fully. until then what? what about His glory in the present? in this age, God's glory is manifest in His people, the church, His bride- ephesians 2:21 and 22, 2 corinthians 4:6 and 7. God has chosen to use the humble things of this world to bring glory to Himself. this is what i have to remind myself. i am an heir to the kingdom, a daughter of the Most High- people must see Christ in me, the hope of glory. i am learning so much from my book and the scriptures. one conclusion that is evident is this, the more mature we are, the more we can be used to radiate God's glory. "whether, then, you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God"- 1 corinthians 10:31

for those of you who may be wondering how sarah, caitlin and i are doing serving together, the answer is well. i cannot tell you how thankful i am that we are all together. we split up into pairs during the day and i get to be with each of them at a different time. it has been so good to love on the people of honduras with them. they along with kimberly have been absolutely wonderful and encouraging. i keep telling them how nervous i am to be the leader with all the big responsibilities like BUDGETING! ahhhh! caitlin has been sweet to tell me multiple times i'm doing a good job with the money. :) we take turns leading a devotional at night and last night was sarah's turn and it was wonderful. she shared with us a reading from O.Chambers (we love him). it has also been so sweet to see sarah falling in love with the country and people that captured mine and caitlin's heart. thank you for your continued prayers for us as we grow together and closer to the Lord over the course of the month. 

funny story... dr. reyes(the president of Buckner) came to visit the CTC yesterday and asked if we would teach our class some praise songs in english. all we had was joyfully (gozándome) by kari jobe in our heads, so we taught them the chorus. so... sarah is the singer of the family everyone knows that! but she is also the shy one. i volunteered her to sing and she took off to the bathroom. i decided to wait on her and just read through the english words with our class until she came back. well.. even with the chanting of her name by the class, sarah still refused to sing and got the giggles. when sarah gets the giggles, i get the giggles. i started the spanish version so they could know the tune, got the first word out and sarah let out a huge burst of laughter. i kicked her in the hiney and then gained my composure and had to sing. i wasn't very good and i made sure to warn the class before i started that i was very very very bad. pride...CRUSHED. i was so embarrassed. it was definitely an adventure. maybe she will help me sing today.

i'm trying to keep this a blog post and avoid a novel so i will wait to share with you some other things i'm learning later. thank you so much for all your prayers.