Forging Ahead

About 3 weeks ago I had the opportunity to preach again in our church which is always an adventure. Teaching and preaching are things that I really enjoy, but to be honest, the preparation is something that is just really difficult for me. It always has been. It seems that when I sit down to study my mind usually ends up in a million different places about how I could teach this, or I am thinking of examples that might make a point more clear. It's a very organic process for me. So when the time comes to preach or teach in spanish, my whole process has to change. For me, everything must be written out in painstaking detail. There is no "winging" it yet for me in Spanish, because if i do "wing it" I am likely to say that Jesus puede salvarte de sus pescado "Jesus can save you from your fish" rather than Jesus peude salvarte de sus pecados. A scandal would arise and everyone would leave the church. No not really, but it scares me to think of what might come out of my mouth sometimes if left to my own devices. So I must "script" everything that i'm going to say... I hate this. This just isn't how I'm built. It goes against everything inside of me to do it this way. I long for the day when I can say whatever comes to my mind in Spanish and it be understood by everyone what I'm saying. I probably long for that in English as well.

In some ways this is such a good discipline to have. We are to be thoughtful about what comes out of our mouths, especially in regards to the scriptures. In the book of James, we are reminded that teachers are held to a different level of accountability. God takes seriously His word, and so should I.

We had a great ministry opportunity this past Saturday. We were invited by our college ministry to take part in a food and clothes "distribution" to the homeless that are on the streets in our city. They aren't hard to find, and many times they are right outside our doors, literally. I have to be honest here, this is difficult thing for me at times. Not the giving to them, that's the easy part. But when you are living in a foreign country with small children, there are times when we really struggle with what to do. I know that might sound terrible, but the safety of our children is extremely important, and there are times when even the Colombians are fearful that offering food or clothing from your house greatly increases the danger that they will seek more things from your house and thus endanger your children. There has to be a balance between using wisdom and protecting your family, and caring for those people that desperately need help and loving them as Christ would love them. I hate that this is even a consideration, but with sin in the world, it is.

So we were thankful to leave our house behind and just walk the streets with bags of clothes and food to help those that needed it. I was with a group of teenagers and some college aged kids. And i had the pleasure of taking Kendall with me as well. We want her to see how much people desperately need our physical help, as well as see people's need for Jesus. Along the way we encountered young and old that were in need of just something to eat. We met a young teenage couple where the young girl was pregnant and they were begging for money and something to eat. Can you just imagine being pregnant and homeless? Can you imagine how that little baby will develop if the mom can't eat? We had a sandwich for which they were very thankful, but we all know that this is just one meal. Where will the meals come from tomorrow and the next day come? We met some who were thankful and others who just took the food and a shirt or pants and just left. We had opportunities to share the gospel, but I pray that we will have even more opportunities in the future.

We finished our night in a place that was called "El Borro". I had never been there but I knew that this place was "special" in the sense that even the Colombians had a great fear of going to this place. My teammate Sam said going to this part of town is akin to us making the journey to a foreign country. The Colombians have heard stories about this place and in many ways they had a fear of what this place was all about. Well little Kendall and I had a first hand opportunity to find out why. We walked down a dirty road and then we were met with a street that was just filled with homeless. I have to places with homeless before, but this for some reason had a different feel. One thing that was very quickly noticeable was that the majority of people here were either physically disables or mentally disables in some way. It was an entire street of people suffering. Now i realize that many of you might have seen this before and probably on even a much greater scale, but for me, this was an eye opening experience. And one for which I am extremely greatly to have had. I'm thankful for Kendall who had no fear of these people, but stood among them. And sat with us we talked to them of God's love. I need these experiences just as much as she does. And while some people might think we are a little loco for taking her to places like this, we pray that God will use these times in all our hearts to help us understand how desperately He loves all of us. We are praying about how we can continue a ministry to these people to teach them on a regular basis who God is and how much he values them.




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Together Again

To Those that we Love:

This blog will contain a little more personal information than normal.

For the past year or so we have realized that Kendall was really having some struggles in her ability to learn certain things in both the school and the house. At one point, every day she was excited to go to school and learn and be with her friends, but then, she began to complain of stomach pains and she seemed to be carrying a lot of stress about learning. We were concerned that she might have dislexia or some other learning disability because she just wasn't understanding some basic things that we really thought she should be getting. If you haven't met Kendall, she is extremely verbal and loves talking to people. She is very intelligent and that's one of the reason we were becoming so frustrated with her. We just thought she was either being disobedient or she just had very little motivation to learn like some of her friends. So we decided that it would be best to go back to the States to have her tested to see if she indeed had something going on that was impeding the learning process. So we took Kendall to both a pediatrician and specialist for learning disabilities. The learning disability specialist gave Kendall several tests and concluded that Kendall has a moderate form of ADHD.

I can already guess what some of you are thinking, because i think the same things when i hear this term. This term is loaded. So many people have so many different ideas and thoughts about this that we really felt like we had been hit by a ton of bricks. I won't get into all that she told us about ADHD but her main advice was to teach Kendall in one language..English. She also advised us to put her on medicine, which at this point, we are nowhere even close to wanting to go this route. We can't in good conscience do this without totally exhausting every other idea to help her learn. We know this works for some parents, but for us, we are going to work hard to help Kendall learn all that she needs to learn in the house.

Amanda started home schooling this week and it has gone really well. Kendall really can do well when we eliminate distractions and help her to focus. We all could would probably do better if we did this. (Her class in the school has 30 some kids, so there are always a few distractions going on) This week has given us renewed hope that she can catch up to the level of her peers. Kendall has been in a positive mood and really done a great job. We are thankful that God has provided the resources and the people around us to help support us in this endeavor.

We continue to be encouraged about our involvement in the Esperanza church. I (Jon) continue to work with the youth group and have been thankful that it feels like i'm getting more connected to the guys that attend our group. This past Saturday, Amanda commented that the majority of our group was comprised of young men. For those of you who know the church and Latin America, you know that this is not normally the case. Many of the Latin American churches are anchored by woman and it's extremely difficult to connect with the men of the community. So this is really a great opportunity for us to really pour into the young men that have decided to come and be a part of our group. This doesn't mean we don't value our young ladies, but we just know that normally the church is seen by young men as being irrelevant. Please pray as we really seek to find good discipleship material that will encourage and strengthen these young me to love and follow God. When the church has strong men, it makes a huge difference.

We continue to be involved in the school and and a local church plant. These are areas where God is continuing to teach us weekly how we can be used by Him. Developing relationships and trust takes some time, but poco a poco (little by little) God is allowing us to see growth in this area. We are thankful for the patience of our God that uses our weaknesses to bring Himself glory. The pressures and the trials that come from working cross-culturally continually expose those weaknesses, but Gloria a Dios, that's part of the process as we are being sanctified and conformed to the image of Christ.

One more thing that we'd like prayer for. God has increasingly put on my heart a desire to start an ESL (English as a Second Language) ministry here in our church. Language is such a gift that can be passed along to others, but it's also something that can used for the sake of the Gospel. And this is our desire, to find ways to use our resource (English) as a conduit to take the gospel to the people of our community. So we are really just beginning to think through this process, but we know that our church (La Esperanza) is supportive of this idea and I'm excited to think of the possibilities of this ministry. We are already seeing how God has his hands on this because our teammate Sam was approached by the University about offering some type of ESL program there. Praise God! It would be amazing if we could have an influence for Christ at the University where we can speak freely about who Jesus is and what He's done using something that we are good at... Speaking English!!!

One quick word about our support. We are so thankful for all of you who have faithfully supported over the last few years. You have been and continue to be such a blessing to us. We have recently seen a significant downward trend in our support. We know that God will continue to be faithful in this area, no matter what happens, but please join us in prayer as we would really love to stay here and see to completion some of things that God is doing. Pray that God would provide financially and spiritually.

Prayer Requests:
1. God would be honored in our ministry here
2. Pray for Kendall as she adjusts to learning with Amanda
3. Pray for the hearts of those Colombians that need to hear the message of the cross

4. Pray for direction as we think through new ministry possibilities with ESL
5. Financial support




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