certainly not bored

At this point, when I look back on the past three months... my time seems to be filled with some really high highs and some really low lows. This is most certainly one curse of being a passionate person. However, it seems to me as though God is using me during this time, so I must convey deep gratitude to our unchanging God who continues to bless me with opportunities of service despite my changing dispositions.

In Matthew 6:20, Jesus tells us to store up treasures in heaven... treasures that can`t be taken away... treasures that last. It seems to me as though my time here has been filled with opportunities to invest in such treasures. Let me brief you on some of the most recent ones:

This past week, SEMANA SANTA, Theos Place had a retreat. In regards to my work here, several significant things happened. 1. Our praise team, currently, me (guitar and vocals) Manfred (guitar) and Daniela (bongos) made our debut worship set. Theos has long been anticipating the chance to have live music instead of just music videos for worship, so after 3 months of practice, we are finally on the ground running. 2. Eight more people accepted Christ the first night of Campamento and then had a chance to grow throughout the weekend... Praise the Lord! 3. I was expecting any normal church retreat... one small group time, praise and a lesson at night... lots of games, etc. Theos retreat was really different. We had a Bible study in the morning 1 1/2 hours, some free time before and after lunch, another 1 1/2 hour Bible Study, dinner, worship then an hour long sermon. Honestly... every break that we had, we desperately needed. All this to say, I was leading one of the Bible Studies. It was in Spanish, so much of my free time was spent translating the study and preparing... this was solely for my comprehension and readiness... most of the study was in Spanish anyways.

Now... my Spanish is getting a lot better- praise God! After this opportunity with 8 new believers, there are currently 15 people waiting to start in a Bible Study. I am going to be co-leading one with just guys and Dylia has generously offered to lead one with the girls until our wedding. There is a lot going on. Please pray that God will give me strength to complete all of these tasks with excellence- just a reminder, I now have
Worship Responsibilities Tuesday nights
A Bible Study Wednesday nights
A leaders meeting for THEOS YOUTH on Thursday nights before
The Bible Study for Leaders on Thursday nights (every other week and meetings on the odd ones)

Still a lot is going on. As of yesterday, Dylia and I are 2 months away from our wedding. We are still both pumped about it. In regards to our relationship... we both feel like we are in a really rough place spiritually... we are teaching people about a loving, intimate relationship with Jesus, but right now we both feel like when we pray... we are talking to ourselves and that Scripture is not making any changes in our daily lives. We continue to press on in prayer, service, and study, but we are both longing to FEEL god´s INTIMATE touch again. We know he´s working we just don´t feel it. Thanks for your consistent prayers for us and our ministries.

Bri Bri

This past weekend i went with a group of 18 students from Theos to do some construction in a little costa rican village called bri bri. this village is located on a river that borders costa rica and panama. after a four hour drive to the border we had to take a 20 minute boat ride up river to arrive in bri bri. the people here didnt wear loin cloths, but we were in the jungle, and very far away from normal civilization. These people have been impacted by flooding in the past year, quite severely, so there is some work going on there to help them rebuild a medical clinic. There was currently a group from Canada working there, from Samaritan´s Purse and a group from Denver Colorado had just left. It was fun to help with some of the construction that these groups were involved with.

I enjoy thinking that I am living in a country where I can serve people on a week to week basis that need a lot of help. These people from the US and Canada, have to take a plane to come, but I just have to drive, and catch a boat. Our trip didnt really feel like a missions trip, it just felt like a normal part of life and i think that´s a healthy place to be.

the whole group was sitting in a room, on saturday night. we had just finished up a game of charades and some of the guys started telling ghost stories. the interesting thing about these stories was that they were all real accounts of some sort of encounter with an unseen being. one guy told us about going to bed and feeling hands all over him, poking him and he couldn´t move. i didnt feel very comfortable with the nature of these stories in this group of young christians, so i decided to speak up.

i explained that the bible does talk about unseen beings- both good and bad. always, the bad beings seek to create fear or harm and always the good are working to help god with what he is doing. i explained that when jesus is living inside of us, then his spirit is working to produce the fruits of the spirit, like love, patience, self- control and joy. i also explained that as long as jesus is living in us, we dont need to fear the bad unseen beings because their power is not nearly as great as jesus power.

as i spoke of these things, i really felt like god was speaking through me and trying to mend a very delicate situation. sometimes i dont feel like god uses me very often in tangible, spontaneous ways like this, so it was really encouraging to see the result of this opportunity.