A couple weeks in...

Hello Friends!

Daniela and I have made it a couple weeks already and we´ve started to feel more at home each day.  Our days have been filled with planning and preparing for an adventure race for a youth group that has come down from Geneva, MI.  The adventure race entailed 12 challenges that each team had to accomplish before a set time.  The race was today, and I thought it went really well.  Daniela, Laura, and Daniela´s brother helped on one of the challenges called The Lost (which was similar to a large maze) and I was working in a tree house with one of leaders of the group, Rick Borman, and we were judging another challenge: interpretive dances to a bible story out of the book of Matthew.

Daniela and I have had a wonderful time so far discipling the interns here at El Refugio!  We had our first meeting last week, and I think it went great.  Daniela and I introduced our theme for the summer: What Does It Mean To Be A Disciple.  I taught the lesson last Wednesday evening, and we studied The Great Commission passage out of Matthew 28.  We also looked at a way on how to make disciples, through an acronym I created: PULLTABS (Pray, Understand, Love, Lead, Teach, Ask, Baptize, and Send).  We also looked at characteristics of a disciple and how we can become these.  This coming Friday, I will be teaching on obedience and following.  I am very excited about this lesson, because it is something I do have a heart for.

This afternoon, the youth group at El Refugio left for the jungle and will be there for most of the week.  Daniela and I will be take a couple of the interns up to a place called Mindo on Wednesday, where we will do some canopy exploring, go see a butterfly farm, and do some other touristy things.  On Thursday we hope to go to the Mitad del Mundo (Middle of the World) Museum just outside of Quito and do some cool hands on experiments with the interns.

Thank you all for your ongoing prayers and support for both Daniela and I during our time down here.  It has been a wonderful time for each of us, and it has definitely challenged us in our spiritual growth and in our personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  But as we are being challenged by His Word each day, we can find ways to pour into the interns, and encourage them and teach them, and we have found these times so rewarding, and when we are doing discipleship, it just confirms our calling to this kind of ministry so much more.  Thank you all so much, and we constantly praise God for your support and prayers!  God bless you all!