Just a little intersting fact that some may be interested in.
Yesterday, we went to Tepic to do some shopping and on our way home we put gas in the truck. N$7.89 pesos a liter for the "good" stuff comes out to $2.88 a gallon. For you mathmaticians, the dollar is at 10.75 pesos (in some places). Each month on the first of the month, the price goes up .01 or .02 centavos per liter...depending on what the economy is doing.
FYI
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Latest Newsletter
To check out our latest newsletter, you can click here.
http://www.alternativemissions.com/Staff/Silberman.ashx?p=86&234_na=214
http://www.alternativemissions.com/Staff/Silberman.ashx?p=86&234_na=214
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Megaphone Need
With all the youth events and activities we have been doing lately. One thing I've noticed we really need is a megaphone. If anyone has one or knows someone who does and would like to either donate it or sell it to us, we would really appreciate it...so would my voice:). Please let me know by sending a comment below with your name and I'll get ahold of you. Thanks.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Cofradia Youth Pastor Prospect
I wanted to let everyone know that this young man, Julio, is genuine and I'm really excited for what God is doing in his life. He needs some financial help...here's what I've written about him.Dear Friends,
I am writing to you about one of our youth who is studying in High School at this present time. His name is Julio Hernández. His Dad, Gollo, is the Pastor here in Cofradía and he has three other brothers; two of which are studying as well. My purpose for writing is to encourage others to help Julio financially with his schooling. I believe 100% in this young man. I have written numerous times about him in Newsletters, Ministry updates, our webblog, and I have mentioned him when we have spoken at churches. He is GOLD.
His desire for the future is to finish High School, go to a Bible Institute, and come back here to Cofradía to be the Youth Pastor. I cannot express the excitement I feel for his desires. He is turning into a great, fun leader and will make an awesome Youth Pastor. I have been praying for an intern to work along side of me and he is quickly becoming that person; I wasn’t really expecting the intern to come out of Cofradía.
Julio will be studying in High School for three years and he will need $1,500 for each year, which would be $150 a month. Geña and I believe so much in this young man that we have committed to $50 a month. Would you be interested in helping with a one-time gift or monthly gifts? It would be completely tax-deductible. You can send gifts to Alternative Missions and we would be able to withdraw the money here from the account.
We appreciate your help and I know that Julio and his parents, Pastor Gollo and Mati, do as well. Please let me know if you would like to help. Below are directions for gifts.
Thank you,
Steve and Geña Silberman
Missionaries to Cofradía, Mexico
Alternative Missions
steve@alternativemissions.com
http://thesilbermans.blogspot.com/
www.alternativemissions.com
· Please send your gifts to: Alternative Missions/PO Box 5835/Goodyear, AZ 85338
· Checks made out to ALTERNATIVE MISSIONS
· Send a note on a separate piece of paper indicating that it is for Cofradía Student Scholarship: Julio
· Or, another option is sending online at:
https://www.egivingsystems.org/support/42705/
This page is found at www.alternativemissions.com under the “Donate Online” tag as you place the mouse over the “staff” heading.
THANK YOU!!
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Vida Abundante (Abundant Life)
Last night we had our youth group meeting "Vida Abundante" in our house. There were around 16 youth and we had a great time. We are talking about our Life's Purpose on Friday nights and last night we focused on Seeking God. We looked at King Asa's life in 2 Chronicles 14-16. He was a good King that did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. When he sought God he had success, but when he didn't seek God first, there was war. It's a good lesson for us to seek God first in all we do and he will be with us guiding our way. There will be peace.
Friday, October 13, 2006
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Sunday, October 08, 2006
EL RETO (The Challenge) Video
I mentioned in the last post that you could check out the video by clicking "here." I forgot to make a link, so here it is...
www.cofradiamexico.com/Reto.wmv
Be advised that it may take a while if you have dial-up. Hope you enjoy.
www.cofradiamexico.com/Reto.wmv
Be advised that it may take a while if you have dial-up. Hope you enjoy.
THE FINAL CHALLENGE Report
We have not had a connection to the internet since Thursday. My intentions were to post this then, but something is wrong with our modem, it looks like we'll need a new one.
I don't have time right now to upload pictures, I'll try to do some later.
Here is what I was going to post...
It is hard to put into words the experience we just had with the youth. Originally, I started this game last year because some of the youth were growing “tired” of bible study after bible study. Some even quit going to church and never really made it a priority. Last year was a fun successful time of bringing back in the tired ones. This year, we did it again because of the fun we had last year and I added a few more things so it would be a great learning experience for everyone. Our primary goal was outreach; we wanted to reach out to more youth in the area, include the new students coming into Jr. High, and involve the fringe youth. I was so pleased on how this year turned out. We had 14 adults helping out with details and serving the youth. The team leaders (students) had more exposure as leaders and more freedom to lead their teams. This was our secondary purpose…to give the student leaders experience in leading groups. It was great! They ALL did a great job and we gave them certificates of appreciation at the end. It was also great to see some of the students who weren’t designated leaders step up and be great encouragers and strengthen their teammates when times were rough. This brought together the students; they made friends and they learned how to work together. Each week we gave a devotional from Philippians and encouraged them to apply the devotionals to the challenges of that week. The team leaders had time to spend with their team talking about the devotions and encouraging their team.
One of the neatest things that we saw was the development of leadership in the student leaders. They all stepped up to the plate. One of them, Julio, came out of his shell. He was a quiet shy guy until now. His desire is to become a youth pastor and let me tell you that after watching him during THE CHALLENGE, he definitely has what it takes. He lead his team and they followed him, he was goofy and everyone liked it, he corrected them and they listened, and he was a ham in the skit his team put together about Adam and Eve. What an amazing young man!
Another leader, Chuy (Julio’s older brother), is a natural leader. People follow him and he has a calm, mature way about working with people. One thing that stood out was that he came in late to take over for a different leader who wasn’t able to continue. The team was in last place the whole month (by a long ways, too) and when Chuy arrived, he kept the team alive and he was committed to them. He gave up watching one of the biggest soccer games of the year to be at the final meeting . That to most of us may not seem like a hard thing to do, but to him it was an “Abraham sacrificing Isaac” experience. Some of us may even be able to relate this to giving up watching the Super Bowl. He is a soccer fanatic, this was BIG! He showed a tremendous amount of maturity and commitment to his team and the program as a whole. WOW!
Another leader, Martin, has just come back from one year of Bible College and is a changed person. He was one of the most encouraging students playing the game. His team started a little weak, but by the end because of his leadership, his team won the game. He also brought in about 5 young guys from Arrayanes where it has been really hard to reach out to the youth. They all finished pretty excited and we took them to the beach yesterday for their prize. My prayer is that this will encourage those young guys to keep coming and be exposed more and more to the gospel to finally make a decision to serve Christ some day.
Finally, Lupita was the only female student leader we had. She did a phenomenal job taking on “the challenge” of being a leader. When I offered the position before we started the game to anyone who would come and talk to me about leading a team, she was there right away wanting to do it. I could see it in her face that she was ready! Her team was on top most of the time, but in the end they came up just short of winning the whole thing. She did a great job!
The events of the final evening consisted of a time of Praise songs, a short message about how God is the Potter and we are the clay and that He molds us through the “challenges” we face every day. Then each team presented a skit with the theme of their team name. While we were counting up all the points, Jay showed a video of THE CHALLENGE he put together special for that night. You can watch the video by clicking here. For the FINAL CHALLENGE we put together a Who Wants to be a Millionaire style game. They were to answer questions that started out easy, then got harder and harder about the Sunday sermons, different challenges they had, and a few other things that they learned in the past month. This gave the last place team an opportunity to catch up and actually win it. In the end, it had no bearing on who won; all the teams stayed in their same place and were unable to answer enough questions to pass another team.
It was a lot of work and we invested a lot of time and money into this outreach. It was a HUGE success. Thank you all for praying for and supporting this event. This has become a great tradition and they already can’t wait until we do it again…even some of the staff.
I don't have time right now to upload pictures, I'll try to do some later.
Here is what I was going to post...
It is hard to put into words the experience we just had with the youth. Originally, I started this game last year because some of the youth were growing “tired” of bible study after bible study. Some even quit going to church and never really made it a priority. Last year was a fun successful time of bringing back in the tired ones. This year, we did it again because of the fun we had last year and I added a few more things so it would be a great learning experience for everyone. Our primary goal was outreach; we wanted to reach out to more youth in the area, include the new students coming into Jr. High, and involve the fringe youth. I was so pleased on how this year turned out. We had 14 adults helping out with details and serving the youth. The team leaders (students) had more exposure as leaders and more freedom to lead their teams. This was our secondary purpose…to give the student leaders experience in leading groups. It was great! They ALL did a great job and we gave them certificates of appreciation at the end. It was also great to see some of the students who weren’t designated leaders step up and be great encouragers and strengthen their teammates when times were rough. This brought together the students; they made friends and they learned how to work together. Each week we gave a devotional from Philippians and encouraged them to apply the devotionals to the challenges of that week. The team leaders had time to spend with their team talking about the devotions and encouraging their team.
One of the neatest things that we saw was the development of leadership in the student leaders. They all stepped up to the plate. One of them, Julio, came out of his shell. He was a quiet shy guy until now. His desire is to become a youth pastor and let me tell you that after watching him during THE CHALLENGE, he definitely has what it takes. He lead his team and they followed him, he was goofy and everyone liked it, he corrected them and they listened, and he was a ham in the skit his team put together about Adam and Eve. What an amazing young man!
Another leader, Chuy (Julio’s older brother), is a natural leader. People follow him and he has a calm, mature way about working with people. One thing that stood out was that he came in late to take over for a different leader who wasn’t able to continue. The team was in last place the whole month (by a long ways, too) and when Chuy arrived, he kept the team alive and he was committed to them. He gave up watching one of the biggest soccer games of the year to be at the final meeting . That to most of us may not seem like a hard thing to do, but to him it was an “Abraham sacrificing Isaac” experience. Some of us may even be able to relate this to giving up watching the Super Bowl. He is a soccer fanatic, this was BIG! He showed a tremendous amount of maturity and commitment to his team and the program as a whole. WOW!
Another leader, Martin, has just come back from one year of Bible College and is a changed person. He was one of the most encouraging students playing the game. His team started a little weak, but by the end because of his leadership, his team won the game. He also brought in about 5 young guys from Arrayanes where it has been really hard to reach out to the youth. They all finished pretty excited and we took them to the beach yesterday for their prize. My prayer is that this will encourage those young guys to keep coming and be exposed more and more to the gospel to finally make a decision to serve Christ some day.
Finally, Lupita was the only female student leader we had. She did a phenomenal job taking on “the challenge” of being a leader. When I offered the position before we started the game to anyone who would come and talk to me about leading a team, she was there right away wanting to do it. I could see it in her face that she was ready! Her team was on top most of the time, but in the end they came up just short of winning the whole thing. She did a great job!
The events of the final evening consisted of a time of Praise songs, a short message about how God is the Potter and we are the clay and that He molds us through the “challenges” we face every day. Then each team presented a skit with the theme of their team name. While we were counting up all the points, Jay showed a video of THE CHALLENGE he put together special for that night. You can watch the video by clicking here. For the FINAL CHALLENGE we put together a Who Wants to be a Millionaire style game. They were to answer questions that started out easy, then got harder and harder about the Sunday sermons, different challenges they had, and a few other things that they learned in the past month. This gave the last place team an opportunity to catch up and actually win it. In the end, it had no bearing on who won; all the teams stayed in their same place and were unable to answer enough questions to pass another team.
It was a lot of work and we invested a lot of time and money into this outreach. It was a HUGE success. Thank you all for praying for and supporting this event. This has become a great tradition and they already can’t wait until we do it again…even some of the staff.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Catching Up
The past couple of days I've been catching up on some office work that I've kept to a minimal during the CHALLENGE game. We finished last Saturday and it was a huge success and a lot of fun. I'll try to have an update about it posted today or tomorrow.
Something else that we're really excited about here is that there is a Sam's Club in Tepic now. Tepic is the capital of Nayarit and just over an hour south of here. We've had a Wal Mart for a couple of years, and now we have a Sam's Club. This will be very helpful for when we have teams come because we normally shop from the Sam's Club in Mazatlan (3 hours north). This is great!
Something else that we're really excited about here is that there is a Sam's Club in Tepic now. Tepic is the capital of Nayarit and just over an hour south of here. We've had a Wal Mart for a couple of years, and now we have a Sam's Club. This will be very helpful for when we have teams come because we normally shop from the Sam's Club in Mazatlan (3 hours north). This is great!
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
False Christ???
I was reading my friend's blog site (see The Smith Family link to the right) this morning and came across an interesting post about some guy who calls himself Christ Jesus. The Bible says Christ will come back again. However, not the way this guy is protraying. Be advised...here's the link, http://www.cegenglish.com/.
This has got to be a joke. I don't know, but it's a good reminder of how real people can be decieved into believing something other than the Bible.
This has got to be a joke. I don't know, but it's a good reminder of how real people can be decieved into believing something other than the Bible.
Monday, September 25, 2006
THE CHALLENGE, Week #4
Last year we had a “Fear Factor” eating contest. It wasn’t really stuff that we would consider disgusting. It was just American foods that generally Mexicans don’t like…peanut butter, Dr. Pepper, Spaghetti…generally speaking. This year we went a step past last year and really made it interesting. It was more things that Americans wouldn’t eat, but not all Mexicans would eat them either. Half of an onion, a whole fresh chile jalapeño, cow tongue, cow eyes, etc. Everything was edible, but not exactly desirable. We had a lot of fun on Saturday night and the youth loved it! However, I was feeling kind of bad about seeing some of the youth suffer…especially with the onion. That was the only one we stopped before everyone finished. This Challenge is brining in more youth and exposing them to the church. We are so excited about that and we're seeing some new students show up at the Friday Night Bible Study at our hojme. Last Friday night we had 16 total and 4 of them had never been before. We talked about God's purpose for our life and we'll continue to talk about that in the weeks to come. We also gave them little 3X5 cards to write questions on...questions about anything really, but we tried to have them focus on questions about the bible. We had some pretty interesting ones. As we talk about purpose in the weeks to come, we'll also be answering some of the questions the youth have raised. It's pretty exciting here!
Cintia is looking for small coins in a plate full of powder...she can't use her hands!
Martin, the leader of the team Creation, is trying to cool his mouth off while eating the jalapeno pepper. He got second place by one swallow.
This is a disgusting clip from a movie taken on our camera of Ruben biting the end off of the cow's tongue. His team won the cow tongue eating contest. Most everyone who ate (3 per team) the tongue said it tasted good. My personal feelings are...YUK!
Cintia is looking for small coins in a plate full of powder...she can't use her hands!
Martin, the leader of the team Creation, is trying to cool his mouth off while eating the jalapeno pepper. He got second place by one swallow.
This is a disgusting clip from a movie taken on our camera of Ruben biting the end off of the cow's tongue. His team won the cow tongue eating contest. Most everyone who ate (3 per team) the tongue said it tasted good. My personal feelings are...YUK!
Monday, September 18, 2006
THE CHALLENGE, Week #3
It was Independence Day here in Mexico so in honor of Mexico’s independence, we played war games. It was a long evening, we had too many games, but it was a lot of fun! We had 8 new students join the game, now there are 36 in total. I am amazed at how the students are able to relate this to their every day life. The devotional I gave at the beginning dealt with the Spiritual Warfare we are in as Christians. We read in Ephesians chapter 6 that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” I encouraged them to remember that our struggle is not against people, but against Satan and all of his demons. That helps put things into a different perspective when people offend us or do things to us that we don’t especially like. To keep the “Philippians” theme, we finished with Philippians 4:13, “I can do everything through him (Christ) who gives me strength.” So, when struggles come and when we feel discouraged, we can know that Christ is with us and he’ll give us strength.
We call the games “Challenges” because that’s what they are. The first challenge for them was to paint their face. For some, I’m sure it was a challenge and a little embarrassing, however, they did it and I was proud of them. The other challenges included a “Shout” (something traditional here in Mexico is that on September 15 at mid-night, they have what they call a “Grito” or Shout). So each team shouted and we measured the noise level with the computer to see who won. There were water balloon launching games, egg fights (with flour in them), Kangaroo wrestling and a rendition of “Gladiators” with water balloons—which turned out to be the hit challenge. We had obstacles set up at the speed soccer court and the whole team had to try and make it to the finish while another team was throwing water balloons at them. It was a lot of fun to watch! The final challenge was tug-of-war in the mud.
I met with the student leaders for dinner after all the games and talked to them about how their teams are doing. They all are encouraged and are giving it all they’ve got. One of the leaders is new because the leader of his team wasn’t able to be there this past weekend. He did a great job leading and I’m fully confident that he will continue to be a great leader in the future and even get better at it. It was neat to see how they could relate the day’s theme with their group. We sometimes have challenges when we are leading. Julio, the one who has been learning how to deal with “stinkers,” did a great job this weekend and his team had a big change of attitude because of his leadership. I was impressed with him. I am excited about the impact this game is having on our students. They are learning how to be leaders, encouragers, participants, and how to reach out to others. It is encouraging to watch. Another great thing also is that we have such a great staff that is helping. Not just the missionary staff, but staff for the game, they are locals from the church body who have been helping with the details and doing all they can to make this a success for the youth and so that God will be glorified.
I want to thank all of you who support us financially. When you give, you give to events like this that make an impact in the lives of the students. Thank you!
We call the games “Challenges” because that’s what they are. The first challenge for them was to paint their face. For some, I’m sure it was a challenge and a little embarrassing, however, they did it and I was proud of them. The other challenges included a “Shout” (something traditional here in Mexico is that on September 15 at mid-night, they have what they call a “Grito” or Shout). So each team shouted and we measured the noise level with the computer to see who won. There were water balloon launching games, egg fights (with flour in them), Kangaroo wrestling and a rendition of “Gladiators” with water balloons—which turned out to be the hit challenge. We had obstacles set up at the speed soccer court and the whole team had to try and make it to the finish while another team was throwing water balloons at them. It was a lot of fun to watch! The final challenge was tug-of-war in the mud.
I met with the student leaders for dinner after all the games and talked to them about how their teams are doing. They all are encouraged and are giving it all they’ve got. One of the leaders is new because the leader of his team wasn’t able to be there this past weekend. He did a great job leading and I’m fully confident that he will continue to be a great leader in the future and even get better at it. It was neat to see how they could relate the day’s theme with their group. We sometimes have challenges when we are leading. Julio, the one who has been learning how to deal with “stinkers,” did a great job this weekend and his team had a big change of attitude because of his leadership. I was impressed with him. I am excited about the impact this game is having on our students. They are learning how to be leaders, encouragers, participants, and how to reach out to others. It is encouraging to watch. Another great thing also is that we have such a great staff that is helping. Not just the missionary staff, but staff for the game, they are locals from the church body who have been helping with the details and doing all they can to make this a success for the youth and so that God will be glorified.
I want to thank all of you who support us financially. When you give, you give to events like this that make an impact in the lives of the students. Thank you!
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Emma is Mexican and American
We went to Tepic (the Nayarit State capital) yesterday to get Emma's registration papers. She is now officially a Mexican with dual citizenship.
Baby with Jesus
(Written Aug. 21)
Early Sunday morning, 1 1/2 month old, Moises Del Rio went to be with Jesus. Moises' parents are Manuel and Marina and they are good friends from the church body here in Cofradia. Baby Moises had an infection of some kind and died a few hours after the doctor's gave him some medicine. It seems that the family is blaming the doctors for the death. Please pray for Manuel and Marina for strength to make it through this tough, tough time.
UPDATE (9/13): Just wanted to let everyone know that Manuel and Marina are doing a lot better. They have been coming to church more regularly. Thank you all for your prayers.
And...greetings to you too, Doug. Thanks for your comment, those were very kind words. Honduras was such a fun, yet sobering experience and I'm glad I got to spend that time with you and our team. Thanks for your prayers!
Early Sunday morning, 1 1/2 month old, Moises Del Rio went to be with Jesus. Moises' parents are Manuel and Marina and they are good friends from the church body here in Cofradia. Baby Moises had an infection of some kind and died a few hours after the doctor's gave him some medicine. It seems that the family is blaming the doctors for the death. Please pray for Manuel and Marina for strength to make it through this tough, tough time.
UPDATE (9/13): Just wanted to let everyone know that Manuel and Marina are doing a lot better. They have been coming to church more regularly. Thank you all for your prayers.
And...greetings to you too, Doug. Thanks for your comment, those were very kind words. Honduras was such a fun, yet sobering experience and I'm glad I got to spend that time with you and our team. Thanks for your prayers!
THE CHALLENGE Continues…
Ok, here's the update...
(This is a long one and the blog is having picture problems again)
This last weekend was a lot of fun. This game is turning out to be exactly what it was intended…the youth reaching out to others, the student leaders learning how to lead and gaining experience, and the participants are relating the challenges within THE CHALLENGE to their daily Christian walk. Here’s what Ruben had to say during testimony time at church on Sunday; “I give thanks to God because in THE CHALLENGE I’m learning that we go through tough things in life and this past weekend we were challenged to continue on in the race, even when it gets tough. It’s helping me in my walk with God.” Another youth, Julio, who is one of the leaders of a team is learning that not everyone is excited about the things you’re excited about. He has a couple of members of his team who are being “stinkers” (a word my mom used for me when I wasn’t the easiest to handle…by the way, I seldom heard that word [ha, ha]), they don’t want to participate 100%. Julio is learning how to deal with stinkers. Please pray for him, he would like to be a youth pastor some day and I’m excited to see him grow.
I’m excited for what God is doing in the lives of the youth right now. I’m excited to see fruit from these activities. Everyone has an opportunity to learn something. There are so many things that we can learn from, we’ll be using these examples for a while.
Saturday started out with the teams all getting together and I was surprised that not one person was late. We had 7 new students, so there are 28 participants now in the four teams. At the beginning, the four teams took some time together to be encouraged by their leaders and when we all came back together; we started the main event…a race. This race was a lot like The Amazing Race, they had to go to different spots to do an activity and the first team to the final destination got lots of points and a dinner. They started at the mission base where I gave the leaders of each team an envelope giving them directions on where to go. Each team was given a different place to go, equal lengths from the base where a Challenge Staff member was waiting for them to give them another envelope. In the envelope was a question they had to answer, can you figure it out? If you add the digits of a certain two-digit number and multiply the sum by itself, you’ll get the original number with the digits reversed. What number is it? This question was in one of Pastor Marc Pearson’s Just-a-Byte emails a while ago. Click on the comment with your answer if you like.
When they got the number, and they did it quickly, they were given directions to go back to the mission base to count the bricks of the sound system closet. This, I thought, was going to be an easy one. It was about 20 minutes before one team got the right answer. One team spent an hour trying to count them. There were 577 bricks.
From there they went to our house where Geña had a white board set up and they played a form of Pictionary. Once a team guessed 5 right, they then proceeded to the baseball field on the other side of town where they were to push the Nissan (base truck) around the bases. When they were done with that, they received an envelope telling them that they needed to go (accompanied with a pastor) to Arrayanes, a town about 3 kilometers north, and go to the church there and find their team’s nametag hidden somewhere on the property. The first team to find the nametag and come to me where I was standing was the team that won. The first team finished in 1 ½ hours; the last team came in about 40 minutes after that (the team that had difficulty counting bricks).
THE BEST THING ABOUT THE EVENING was that when all the teams where there, plus the 14 staffers that helped, we all went inside the church to talk about the race. We have a thing called Filipos (Philippi). Philippi is the place where the Philippians reside. Paul wrote to the Philippians a number of encouraging things. So, when we see people doing a good job, having good sportsman’s like conduct, encouraging others, helping others, etc. we give them a “Filipos.” That is worth 10 points for their team. We all got together and I had the pastors who accompanied the teams come forward and give some encouraging words. Then I opened it up to the Challenge Staff members. We could have spent all night encouraging the students, it was great! Even some of the youth wanted to come forward and give out Filipos. It was getting late, so not everyone who wanted to share had the opportunity. But, wow! It was a great time and the youth really liked it.
(This is a long one and the blog is having picture problems again)
This last weekend was a lot of fun. This game is turning out to be exactly what it was intended…the youth reaching out to others, the student leaders learning how to lead and gaining experience, and the participants are relating the challenges within THE CHALLENGE to their daily Christian walk. Here’s what Ruben had to say during testimony time at church on Sunday; “I give thanks to God because in THE CHALLENGE I’m learning that we go through tough things in life and this past weekend we were challenged to continue on in the race, even when it gets tough. It’s helping me in my walk with God.” Another youth, Julio, who is one of the leaders of a team is learning that not everyone is excited about the things you’re excited about. He has a couple of members of his team who are being “stinkers” (a word my mom used for me when I wasn’t the easiest to handle…by the way, I seldom heard that word [ha, ha]), they don’t want to participate 100%. Julio is learning how to deal with stinkers. Please pray for him, he would like to be a youth pastor some day and I’m excited to see him grow.
I’m excited for what God is doing in the lives of the youth right now. I’m excited to see fruit from these activities. Everyone has an opportunity to learn something. There are so many things that we can learn from, we’ll be using these examples for a while.
Saturday started out with the teams all getting together and I was surprised that not one person was late. We had 7 new students, so there are 28 participants now in the four teams. At the beginning, the four teams took some time together to be encouraged by their leaders and when we all came back together; we started the main event…a race. This race was a lot like The Amazing Race, they had to go to different spots to do an activity and the first team to the final destination got lots of points and a dinner. They started at the mission base where I gave the leaders of each team an envelope giving them directions on where to go. Each team was given a different place to go, equal lengths from the base where a Challenge Staff member was waiting for them to give them another envelope. In the envelope was a question they had to answer, can you figure it out? If you add the digits of a certain two-digit number and multiply the sum by itself, you’ll get the original number with the digits reversed. What number is it? This question was in one of Pastor Marc Pearson’s Just-a-Byte emails a while ago. Click on the comment with your answer if you like.
When they got the number, and they did it quickly, they were given directions to go back to the mission base to count the bricks of the sound system closet. This, I thought, was going to be an easy one. It was about 20 minutes before one team got the right answer. One team spent an hour trying to count them. There were 577 bricks.
From there they went to our house where Geña had a white board set up and they played a form of Pictionary. Once a team guessed 5 right, they then proceeded to the baseball field on the other side of town where they were to push the Nissan (base truck) around the bases. When they were done with that, they received an envelope telling them that they needed to go (accompanied with a pastor) to Arrayanes, a town about 3 kilometers north, and go to the church there and find their team’s nametag hidden somewhere on the property. The first team to find the nametag and come to me where I was standing was the team that won. The first team finished in 1 ½ hours; the last team came in about 40 minutes after that (the team that had difficulty counting bricks).
THE BEST THING ABOUT THE EVENING was that when all the teams where there, plus the 14 staffers that helped, we all went inside the church to talk about the race. We have a thing called Filipos (Philippi). Philippi is the place where the Philippians reside. Paul wrote to the Philippians a number of encouraging things. So, when we see people doing a good job, having good sportsman’s like conduct, encouraging others, helping others, etc. we give them a “Filipos.” That is worth 10 points for their team. We all got together and I had the pastors who accompanied the teams come forward and give some encouraging words. Then I opened it up to the Challenge Staff members. We could have spent all night encouraging the students, it was great! Even some of the youth wanted to come forward and give out Filipos. It was getting late, so not everyone who wanted to share had the opportunity. But, wow! It was a great time and the youth really liked it.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Quick Note
We were really busy with The Challenge last week. Last Saturday was one of the biggest challenges we had. 28 youth came out for the event and I had...and needed...14 staffers. It was a lot of fun! Today we'll be cleaning our shed a little, so I'll take the time to post about Saturday later. Keep checking for our update...
Monday, September 04, 2006
EL RETO Begins
EL RETO (THE CHALLENGE) is a game we started with the youth last year. We are doing it again this year and last Saturday was the first meeting. We will meet every Saturday of September and the youth will be challenged in many different areas; reaching out to others, having a good attitude and being a good sport. There are a lot of different games, or challenges, during the 5 weeks; physical, mental, and spiritual challenges. Each team will receive points during these challenges and the team with the most points at the end of the five weeks wins and we'll take them on an outing. This is a lot of fun and the youth are really excited about it. We had 21 youth start the game and we expect more in the coming weeks.
Last Saturday we divided everyone into four teams. The main challenge was to come up with a name for their team inspired from a Bible story, draw a picture about the story, and explain the story to everyone (at the end of the five weeks, we'll have a big youth event where each team will dramatize the story). The four teams decided on: Sembradores de Jesus (Jesus' Sowers) from the parable of the Sower; Los Primeroz (The First) from the story of Adam and Eve; Pescadores de Hombres (Fishers of Men) from the story of when Jesus calls his disciples to be "Fishers of Men"; and La Creacion (Creation) from the story of Creation. After this we had a quick little fun game just to accumulate points, and then each week we have a Final Challenge to decide which team will do some chores around the church property during the week. The team that looses that challenge has to do chores. Also, they received points for where they sat in church. One of the difficulties with the youth here in Cofradia is that they are not accustomed to sitting in the main Sunday service and usually are in the back talking the whole time. They'll recieve points for not doing that. In Arrayanes on the other hand, they are usually pretty respectful.
Next week we'll have a race for them to do and activities to do at different stations...much like the Amazing Race. It should be a lot of fun.
Here are the drawings the teams made...
Jesus' Sowers
The First
Fishers of Men
Creation
Last Saturday we divided everyone into four teams. The main challenge was to come up with a name for their team inspired from a Bible story, draw a picture about the story, and explain the story to everyone (at the end of the five weeks, we'll have a big youth event where each team will dramatize the story). The four teams decided on: Sembradores de Jesus (Jesus' Sowers) from the parable of the Sower; Los Primeroz (The First) from the story of Adam and Eve; Pescadores de Hombres (Fishers of Men) from the story of when Jesus calls his disciples to be "Fishers of Men"; and La Creacion (Creation) from the story of Creation. After this we had a quick little fun game just to accumulate points, and then each week we have a Final Challenge to decide which team will do some chores around the church property during the week. The team that looses that challenge has to do chores. Also, they received points for where they sat in church. One of the difficulties with the youth here in Cofradia is that they are not accustomed to sitting in the main Sunday service and usually are in the back talking the whole time. They'll recieve points for not doing that. In Arrayanes on the other hand, they are usually pretty respectful.
Next week we'll have a race for them to do and activities to do at different stations...much like the Amazing Race. It should be a lot of fun.
Here are the drawings the teams made...
Jesus' Sowers
The First
Fishers of Men
Creation
Storm Update
The storm has passed and it was nothing out of the ordinary for us. In fact, we have had less rain and less wind than normal in the past week. Last night it rained a bit and there's a cool breeze this morning, but other than that, it's been pretty hot and humid:).
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