Teaching Sunday School this morning
Good morning everyone! If you’re reading this in time, we would appreciate your prayers as Shari and I teach in the children’s Sunday School class this morning. (In Spanish – woo hoo!)
Ministry glimpses
Holiday activities (in pictures)
Sometimes I post things in our Photo Gallery and then don’t write anything about them here in our blog. There were a lot of activities over Christmas that I didn’t write about, or things I wrote about that I didn’t include pictures of.
Well, now you can check out some of those things in the gallery. For example:
- Decorating our Christmas tree
- Our church Christmas program. Hannah and Nathanael were Mary and Joseph, and Shari sang in the chorus. Jim helped control the kids!
- Shari’s trip to Canada – including photos of the family and Amy’s boyfriend Nate, their family Christmas and a hockey game they went to (¡muy canadiense!)
- Ximena’s birthday party that Hannah and I went to. Ximena is one of Hannah’s friends from school.
- Hannah and Nathanael’s school Christmas program at Colegio del Bosque. There are a few pictures, and even a short video with clips of the program.
- A posada we attended Рa posada is a traditional Christmas party. We were asked to bring a pi̱ata, so we had quite the adventures trying to figure out what was a proper pi̱ata and what should be inside a proper pi̱ata on such an occasion!
- Building a gingerbread house – a family activity.
- Christmas Day – family celebrations and guests. Actually, I didn’t take a lot of pictures later in the day when our guests were here, so I don’t even have pictures of all the O’Briens. Don’t worry, we love you all!
To see the photos, go to our Recent shots… album. (edit – these are old photos now, and are mostly in the Misc older photos album) The photos are shown newest first, and right now the photos from December take up about nine pages. Or, here’s the first photo from December. Then you can click previous to go to the next picture.
By the way, be sure to leave your comments! Just go the the picture you want, and click on Add Comment on the left side bar.
Moved with compassion
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At one of our recent Bible studies, Luis Eduardo started talking about what he had seen outside of a local hospital. This is where, of course, many families bring thier sick for treatment. The problem is, many of these families are very poor. They come from out of town, and have no family here to stay with. They can’t afford a hotel. So, they sleep outside the hospital on the ground.
Not only can they not afford a place to stay, they can’t afford warm clothes. Luis Eduardo said many of them were in shirt sleeves – men, women and children. With the temperatures getting down below 10C (50F), it’s cold enough to make more of the family sick!
Imagine the trauma of having someone in your family seriously ill – then added to that you have to sleep outside with no shelter, no warm clothes and little food. My friends wanted to do something about it.
You know, organized, planned giving is a great thing. Everyone should think through how they give, and make the most of what they can give. Jesus encouraged planning and counting the cost (Luk 14:25-32). But if we’re going to be like Jesus, we also have to let ourselves be "moved with compassion" (Mat 14:14). That means spontaneous, joyful giving – not relying entirely on calculating logic.
So I get pretty excited when I hear people simply seeing a need and getting excited about helping out!
Please pray for those who are giving up blankets, sweaters, coats and food for these people, and pray for those who have gone and will go again to the hospital to talk to these people and help where they can.
Speaking of spontaneous giving, many have been giving to help those who have been left with nothing after the disaster in the State of Tabasco. Many gave sacrificially right away. It’s now being made an official "project" of CAM International, so Lord willing others will be moved with compassion. Rod Fry just came back from Tabasco – to hear his account and see pictures, see his recent post.
Emails in a small world
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You know, I got thinking this morning that the internet sure has changed our lives (yes, I’m old enough to (barely) remember the BI (before internet) days).
Case in point? This morning I sat down to answer some email. As a result, I ended up….
- Writing a ten year old girl in the USA (Walla Walla Washington) who wants to be a missionary. She wanted me to email her and her church a story about missionary life. So I did.
- I wrote a new believer in India. He’s a new believer (from a Hindu family), so I was helping him locate Bibles in his language (Telugu).
- I published an article about headache and Lupus from a neurologist in Israel (Hadassa University Hospital in Jerusalem).
- I’ve been corresponding with someone from the USA living in Croatia, who recently posted some photos about Day of the Dead traditions over there.
- I wrote to someone in Saskatchewan, Canada who is wondering if their cluster headaches are connected to a tooth abscess.
- I connected with an MK who used to live in Bolivia and is now in the USA. She wrote me concerning one of my websites – she has a site with lots of Bolivia info.
North America, Asia, Middle East, Europe… Yes, I’d say the internet has made the world a little smaller!
Thanksgiving!
I’m just stopping by to wish you all a happy Thanksgiving (which is today in Canada)!
We are especially thankful for the news we got from La Villa Castilla today. You can read more at their blog here, but the short story is that he didn’t need bypass surgery, but just had minor surgery and will be released tomorrow. The doctors are still concerned – wondering why these blockages keep happening. So, there are questions to be answered, but so far so good.
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We didn’t do a lot to celebrate Thanksgiving today, except eat leftovers. We did have friends over for Thanksgiving, David and Lety and their one year old daughter Giselle. We’re thankful for them too!
Here’s Giselle with some silly clown hair from our kids’ dressups. Hannah came out dressed as a clown earlier, and Giselle was just captivated. 😉 Hannah never had such a good audience!
Anyway, we have a lot to be thankful for. Sometimes I think God drops Thanksgiving right down into more difficult times in our lives, to remind us that there’s still so much good.
Good from a good God!
The good, the great, and the fantastic!
Enough doom and gloom – let’s talk about some of the good things that are happening!
It’s been great to see people here that are excited to grow in the Lord. You may know I’m not necessarily a big "church program" fan – I get suspicious when someone makes it sound like this or that new program will transform the people in the church. On the other hand, program or not, when I see people struggling with the big issues, trying to get to know God, and looking to grow through His Word – it’s a thrill!
Last night I was with some people like that. We were talking about a devotional book that’s been made available here. It was great to see families coming together to talk about their daily time in prayer and Bible reading and meditation.
Last week I went to a Caminata Biblica presentation (you may know it as Walk Thru the Bible – the Old Testament seminar). The seminar was professionally presented by Tim Blycker from Puebla (great job, Tim!). There were quite a few people from our little church there (I’d say 15 or 20), all there to learn more about the Old Testament.
As a matter of fact, there were several kids that have been coming to our kids clubs as well. They sat in the front row, paying attention and getting involved like everyone else. Pretty cool! Pray for these kids – the ones I know best are Santiago and Luz.
At the Caminata Biblica seminar
(looks like the audience is a little behind!)
I’ve started going to a small group study with some friends (I say that in faith, because I’ve actually only been to one, due to health issues!). Let me tell you, you don’t know how much you miss something like that until you’ve had a break from it (that’s a little shout out to our past small-group friends – you know who you are!)! Again, it was great to see people together struggling with real life issues, with an open Bible in front of them. Right on! I can’t wait until next week!
Meanwhile, at school I’ve had some one-on-one classes. I’ve been taking the opportunity to work through some Gospel materials, and I’ve been discussing the promises of Jesus, faith, human nature, and all stuff like that there with my teachers. I noticed my teacher writing down several of the passages we went through – hopefully she’ll come back to them again.
So I’m sure it’s been a learning experience for my teachers and me. 😉 It’s been good to continue developing materials that I’ve used in Spanish.
So you see, life certainly isn’t all bad! I could say more, but this is a post not a novel. We’ve also been so encouraged by friends, knowing they’re willing to help, and (those who are believers) to pray for us (and my parents as well). As Thanksgiving approaches in just over a week, there’s no doubt we will have a lot to be thankful for. But don’t we always?