ESL

We are at the 2 week mark here in Mexico. Tiredness is starting to really kick in. I think I've successfully gotten several people sick here from my cold (sorry guys!). It's inevitable living together all the time.

Here's some pictures of what we see traveling from place to place.

As you can see, they make fences out of just about anything here.
including the tops of old cars. We even saw some old bed springs as parts of fences. We went to this little place in the farming community to do ESL (English as a second language) a couple of times this week. Some of the people's homes seem pretty poor. A few of the houses look like they are made out of garbage. It's pretty crazy.

Here's the church where we did the ESL classes. The basic idea is to use it as a means to build relationships with the people. And it works, too.
When we got there the first time, they were having church. Afterwards we did the class. I did some translating with the pastor to figure out how we were going to do it. That was exciting.


This is Graham. We were teaching them body parts. It was pretty funny.

I was looking around for Liam afterwards, and there he was, the Mexican girls were holding him and playing with him. He is a missionary at heart. He warms up to everybody and everybody loves him.
During the week, every morning, we have devotions. The guys all take turns teaching. This is the downstairs living area that we meet in. We meet at 7am. Which doesn't seem that early, until you add 1/2 hour for shower time before, 1/2 hour to get the kids up and dressed before, and 1/2 hour for my own devotion time... that gets me up pretty early. And so the day begins. But, let me tell you, it's awesome. If I've learned anything at all at this training school, it's the importance of our own devotion time with the Lord. (which I already knew, but it sure is good to be reminded).

The roads are unbelievably bumpy at times. They were pretending they were on a roller coaster. One day, I stayed home from ESL because I've been pretty sick & I needed to rest a little to try and get better. Anyways, that day they got stuck in some mud coming home from ESL. They were thinking about getting out and pushing, but I guess they used the other vehicle to get them out. It was a good thing, too. I heard later that the mud wasn't just mud, it was sort of sewage mud. Yuck!

This was the last day we did the class. There were a lot of kids that day. It was fun. We definitely made some relationships. That's really the point in missions. We are to make disciples. The way that Jesus did that was to live with them, teaching them by example. It was really through relationships. I'm getting really excited to get to Peru. I've learned a lot about ministering cross culturally. It's changed my thinking a lot. Gloria a Dios.