Melting Mid Week

Enjoying such wonderful hot weather quite a change from our Canadian Winter! --- --- --- Prayer request --- --- Kaitie still has some discomfort in her stomach and is feeling weak. Unfortunately she has not been able to participate in the morning ESL sessions here in Barranquilla. She did come on Monday evening, but on Tuesday and Wednesday needed to rest. Michelle has stayed with her during this time. Please pray for complete recovery for Kaitie so she can be part of the teaching again and join us in the last few days in Barranquilla. --- Nicole’s voice is getting better. Reducing her chatting and keeping her voice for the session seems to be working well. If you could continue to pray for healing for her knee that would be much appreciated. --- Our morning ESL in Barranquilla has been very challenging. The first few days we found it difficult to even cultivate relationships with the students. It almost felt like we were teaching at an insurmountable wall. It is quite different teaching young students as opposed to adults who desire to be learning English. We keep reminding ourselves that we are here for God and to represent his love to these students. Today, we had a break through. And we know this is only because of God. The students were much more engaged and each of the facilitators at the tables felt like they were finally building relationships with them. We ask that you would continue to pray for us – especially as we make alterations to the two seminars that are left. These are big topics (bullying and decision making) and we want these topics to give us opportunity for good discussion, and ultimately to share the love of Jesus. --- Laura, Eleanor, Nicole & Sarah (our main translator) worked late last night after the evening session to plan and organize the 3rd lesson for the early morning activities. Melissa & Nick also worked together to translate his testimony as he was sharing it on Wednesday - both morning and evening. Nick’s testimony this morning talked about God’s love for him, and that this same love was available to the students as well. We pray that it will have an impact on their hearts. --- Laura and Eleanor were teaching and managed to keep everyone motivated this morning and on track even with the changes. Brad mentioned that his table had more interest this morning and he was encouraged. Nicole has also found that the girls at her table were more understanding and willing to share their thoughts as we taught them how to share their “opinions”. --- We did notice that discipline is a problem and bullying is all around, even as we work throughout the sessions. It will be interesting to see how God will work in the hearts of the young teens as we talk about bullying tomorrow. Both girls and boys are very aggressive towards each other, in words and actions. Jennifer mentioned that: it is important for the children learn from people from other countries and their culture because when they grow up they will remember what they learn when they were young and it could be a motivation to change their future. --- --- PRAISE --- Melissa would like to thank everyone for praying for her interview for Qwanoes. How cool that she had friends in a completely different country praying for her. She is so grateful. --- Sara is very thankful about the prayers for Qwanoes as she also was accepted to work at the camp this coming summer in Vancouver BC. She is really glad to be on this trip because she sees the importance of each part of the body in this team. --- Juan Pablo is very comfortable around the table in the evening session because it is like we are talking between friends. It is really interesting seeing how each and everyone of our participants is eager to maintain a good English conversation with both Nicole and myself. --- During the evening session, Adam found that everyone was happy to talk in English and share willingly. There was a lot of laughter around the table, which really shows the comfort, and building of relationships that is taking place. --- Philip truly enjoys teaching kids, as they are very energetic and fun. They have bonded with him and they are excited because we are from Canada and they feel very fortunate which is encouraging for Philip. They are very curious about him and about the English language even the one who are not so comfortable still want to be involved. ---