Cambio de Rumbo--Saturday morning

Early Saturday morning, nearly 125 women arrived at Iglesia Bautista Vida Nueva to pick up their registration packet for our annual women's ministry retreat.  It took more than two hours to get everyone through the line, give general instructions and find our small groups 

We boarded the buses with our small group. (Thankfully, a team of able-bodied men loaded all of the suitcases!)  Once on the bus the "crazy" began.  Unlike in the states, no one stays in their seats--instead the bus leaders formed two teams (left side and right side) and challenged the teams to decorate their side of the bus, with the crepe paper, balloons, stickers and tape they handed out.  No one seated during that time--and yes, the bus is driving through the city.  

The decorating contest was just the first of three challenges; the second was making up new actions to a children's song about Jonah and the third was making up words/phrases with the letters they passed out to us.  The best part is that the two-hour trip seemed to fly by.

We arrived at Entre Pinos Resort about 11:30 a.m. and trekked up the hill to the conference center.  The same able-bodied men mentioned earlier, unloaded all the luggage and delivered it to the rooms.  

We sat with our groups and the music team lead us in a sweet time of worship, introducing the theme song, Oceans, by Hillsong.  You can find a video of this amazing song, by clicking here.

Unlike previous years, there wasn't any whole-group teaching.  All four of the teaching times, each one focusing on one of the four chapters of the book of Jonah, were done within our small group.  (Earlier in the month, 40+ group leaders were trained by the women's ministry team.)  At the retreat there were 27 groups, each with a leader and 3-5 women.  This allowed plenty of time to learn, discuss and share our insights and struggles.

3rd Anniversary Lunch

Saturday was a busy day.  As soon as I returned home from the women's event in Apopa, I got to work making my contribution to our IDEM group's potluck lunch.  We got together to celebrate the 3rd anniversary of meeting together, studying together, maturing together and sharing life.

We had a great lunch with roasted chicken (Costco), mashed potatoes, rice, green salad, fruit salad, tortillas and a "birthday" cake.  Our group is famous for celebrating, usually with food.  For that reason Stephen thinks we should change the name of the group from IDEM, which in English is pronounced like Eden only with an M on the end, to FIDEM (rhymes with Feed'Em.)  

Here's some pictures of the celebration!

May Campaign--Day 1 and 2

Our May campaign started off slowly and by that I mean that the first team that arrived was a small, but mighty group of five from Pleasant Grove Baptist Church in Molton, Alabama.  It was the first mission trip for the four women, but you wouldn't know it.  They have been so faithful to share the gospel even though they were nervous and felt unprepared.  However, as we all know, obedience is the key!  We went out on campaign Saturday night, to church in Lourdes on Sunday and then out again on Sunday evening.  

IDEM Cycle 7

Tuesday night we started the seventh cycle with our IDEM (discipleship) group.  It was a night for catching up after a 6-week break, planning our Thanksgiving celebration and beginning our study of the Sermon on the Mount.

Sharing at IDEM

Last night was IDEM (small group discipleship) night; we missed the session last week because we were coming back from Guatemala.  The IDEM curriculum has 9 sessions (3 per year.)  We are currently in the middle of the 5th session and have been meeting with this small group for 18 months (and have another 18 months to go.)  The friendship/love/support within this group is amazing as we've shared our lives, our testimony and the things that are most important to us.

The focus of this session is on the development of the Christian as a servant; the excellent material was written by Pastor Julio Contreras.  Studying the material is an interesting process--we receive it electronically in Spanish.  I copy it into Google translate which does average job turning it in to English.  (I'm not bashing Google Translate--without using it as a starting point, I'd never get all the way through the material.) Then, I spend several hours reading the Spanish and making adjustments to the English translation.  Once finished Stephen and I read the English version to be sure we understand the Spanish material.  Yesterday we studied Chapter 4, entitled "Hands to the Work."

Our IDEM groups meets for 2 hours on Tuesday evening.  Since most of the group is coming directly from work, we take turns bringing food.  Last night's main dish was Bean Soup with ham and dessert was "torreja" with sauce made from prunes.  It was more or less french bread with a fruit sauce.  Here's a picture:

Evidently it is a traditional dish from Spain which is usually served during lent.  Unfortunately, my "healthy diet" which doesn't allow bread or sugar, kept me from trying it.  The rest of the group, however, raved about it so I will assume it was quite tasty.

Last night's discussion of Chapter 4 was a little different than our normal routine.  Everyone was given 4 minutes (Ryan Blackstock, a gringo, is our group leader--hence the strict time limit) to share what was most impactful about the chapter.  Of course, hearing this puts fear in the heart of both me and Stephen.  Sharing is Spanish is still difficult!  But, we did it!  I was well under the time limit and Stephen even exceeded it by a bit.  Progress, progress!

Metamorphosis!

This weekend Iglesia Bautista Vida Nueva's annual women's retreat.  Just over 130 women from all four of our sites (Miravalle, Crown Plaza, Lourdes, Apopa) traveled two hours north of San Salvador to Hotel Alicante.  This year's theme was "Metamorphosis."  

The two days were full of activities (painting our personal Metamorphosis tote bag, visiting a butterfly garden, games and dramas), sharing (prayer time, meals and group discussions) and personal reflection time.  

The days were also full of great Bible studies as we heard from three different teachers who focused on the phases of the butterfly life cycle.  First, Ena Lopez taught us about the caterpillar!  Did you know that not all caterpillars become butterflies?  This reminded us of immature Christians who still need milk long after they should be feasting on the meat of the word (Hebrews 5:11-14.)  Dr. Marta Colato taught about the chrysalis.  We never realized until we saw it on video just how the small caterpillar struggles to envelop itself in a hard protective shell.  What comes next for the chrysalis?  Waiting!  They are wrapped up and hanging from a thread for 21-23 days.  The chrysalis reminds us to put off the set aside the old things, renew our minds with the mind of Christ and be ready to become a new creature (Ephesians 4:22-24.)  Patty Contreras finished the study by talking about the finished work of the butterfly!  Just like the butterfly there is a process to follow to be transformed into a new creature.  It includes worshiping God, finding peace in his Word and offering him our surrendered lives.  (2 Kings 5:1-14.)

We were left to answer the following questions:  In what part of the process of metamorphosis are we?  What do we need to do to begin/continue the process of transformation so we can become the women Christ intends us to be?

Here are some great pictures from the weekend!

 Craft time

Chrysalis at the butterfly garden

Beautiful orange butterfly

 My small group discussing after the first Bible study session

 Grounds of the hotel--a bit too cold to swim, though.

 It was so great to get to know the ladies in my small group

 

Group picture in our Metamorphosis shirts

Back to IDEM

We were at IDEM (acronym for Discipleship 2) tonight after spending last week in Costa Rica.  We're so blessed to have Ryan and Keeley Blackstock (missionaries from KCBT) as our leaders.  The IDEM lessons were written by Pastor Steve and Pastor Julio which means that they are awesome.  Of course, they're in Spanish so they're very challenging for us.

We have now spent a year studying, eating, laughing and fellowshipping with the 8 couples in our group.  We have two weeks left in the third session.  This week's lesson was about the tower of Babel; Ryan asked us to focus on what we can learn/apply from Genesis 11.  Amazingly, we can be just as proud and rebellious as those descendants of Noah.  Lord, help us be obedient, not ambitious for our own glory.

How did it get to be the end of July?

Where is this year going?  It's unbelievable that it's been 7 months since we rang in the new year!  I guess the old saying that "time flies when you're having fun" is true.

Yesterday was a long day with quite a bit of time spent in the horrible traffic we have here in San Salvador.  I made my way to Denny's yesterday morning to celebrate Kathia's birthday with several other women from our IDEM (small group.)  If not for the accident that snarled traffic, I would have been early.

Just after noon we ventured out to pick up our truck at the dealership after it's 24,000 kilometer checkup.  Jeff and Paula let us use their truck while ours was in the shop which makes it easy to pick ours up after they finish the work.  The traffic is always crazy at noon, but at least my stop at the bank to pay rent (early because of the Costa Rica trip next week) didn't take as long as normal.

Tuesday is our regular small group night and our leaders, missionaries Ryan and Keeley Blackstock, were back from their summer furlough to share their ministry and update their supporting churches.  Although we left a few minutes later than normal (due to the fact that we couldn't find Stephen's reading glasses,) it really didn't matter because it was one of "those" traffic nights.  You know it's going to be bad when the cars on the ramp you need to use are sitting at a dead stop and are backed up to the highway you are on..  Even though we've lived here three years now, we still haven't mastered this crazy city, so we have limited options for avoiding bad traffic.  We managed to bail out and go another way, but that route was crazy, too. We finally arrived at 7:45 after being on the "way" for over an hour. By the way, it's about 5 miles and without traffic takes less than 10-12 minutes.

Like I said, it was a long day with more traffic time than we like.