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!