Corn Harvest Celebration- "La Elotiza"

To celebrate the corn harvest, we invited a large group of people over to the house and grilled corn all day long! The kids look forward to this every year, as they get to eat as much corn as they want and play with kids from church for hours. In true Mexican style, there really wasn't an end time, so people stayed all day, enjoying fellowship and food. It was helpful for me to be able to meet a few more people as well. I've posted pictures below.

This week, I presented the gospel to the older kids in a very explicit way. I pray that God is sowing seeds of understanding in their hearts and giving them the desire to know him.

The keyboard stopped functioning last week, which placed a halt on my piano lessons. But thankfully, we found the fix today so we only lost one week. One student in particular came into the initial piano lessons dragging his feet because he didn't have a lot of confidence in his ability. It's fun to see how his confidence has been built in just a short time. HE was the one asking me when the keyboard could be fixed and when we could continue lessons :). I love it!

We were all very excited to welcome the new intern Meredith on Thursday, who will be here with us until December. She will be helping Jenny and I with the younger kids in the mornings and then will help provide childcare for the babies in the afternoons. She will be a wonderful help to fill in what is needed. God always knows what we need, and I'm learning that firsthand!

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Shucking corn in preparation!

The large homemade grill!

The crowd enjoying the corn and fellowship!

I've just posted some fun bonus pictures below: 

This is the roof, where I bring all my 2nd-5th grade readers every day to read. Talk about beauty! Can you imagine having your silent reading time look like this everyday? :)

One of our littlest! Such a joy :)

A storm brewing over the mountains at sunset....Power and beauty combined!

Mexican Independence Day!

This week was/is the week of celebrations! September 16th was Mexico's Independence Day, so we had a fun visit from a group of ladies from our church in Guadalajara. They brought traditional Mexican dresses and suits for the kids, gave a presentation on the history of the independence, made us a meal, and played games for a few hours! They also brought a new store of supplies for the house. They were such a blessing! I have attached some pictures below. 

We also celebrated three birthdays in the house (Jenny's is on Saturday) and are preparing for a big corn harvest celebration on Sunday. 

One of the joys I have had while being down here is the opportunity to teach the Bible to my students. I currently teach Bible to the kindergarteners and first graders. Because some of them do not speak strong English yet, I teach the class in Spanish. There are five of them and some of them have never heard these stories before. I started with creation, and then moved on into teaching about the fall. God never ceases to amaze me through the children I teach. One student asked me: "Who created God?" "Will God ever die?" And in response to hearing that the serpent deceived Eve, she asked: "Why did God create the serpent?" Yeah...try answering those for the mind of a six year old :). But I LOVE it because they are truly thinking and pondering the meaning behind the stories.  I had the exciting opportunity to share the gospel story with them this week. As you can imagine, that left me a little nervous since I wanted to be sure I was communicating clearly in Spanish! I prayed for God's help and I could definitely tell he met me with the words and the tools that I needed. Pictures speak volumes :).  I wish I could have shared the intense concern on their little faces when they saw the pictures of Christ's hands nailed to the cross or their rapt attention when they heard about Christ raising from the dead. I'm truly experiencing Jesus' words: "Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."-Matthew 18:4

My precious little Bible class above and our wonderful Independence Day celebration below!

Authentic churros-think deep-fried cinnamon bliss! A man who makes churros in the market donated his time and amazing skills to make them for all the kids. Apparently, these were the best churros anyone had ever had!

Our First Field Trip!

Today we went into Guadalajara for our first field trip! The kids were so excited! I've attached a video of their cheering in the house before we set out :). We traveled to the Marinela factory, a factory that would be similar to Hostess in terms of the products they make. Watching sugary treats being processed=happy kids! They were fascinated and gifted with at least 5 huge packets of cookies/cakes/etc. by the time we left. Here were my two favorite quotes of the day:

"This is the best day ever!"
One little one leaned their head on Jenny's shoulder and said, "I'm so happy!"

The day ended with a trip to a playground and then to Costco for pizza! I've posted some pictures below.

A couple of other things started up for us this week as well. Jenny is leading a small group for the older girls on site (of which I'm a part as well). We had our first group tonight and it went really well! We are studying Philippians, and for two of the girls, this is the first time they've ever been taught how to dive into the Bible. I'm so excited to be able to teach both truth and skills to them!

The second exciting undertaking is piano lessons! I've been given the opportunity to teach piano to as many children as possible. I'm starting with the 6 oldest and will see from there if I can add any onto my schedule.

Our beautiful caps and mouth guards for entering the factory! Note: The blue cookies we are holding are the best cookies in the world! :) 

Different Kinds of Beauty

The beauty of serving hearts...

I can tell life is never going to be dull here! This week, a mission team from Pennsylvania came and has been building bookshelves for a future library, helping us hook electricity up in our schoolroom, and taking the bulk of the childcare role. It is such an amazing experience to be on the other end, to receive the rest that comes with people willing to throw themselves into intense service for a week in order to give us a break.

The beauty of a child's eagerness...

These children eat up our instruction like water! I read a devotion to the class this morning encouraging kids to read their Bible little by little every day to start up a habit and after school I walked down to discover one of my students sitting on the couch reading the Bible. Upon seeing me, the student asked, "Maestra Amber, how many verses do I read at a time? I'm trying to do what you read about this morning."

On a fun note, I mentioned my love of birds in class a couple days ago and the students have been obsessed with birds ever since! Today, if you can believe it, I walked outside to find that the older boys had been birdwatching for at least half an hour in the front yard with binoculars. One had even made drawings of the ones they had seen so he could show me! :)

The beauty of God's rescue... 

One of the children was asked today to thank God for something, to which came the reply: "I'm thankful that I have a family here." The adult mentioned that the child had a family before they had come to the shelter and heard the following response: "Yeah, but they didn't love me." What a powerful picture this was, not only of the effectiveness of this ministry, but of our own spiritual rescue in the Lord! 

The beauty of creation...

I thought I would share a couple pictures of the amazing landscape around the children's shelter. I'm certainly drinking in God's creation everyday! 

First Day of School!

To say the kids have a hunger to learn is an understatement! School is a BIG deal to them. This morning, many of them were late for breakfast because they were making sure their outfits and hair were perfect (boys included). When we were outside for first recess (we're talking only about a 15 minute recess), the following question was asked multiple times: "Can we go back to school now?" At lunch, the student who prayed said, "And thank you Lord that we could have school today!" Upon the announcement that the end of the school day had come, some audible groans even came out! What an amazing opportunity, to serve children who can't get enough of knowledge and learning! The day went very smoothly and I'm excited to see transitions and routines get better as time goes on.

The fact that the children are becoming bilingual adds such a rich element to learning! I absolutely LOVED the ability to teach in both languages today, to have the students help each other with English and me with my Spanish :) I continue praising the Lord for such a wonderful opportunity.

Here are some pictures of our first day:

This is the children's shelter and schoolhouse building right now. The bedrooms and living space is downstairs and the schoolroom is upstairs. Although it's in their house, we still have the students function very much as though they are in a school. They form lines to walk outside to recess, specials, and to attend lunch. We work hard on making it a realistic school environment for them. Construction is underway for some permanent schoolrooms on the other side of the lot. 

Our bright and cheerful classroom decorated by Jenny! The lighting may make it hard to see in this picture. It does not currently have electricity and this picture was taken early in the morning. We are hoping to have electricity in a couple of weeks.

Maestra Jenny and I with all our wonderful students! :) 

Maestra Jenny doing a sword drill with the older students! What a blessing to be able to teach them scripture!!

You Know You're In Mexico When...

1. As you're walking up the stairs to your room for the night, you see a huge tarantula (see pic below) almost the size of your hand walk slowly out of the shadows and spend the next 10 minutes trying to capture it. (Correction: You spend the next 10 minutes WATCHING others try to catch it :)

2. You are told to keep shoes on at all times inside and outside so you don't accidentally step on a scorpion with bare feet.

3. You're told that a scorpion was recently seen in your own room.

4. In the hour before bed, you actually see not one, but TWO scorpions IN your room (see pics below)...and then you lay your head down to sleep in restful peace. Note: Apparently these scorpions are not deadly-just painful...whew!

5. You're wakened not by birds, but by a deafening chorus of roosters and cows from all parts of the village.

I thought those experiences might bring a smile or tears of fright to some :), but truthfully I have absolutely LOVED my first 24 hours in Mexico! I was greeted with a sign of welcome that all the students had made for me (see pic below). They cannot stop talking about how excited they are to start school and ask us about it everyday, which is evidence of how special Jenny (my co-teacher) made it for them last year and how far some of them have come.

Jenny and I are spending today and tomorrow finishing the setup of the schoolroom and planning for the first few days, and then school starts on Thursday!

Thank you so much for all your prayers! My flights were incredibly smooth, with no trouble in customs or motion sickness.

I'll post pictures of the shelter and the school soon!

Almost There...

Wow! Time absolutely flies! July and August have been filled with logistics, packing, curriculum planning, and spending time with friends and family before I leave. God has been so faithful to bring in the support I need, and things are coming together nicely. I'm down to a week and a half before my departure. My flight leaves on August 27th in the morning and I will arrive in Guadalajara that same evening. I've been blessed to be able to share a flight down with Amy Acosta, the "mom" at the shelter, who is currently in the States. I am looking forward to getting to know her before the initial chaos sets in :). From there, we will be picked up by someone from the shelter who will drive us the additional 1.5 hours into Camichines. I'm not sure when the official start date of the school will be, but I'm hoping for a couple days to recuperate and plan when I arrive. I would appreciate prayers for a seamless transition from one country to the other (in terms of insurance, banking, travel, and other such logistics) as well as for a great start with the students!