The Lenten Season

Today is Ash Wednesday and that means the beginning of Lent. Growing up I always wondered what that meant-Lent that is because that wasn't a huge focus in the church I grew up in. Over the years however, I have learned and continue to learn what the season of Lent is and what it can do in our journey. I read this today about Lent and thought I would share it with you...

During Lent, traditionally observed for the 40 days leading up to Easter Sunday, followers of Christ all around the world sacrifice things important to them, intentionally drawing themselves away from desires driven by their five senses. Lent helps us become more focused on the spiritual part of ourselves, preparing our hearts to genuinely experience the passion of Jesus’ sacrifice for us on the Cross. Lent draws us closer to God through purposeful prayer, self-denial, repentance, giving, and time in the Bible:

“Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.”
—Romans 8:5

I am going to take a challenge presented by a friend to read the Gospels throughout this Lenten season. Starting tomorrow we are to read 2 chapters starting in Luke. I sometimes get nervous taking on challenges like this-probably because I don't want to fail. I pray God uses this time in the work to draw me closer to himself as we experience His journey to the Cross.

Reflections on my time in the jungle...

When I think of the teaching time we had in the jungle, it is definitely different than I expected. It's probably different from what you're picturing too. We didn't have monkeys all around us in the trees, in fact, it didn't really feel like we were in the jungle at all-until we looked past the little school we were in and saw we were surrounded by jungle. I guess I'm not exactly sure what I was thinking it would be like. I wasn't expecting to have a dry erase board or desks or a projector, but we had all of those. There was loud latin music playing across the street, and kids in the dirt street playing soccer outside the school doors. There were 5 kids and 1 teacher that showed up for the disabilities teaching. One of the activities I did was to assign different disabilities to kids in the group and then have them work together to build something out of straws. Not so easy. The objective was to see if those who were blind or couldn't speak were left out. It was interesting to me that ALL of those involved in the activity were involved! The others helped out those who couldn't work in the exact same way. Isn't that how the body of Christ should be? All of us working together with our strengths AND our weaknesses? God can use our weaknesses, sometimes in more ways at times than our strengths. As I mentioned in the previous post, one of the girls said something about my lack of Spanish as being a disability and indeed it can be and is. But hopefully God can use me in spite of it! I challenge you to not be afraid to show your weaknesses. Sometimes God can use those to touch others around us in ways we don't even know.

P.S. The students told us that the 2 weeks before when we were supposed to be there, one of the girls in the class got bitten by a snake...an X is what it is called. She was rushed to the hospital and they said she is doing OK. I am SO thankful I wasn't there to see that-I'm not sure how much help I would have been after seeing a snake!

Time in the Jungle, Teaching

As I posted recently, 2 weeks ago or so, we tried to make a trip to the jungle, specifically a village called Guagua Sumaco for me (Kim) to do teaching about disabilities to the youth of this area. On the way though, we were stopped because a bridge was out.
This previous Saturday (the 18th) we tried the trip again and MADE IT! My friend and fellow missionary, Mandy Hjelm went with us to help translate. I think for my first real teaching experience, it went pretty well. I tried to incorporate a lot of activities to break up the mound of information I gave which I think was good for the kids. You can see some of the above pictures. The activities were supposed to simulate different types of disabilities and how that would effect doing simple activities such as opening a piece of candy with a motor disability, trying to work together in a team with multiple disabilities such as being blind or not being able to use a hand or talk. Another activity was having the kids try to write their names with a piece of paper on their forehead. This would simulate how the brain may confuse letters. Overall, it was a great experience!
I asked a question during the lesson about disabilities and how it might effect the students. One in the class responded with "it's kind of like you and not being able to speak Spanish well". She didn't mean this is an insult, but it was very, very true. Not speaking the language fluently yet is a bit of a disability, but I KNOW that God can still use me, in SPITE of me and in SPITE of my limitations with the language. AMEN!

Pray CONTINUALLY?

A couple of days ago, I was thinking of friends and family and situations that I was going to be praying for throughout the day that day and I got really overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by the amount of things that my friends and family are going through-separations, adoptions, trying to have a baby, surgeries, depression, loss of family members, and so, so many more. I don't know if others every feel this way, but I just felt overwhelmed. I have wrestled with this in my head because I don't know if this is right or not, I mean, praying for my friends, family and others is not a burden, in fact, I'm glad people trust me enough to allow me to walk with them and lift them up to Jesus. I still just keep thinking though, HOW much there is to pray for and that I don't know if I can keep up. Sometimes I think, 'do my prayers even matter?' Then I felt like Jesus was saying to me again for like the 100th time-TRUST ME! 'I AM IN CONTROL' This is the verse that came to my head...

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
New International Version (NIV)
16 Rejoice always, 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
How POWERFUL! Pray CONTINUALLY-not just when you feel like it or when things are going great or when it's easy! PRAY CONTINUALLY! When it's hard, overwhelming, frustrating and even when you feel it doesn't matter-because it does! God hears!

This picture is from our last Sunday at our home church when the congregation laid hands on us and prayed for us. It is a great reminder to me to know that there are many people lifting US up and it encourages me to keep lifting others to Jesus daily, continually.

Only in Ecuador...

It's been quite an interesting weekend. We left Santo Domingo on Friday afternoon and traveled to a little town called Baeza-about a 5-6 hours in total. We stayed overnight in Baeza and met our friends Mandy (our fellow missionary and translator for the class) and Abby and got up very early because I (Kim) was going to be teaching my first class about disabilities in a small village in the jungle. We met our friend Rolando and in his family about an hour outside of Baeza and then started the 2 hourish trip to the village. About and hour or so into the trip-we ran into traffic that was very backed up. It's the rainy season here so we thought it was probably a landslide which is pretty common. We got down to the bridge and this is what we found! This road has at least 11 bridges alone getting to the village and they are not super sturdy so they don't allow big trucks. However, they said a large truck passed over it and this is what happened!
The bridge had a HUGE hole in it and we found out it was being held up underneath with very thin tree trunks.
Then we realized they were putting a tree trunk over the hole and then thin planks. Our friend Rolando that was with us said that a few people probably paid the engineers so they could pass over it. That's when we saw a truck and then a BUS pass over the broken bridge!!!!! It was incredible-don't worry, we decided not to pass over it-defintely not worth the risk. So, after a lot of travel, we headed the 3 and a half hour trek back to Quito. We will probably be doing the training in a couple of weeks-hopefully the bridge will be fixed! HA! Only in Ecuador...