Over the last few days

July 18, 2007

Since finally reaching camp last Thursday, my days have been very busy. There was a Honduran family visiting for a few days, the family that will be staying on camp while the Williamsons go on furlough, so I ended up eating with them and chatting. On Sunday I had my first nature program for a group of 10-12 year olds from the church that owns the camp. I spent most of my time preparing for that but in my spare time was trying to finish up a really good book. Thankfully I finished it yesterday and it will no longer be a distraction. Anyway the program itself went pretty well – definitely a learning experience for me. I had the lesson written out and detailed because I needed to make sure that I knew all of the Spanish words. In the end though I could not follow it verbatim and had to branch out when other thoughts came to my mind and of course I then stumbled through with my Spanish. I think that the children learned something though both about erosion and about how are lives are to glorify God.

Monday I took off most of the day, having worked the weekend. In the evening I went down to Pinalejo with the Williamsons to attend a farewell party for a missionary couple who I only slightly knew. I was glad that I went because first of all it allowed me to meet some of the people from the town (including young adults) and second, I saw how God had used the missionary couple to touch hearts. The couple’s Spanish was very limited and yet it did not bother the people. They loved the couple because they saw how the couple loved them and were truly investing in their lives. And the couple did not worry about how their Spanish came out. They simply spoke from the heart whether that be in Spanglish, broken Spanish, or in English. The entire evening left me with some things to evaluate in my life and approach and hesitation at times to use my imperfect Spanish. I have a lot to continue to process.