On Tuesday night we had a great time of prayer and sharing together at Renacer, my church, and I felt greatly encouraged about what this life is all about.
The pastor spoke about a short encouragement that Paul gave to Timothy in 2 Tim 1: 13-14. It says this: "Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us."
Just a funky side note: It is raining hard outside and it is the middle of the summer here. How strange! This is normally the hottest time of the year, and I am sitting here in a long-sleeved black shirt and I am not hot. Super strange. Ok... sorry for the distraction from the point, but it just started raining like that.
I was saying... How encouraging his words were about faith and love. Everything that we do in an ideal world should be based from faith and love. It was a good reminder that when the hard times come, we need only to hang on tightly to our love and what we believe and know to be true. It is like when two young people fall in love. The moment of falling in love may fade, but their trust in each other maintains a firm bond in their relationship. They are continually stimulating the fire of their love as they grow in their friendship and commitment to each other. The walk with Christ is very similar to this.
I want to be so full of Christ and so confident of him that I couldn't waver in the difficult moments.
Sometimes the translation in Spanish sounds cooler than the English translation. For example. Instead of sound doctrine, it translates healthy doctrine. The point is that your foundation needs to stay firm.
God has been doing great things here. We began our children's ministry thing at Renacer and we were exctatic. The biggest thing I need to work on right now is studying forms of Subjunctive, present participle, past perfect versus imperfect.
We have a huge test the first week of April which is basically an interview. It is so easy to get distracted doing all sorts of different ministry things, but right now, I need to really focus on my Foneticas, Gramatica, and Conversacion classes.
God is so good. I will write to you all soon. Have a GReAT Easter and miss ya!
Friday, March 14, 2008
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Escuela, ...y errores culturales... School,...and cultural errors.
Bueno.
"This is the confidence that we have in him(Christ Jesus), that if we ask anything according to his will, He hears us." 1 John 5:4
My dear friends,
I am learning so much Spanish...but my speech is so SLOW!!! Thank you all for your prayers. I am hoping that I will be able to communicate the gospel and for this I need the language.
So many of you have been in my thoughts and prayers lately, and I hope you are doing wonderful.
OK...so there is this REALLY strange icecream here. It is like a popsicle but it is really icecream...and it has all kinds of ingredients...but a mild sweet flavor.
I ate one yesterday that was called "Fresa y Natilla." That means Sour cream Strawberry. It was so strange. It included all kinds of ingredients like peaches, chocolate-covered toasted rice, chocolate cookies, bananas, coconut, milk, pineapple, caramel... basically it just tasted like a very light strawberry shake, but I was greatly amused by the amount of ingredients it has.
Right now, I am part of a team of 8 people who are working at Renacer to develop the children's ministry. We will be putting on a "black theatre" at the end of this month and also separating everyone into 4 teams. My team is the yellow one and we are going to win! :) We are committed to helping mentor these children in life. We will provide them opportunities to grow socially, spiritually, mentally, and emotionally.
I am having to be careful about how much I get involved yet because I am still working on the language alot. I am also studying with this wonderful women, Aida, who is learning English. I usually tutor her for about an hour and then she works with me on my Spanish. There is this wonderful girl, Katherine, who is also helping me with my Spanish. She is a good friend.
I miss all of you and pray God's blessing on you. Thank you for your friendship and your faithful support. You are helping me to be able to pour my love on others.
The people of Costa Rica are friendly and helpful, but I have made cultural errors. I am constantly learning about things I should or should not do. Many things are involved just in the tone of voice that you use. Please remember to pray that God will help me with the language so that I can communicate correctly what my heart is saying.
There are lots of southerners here... so ...
Talk to y'all later, and love y'all!
yours for him.
Joanna Joy
"This is the confidence that we have in him(Christ Jesus), that if we ask anything according to his will, He hears us." 1 John 5:4
My dear friends,
I am learning so much Spanish...but my speech is so SLOW!!! Thank you all for your prayers. I am hoping that I will be able to communicate the gospel and for this I need the language.
So many of you have been in my thoughts and prayers lately, and I hope you are doing wonderful.
OK...so there is this REALLY strange icecream here. It is like a popsicle but it is really icecream...and it has all kinds of ingredients...but a mild sweet flavor.
I ate one yesterday that was called "Fresa y Natilla." That means Sour cream Strawberry. It was so strange. It included all kinds of ingredients like peaches, chocolate-covered toasted rice, chocolate cookies, bananas, coconut, milk, pineapple, caramel... basically it just tasted like a very light strawberry shake, but I was greatly amused by the amount of ingredients it has.
Right now, I am part of a team of 8 people who are working at Renacer to develop the children's ministry. We will be putting on a "black theatre" at the end of this month and also separating everyone into 4 teams. My team is the yellow one and we are going to win! :) We are committed to helping mentor these children in life. We will provide them opportunities to grow socially, spiritually, mentally, and emotionally.
I am having to be careful about how much I get involved yet because I am still working on the language alot. I am also studying with this wonderful women, Aida, who is learning English. I usually tutor her for about an hour and then she works with me on my Spanish. There is this wonderful girl, Katherine, who is also helping me with my Spanish. She is a good friend.
I miss all of you and pray God's blessing on you. Thank you for your friendship and your faithful support. You are helping me to be able to pour my love on others.
The people of Costa Rica are friendly and helpful, but I have made cultural errors. I am constantly learning about things I should or should not do. Many things are involved just in the tone of voice that you use. Please remember to pray that God will help me with the language so that I can communicate correctly what my heart is saying.
There are lots of southerners here... so ...
Talk to y'all later, and love y'all!
yours for him.
Joanna Joy
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