Let's Give It a Shot

John wrote:

I was just talking to our friend Deidre, who is visiting from the States, and telling her about Jessica teaching Bible studies at the women's House of Restoration and me discipling and preaching at the men's House of Restoration. She thought it was something related to the school that students participate in. But after telling her the story of how God brought to us a Costa Rican friend that introduced us to the house, and how it started as an opportunity to simply practice talking in Spanish, and then somehow became what it is to us today, I just had to praise Jesus for how He works. I never would have imagined that we would have such a wonderful opportunity to do ministry while still totally stumbling our way through Spanish. Jessica and I have learned so many invaluable lessons (does and don'ts) about ministering in Spanish. And especially about ministering to people on the fringe of society, which is exactly the demographic we will be ministering to in Peru. So glory to God, for His plans!!

On that note, tomorrow I will be venturing into new ministry territory for me. Tomorrow is my typical day to preach at the 4:00 pm "time of teaching" at the House. But instead of presenting a typical sermon, I will be "Bible-storying", which is something we learned and simulated during our 8 weeks of training in Virginia. It is a technique to orally present the Bible to illiterate people groups or people groups that don't have the Bible, in such a way that they can correctly reproduce the Bible stories to families/friends and following generations. In a nutshell, we tell the Bible story, ask listeners to collectively recreate the story, say what they liked, what they didn't like and what it teaches about God/Jesus. Tomorrow will be my first time for real, and on top of that will be in Spanish (which I have not really spoken in a week due to our break).

So if you remember, please pray for me.