I would guess that almost every woman in the United States knows how to make Banana Bread, or at least someone in their family that has a recipe. But that is not the case here in San Francisco Gotera, El Salvador.
In the beginning I gave a loaf as a way to say thank you to someone for teaching me how to crochet. After trying the bread, she asked for the recipe. I began to see this as a way to maybe create a bridge to the ladies in the church.
I would give loaves as God lead. I gave some to the ladies at the post office that have always been very nice to our family. The ladies at the office supply store. They now wave to me on the streets, ask how we are all doing. Before they were very nice but after giving a loaf of banana bread to them, wow, what a change.
Many women asked for the recipe, and with the desire to spend time with them. I would offer to show them how to make the bread and their eyes would light up. It grew and grew.
This past month I had the opportunity to teach the ladies of the church in Corinto (daughter church) and our church here in Gotera how to make banana bread. The response has been more than I could have ever hoped.
I have been buying the materials to make the bread from a local bread store. This past week I gave a loaf to the lady that always helps me, also a member of our church. She gave a piece of the bread to her boss and now her boss wants me to come and teach her how to make it.
This recipe although extremely common in the states, has made a tremendous impact in this little ole town in El Salvador. I would never would have guessed the impact it would have. I praise the Lord for the "tool" to touch lives.
Both Avigail and Ela tested for their next belt in Tae Kwon Do and received them!
To receive the next level belt, a person needs to perform various requirements which include forms, fighting, kicks, and breaking boards (I sure hope those are translated correctly, I only know the terms in Spanish, imagine that).
Our girls have really done well in Tae Kwon Do. They have learned so much in last couple of years. I think the biggest thing they have learned, and what I am most proud of, is integrity. Doing whatever job with the best you have in you, regardless of what is going on around you.
They were so excited to receive their belts, Avigail, green belt and Ela, yellow! Yeah girls! I am so proud of you!
I always want to write something witty or some great experience, but really I don't have anything. I'm just going to share "life stuff". As many of you know we made the decision to home school the girls until they start their school year in August in San Salvador. Before we actually started, I was SCARED for many different reasons. I thought things like, "I'm going to mess this up", "when will I have time to clean?", "how will I confront issues that arise in learning styles?", "how will I handle resistance?" and lastly and most ugly, "what about 'my time'?" As it has turned out, this time has been one of the sweetest times I have had with our girls. Yes, there has been resistance, there has been challenges but I wouldn't trade this time for anything. Here's a little "shout out" to you mom's that choose to home school year after year. I admire you all so much. Your eternal investment in your kids has so much more value than having a clean and picked up house or having your "project list" grow rather than get smaller, more than having "me time" as much as you wanted. I now have a greater respect for you all. May God bless your time and grow you all through it!
Within the last couple of weeks, 2 1/2 years after coming to Gotera, I have had the blessing of having a few conversations, beyond the "surface stuff" with a few ladies at the church. You say, "wow, great you had a conversation with someone, I just had one Sunday with someone". No, what I am saying, is I have tried for 2 and half years to engage a few of these ladies in a conversation and have come up against just surface stuff, aka a wall. Wow, 2 1/2 years, seems like a lot! But really is it? Some people spend 10, 15 sometimes 20 years trying to get in. Although, it has been a hard 2 1/2 years I feel blessed to have finally had a conversation with someone. A great quote from the classic book "The Door in the Wall" goes "Thou hast only to follow the wall far enough and there will be a door in it". I have found a door!
Lately, I have felt tremendously blessed and overwhelmed with the growth I have experienced lately. In my 40's, I have taken on major things to learn, for example Spanish, guitar, Tae kwon do. When I look back at how much growth and ability that God has allowed, I feel so blessed. But, I do have to say, that it makes me want more! I don't want to settle for what I have learned to this point. I want more!!! I see that so much too in regards to the Bible. I know so much more than I did, oh, but...... I WANT MORE!
We returned to El Salvador just a week ago and we are still trying to adjust. It was interesting for me to watch the girls settle back in. They both have very different personalities and as expected they respond differently to life situations. This past Saturday there was Christmas party for all the Taekwando students and Avigail just jumped right back in to Spanish and being around people. But Ela probably didn't jump back in as quickly. It was fascinating to watch her hang back and watch the goings on. I am always amazed at their different responses to things. And also to see they go through a time of adjustment too.
I was thinking the other day while I was making dinner, how everything bit of food we have in our house is because of people supporting us. Everything! That is a very sobering and humbling thought. We have been allowed and blessed to live outside our own country for more than 3 years, because people support us monthly. My words can never express the amount of gratitude that is in me. I am also very grateful for a home church that teaches the importance of missions and supporting those that are serving around the world. I am humbled to be one of those recipients.
Another humbling thought is to know that people are praying for us, some of those we have never met. One Sunday we visited a church and I walked up to someone to introduce myself and the young man greeted me by name. I thought wow, how did you know my name. Then Avigail and Ela walked in and he named them by name as well. He told me, "we pray for you every Tuesday" Whoa!!! Now that is humbling!
Last week I had a dream about one of our neighbors. In my dream I was teaching Sunday School at church. The classroom was full and with a lot of activity. In the very back was my neighbor and I think her sister. My neighbor started asking some great questions about the gospel. As I am doing my best to answer her questions, all the other students in the class left. So it was just my neighbor and I talking. Everything in my dream was so clear, it was unbelievable.
When I woke up the next morning, I thought, I need to tell her about the dream I had and use it as an opportunity to tell her about what Jesus Christ has done for her. I said to myself, the next time I see her I will tell her.
Maybe a week later, I was going through my "do list" for the day and next thing on my list was go to the store. I so did not want to go, but I pushed myself to go right then. As I was about to open the gate, guess who walks by? that's right, my neighbor. (Now, I will share the ugly truth about myself). I thought, Oh Lord, I don't really have time right now to talk to her. I don't have a track with me. I don't speak well enough. She won't understand me. Not now Lord! With all this processing in my yucky heart, my neighbor has now passed by our house on her way to the little store next door. So I said, Alright God if she passes back by, I will talk to her. Just as I finished saying that, I see her coming back down the hill. Okay, here it goes...
I get out of the truck and tell that I have to tell her about a dream I had about her. I know from meeting her younger sisters that their family is very Catholic. I proceed to share the gospel with her using the dream as a spring board. To be honest, I don't remember everything I said, because it was like someone else was talking (know what I mean?). I do recall telling her that according to the Bible all of us are sinners and born separated from God. The only way that we can fix that problem is by realizing our sin nature and that it separates us from God and ask Jesus forgive us of our sins. I explained that none of us our good enough nor can we do enough good things to work our way to heaven. I used the example if someone wants to travel to another country, one thing that is required to enter into their country is a passport. You can do your very best to explain why the official at the desk should let you in, and say, "but you see I am a really good person, I do good things, I try to be kind." All that is fine and good, but the answer will still be the same, "You must have a passport to enter". I explained to her that Jesus Christ is our "passport" into heaven and into a right relationship with a Holy God. In our conversation she stated that she goes to church and God helps her. She was very grateful for me sharing with her. Now all I can do is pray and ask her what her name is and continue building a relationship with her.
I share all this mostly to encourage everyone to listen and to obey God. But don't do it like I did this particular day grumbling and complaining and doubting that she would listen to me. It is a privilege to share with others the most important thing in my life.
For quite some time, I had been coloring my hair to cover up the gray. I would get a little weird when I would start to the see the gray hair starting to show. Honestly, I started getting a little "crazy" (in a funny way) about when and how soon I could color my hair. Almost to the point of obsessing about it. The fact was that I wasn't ready to be gray yet.
About 3 or 4 months ago I was reading The Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster, and the author told a story about a man who loved to read the paper. He faithfully retrieved and read the paper every morning. One morning this man went to retrieve his daily paper, only to find that there was no paper in his drive way. After first, he thought, "oh maybe it was throw into the bushes". After looking, there was no paper to be found. As he continued to look, his could feel his heart begin to beat a little stronger. Panic was setting in. "Where is my paper?" he thought. With his heart beating more rapidly now, he noticed in his neighbors driveway a newspaper. In his mind, he began plotting how he could take that paper without anyone noticing. At that very moment something inside this man's conscience snapped, and said, "What are you thinking? It's a stinking newspaper!!!" He immediately went inside, got on the phone and called the newspaper company and proceeded to tell them, "I need to cancel my subscription. The lady working that morning, asked if he just wanted to change his subscription to weekends. He responded, "No, I need to go cold turkey." This man realized that his reading the newspaper was out of balance and he needed to make a change.
You say...what in the world does that have to do with coloring hair, for me, everything! When I read this story, I could replace the newspaper with hair color and there you have it. I had become very out of balance with being preoccupied in coloring my hair. I could totally relate to this man's feeling of panic.
Now please hear my heart... This is in no way is a "Don't Color Your Hair" campaign. That is not the issue for me. The issue for me was my own personal view toward it.
So now here I am going gray and learning to be okay with it. I'll get there. But it was a good lesson along the way of moderation in all things. God is really teaching me about this in many respects. More blogs to come in that area.
This is Joel (pronounced Ho-el). With a little attention and time, we have become quite good friends. Everytime we show up at church he is there to greet me asking lots of questions. He is a high energy little boy that sometimes finds himself in trouble. We when we first came to Gotera, he would "bother" our girls. They would come to me and say that he wouldn't leave them alone. Well as I watched, he was trying with good intentions to be friendly. But being the 4th of 5 boys and no dad in the picture, he didn't know how to relate and play with girls. Our girls have both come to appreciate Joel as well.
Joel reminds me a lot of me when I was a little girl. I found myself in a lot of trouble frequently. I know for me it was solely for attention. I had people in my life, thanks to God, that saw through all that neediness and were able to see something worthwhile in me. They invested in me in despite of me. I am so appreciative of these people in my life. All these people that I can think of that made those investments were all Christians. I truly can't imagine where I would be without their impact in my life.
God has given me the chance to see a very sweet little boy in Joel. I praise the Lord for the opportunity to hopefully love, accept and encourage the life of this little boy. Pay it forward!
This is my other disciple, Arely, we are currently on lesson 7 (The Will of God). I had the tremendous blessing of watching her be baptized last Sunday night.
Arely has been saved for about 2 years and has been in the church here in Gotera for about a year. She lived in the capital for many years and then moved here to be closer to her husband. Walter, her husband, has worked at the hospital here in Gotera for many years. He would commute every week to Gotera from the capital to work and then return to spend time as a family on the weekends.
I have had the incredible blessing of discipling this sweet lady. I have been able to watch her grow in amazing ways. It has been so fun to watch her prayers being answered so specifically. One of which being the salvation of her husband, Walter and son, Eduardo. Ryan is discipling Walter too! Also Walter is the Taekwando instructor. Also Arely, has the great opportunity to stay at home and support her husband and his second job as an instructor. It is neat to see the increasing joy she receives from ministering in her home.
How great and humbling it is to be used in the Hands of the Master to play a part in the growth of this sweet friend.
I wanted to take a minute to share about my disciple Ingrid. About a year ago, I met Ingrid and we immediately had a connection. Ryan had mentioned that she needed a disciple and I quickly asked if I could disciple her. And now here we are on Lesson 16.
Ingrid already had a very solid walk with the Lord and very good understanding of the word of God when we started. The neat thing is she really desired and desires to know more and is diligently seeking the Lord.
Ingrid is a single mom with 2 children, Astrid, 14 and Fernando 11. She works for the hospital here in Gotera and has for over 20 years. Ingrid is very administratively minded. A very sharp gal all around.
In discipleship there is always a mutual teaching that happens. There are so many things that both people learn from one another. One thing that Ingrid has taught me alot about is prayer. She is a woman of prayer. When she says she is going to pray, she prays!
It is really neat to watch her really start to become involved with some of the events at church. She has organized a couple of food preparation events. As I stated before, she is very adminstratively minded. This past year has been such a tremendous blessing. I look forward every week to spending time together in God's word.
Two world's collided for certain! This city girl to the core, learned how to cook beans on the fire. It is a fairly easy process, just time consuming. The pot is made of clay and able to cook about 4lbs of beans at a time. Once the fire is steady, you have to feed it wood for about 2 hours.
The most common way to eat beans here in El Salvador is puree (refried). They eat beans for almost every meal, either as a main dish or the beans accompany something.
The flavor of beans cooked over the fire is so much better than those of stove pot. It is so worth the work!
Tomorrow, we have a very big adjustment coming in our house. We have decided it is time to "help" Ella with her thumb sucking and blanket holding habit. We have said that when she turns 5 years old we would put away the blanket. It was very sweet, when she told us that she would put her blanket in a bag and save it for daughter. Isn't that precious??? I would think her daughter would not really want that big ball of gray yarn that was once a pretty white knit blanket. But very sweet nonetheless.
We are starting tomorrow. I have been praying in advance for this day for a long time. That the transition would be smooth. But part of me is really anxious about it. She is really attached (addicted) to that blanket and with the blanket always comes the thumb sucking. But like all things I need to pray it and leave it! I'll let you know how it goes!
I am reading a GREAT book right now! It's called "The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life. And this is an excerpt from it! Awesome!
The law says, This do and thou shalt live. - The gospel says, live, and then thou shalt do.
The law says, Pay me that thou owest. - The gospel says, I frankly forgive thee all.
The law says, Make you a new heart and a new spirit. - The gospel says, A new heart will I give you, and new spirit will I put within you.
The law says, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. - The gospel says, Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His son to be the propitiation for our sins.
The law says, Cursed is every one who continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them. - The gospel says, Blessed is the man whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.
The law says, the wages of sin is death. - The gospel says, The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The lawdemands holiness. - The gospelgives holiness.
The law says, Do. - The gospel says, Done.
The lawextorts the unwilling service of a bondman. - The gospelwins the loving service of a son and freeman.
The law makes blessings the result of obedience. - The gospel makes obedience the result of blessing.
The law places the day of rest at the end of the week's work. - The gospel places it at its beginning.
The law says, If. - The gospel says, Therefore.
The law was given for the restraint of the old man. - The gospel was given to bring liberty to the new man.
Under the law, salvation was wages. - Under the gospel, salvation is a gift.
I love putting puzzles together. When we lived in Costa Rica, Ryan bought me a set of puzzles. It was a box that had 7 or 8 different puzzles, each in individual bags. The box had the pictures of each individual puzzle, and also there was a poster included with the pictures of each puzzle. In order to down size for the move to El Salvador, we only took the bags and the poster. I can't seem to remember where I put the poster with the pictures of each puzzle. But I really wanted to put a puzzle together, and I thought, "how can I ever put a puzzle together without the picture?"
I love that God always wants to show me spiritual pictures through the physical. God showed how often we get "freaked out" when we can't see the picture that He has for us. We think and/or say, well, God there is no way I can do any of this without seeing the big picture. But the fact is, we can. Is it ideal? No. But surely it can be done. How? One piece at a time. To trust in the fact that God has a picture big, and that we just need to work diligently with each piece.
I always start with the straight edge pieces and obviously same colors go together. Once that was done I could see more of the context or structure of the picture. So then I started putting like colors and textures together. More and more I could the true picture.
We can trust God with each individual piece of the puzzle in our life because we trust in the fact that there is a big picture. So just work one piece at a time. Each step or piece of the puzzle is important for the next. Everything is connected and necessary to complete and see the whole picture.
The beautiful thing is we don't NEED to see the big picture! It can be done, just one piece at a time.
Throughout all my Christian walk, I have heard the verses in Proverbs 3:5-6 over and over again. I, at times have great times of trusting only in the Lord and not leaning on my own understanding. And other times....not so much.
Lately, I have been overcome with the desire just to trust. Praise the Lord, we don't have anything right now that is huge or trying in our world. But I have really seen even in the little things, just to trust!
I am reading Hannah Whitall Smith's book "The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life" (which is an excellent read) and she said something that I just loved and held onto...."The truth is, the only remedy in every emergency is to trust in the Lord. And if this is all we ought to do, and all we can do, is it not better to do it at once?" We don't have any "emergencies" right now, but we daily have opportunities to trust the Lord for something. It has been so awesome just to release everything into God's care.
While truly releasing things into God's care, I find I have fewer things to say. Does that make sense? There is nothing to say or to figure out because I have released it. Is it God's business now.
When I begin to worry or think on things, or lean on my own understanding of the situation, I have started to say..."Satan I know you are trying to convince me to doubt God, so you take these things to God himself. This is His business not mine!" How freeing that has been!
The girls have been out of school for 3 weeks. The swine flu alert closed all schools for 3 weeks. We all have gone a little stir crazy. The girls were sick for a week or so with a cold, which kept us at home to not share the goodness with anyone else. So tomorrow will be the first Sunday back in 3 Sundays. We are ready to be among the living again!
Weeding....Sometimes a very overwhelming task. I don't know how you feel about it, but for me, it isn't something I seek after. However, I don't like having weeds in my garden or yard. So as much as I don't want to tackle this task, I know it is necessary. Recently while I have been weeding I noticed some great spiritual principals that are worth holding on it.
Right now I am reading the book called "Las Mentiras que Las Mujeres Creen" (The Lies that women believe). I have been really challenged to pray and look inward at what lies I have been believing and those that hold me in bondage. Little did I know that God wanted to use weeding as a physical picture to bring about many spiritual truths.
There is no doubt, like I mentioned before, that weeding can be an overwhelming task. And most of us, let's be honest, hate doing it. But we know it is necessary.
We have a good sized yard here and so there are a lot of weeds, because nothing has been landscaped, there was just dirt. So when the rain came, so did the weeds and lots of them. Sometimes I didn't even know where to begin. And so, I started with the big weeds. Some would come out fairly easy and others would take a good tug. It always helped to have had rain the night before because the soil was much more soft. What I noticed when I got a lot of the big weeds is there were many smaller weeds down closer to the ground. So before I could really see the ground I had to clear out the smaller weeds. After seeing a little bit of ground, it encouraged me to keep at it because I was seeing progress.
In my process of trying to landscape, I am using rocks from around the yard to put in specific places. When I cleared away enough of the weeds and saw more of the ground I was able to find this type of rock.
So here are the spiritual things that God showed me in this process. God showed me the weeds are like the lies. In order to have a beautiful or pleasing garden you must get the weeds out. Just like our spiritual life, we can never have a pleasing, fruit bearing life if our live our lives overtaken by lies. But it is an overwhelming task to start trying to address the lies. Wow, where do you begin? As I mentioned the rain the night before was such an incredible help in pulling the weeds, I am certain this watering spiritually is prayer. Praying that God would reveal which lies to begin "weeding" out. Okay, the obvious place to begin is with the big lies, because then you will be able to see the smaller ones. They are sometimes hard to pull out and other come out with much ease. Definitely the easiest way to pull these weeds (lies) is to get your hand around the base, closer to the root. I know I have to get to the root of the lie to be freed from it. Lies like weeds come in all shapes and sizes. You can never see the truth, or all God intended until you get the lies out of the way. Being able to see what is really there, then you can see what is usable. Like I mentioned, I found the rock I was wanted to put in other places around the yard. I found what was usable. God wants to show me all that is usable. I wasn't able to see all that was usable before because of the lies.
Just like with weeds, lies need to be maintained or kept at bay. The beautiful thing is, is that if kept maintained I am much more likely to focus on the truth because it can be seen. A person has to be very intentional to keep truth the main focus. The lies will always be there, but we get to the point those are not what is predominant.
A couple of weeks ago there was a team from Alabama. There were such an incredible blessing. Their focus was spent sharing the gospel door to door during the day and then in the afternoon they had time especially for kids. They had piñatas, games and a time where they heard the presentation of the gospel. In the evening there was a service with music and preaching as well. There was fruit from this campaign and new people attending the church in Cacaopera.
Adventures in Odessy has been such a blessing for our home. There is a continual battle with watching too much tv and so one of the alternatives we have come up with is listening to these stories that are chalked full of moral and biblical principles.
For a long it was just Avigail listening to these during her rest time, but then Ella began to have an interest in hearing them as well. And to my surprise it holds her attention. She is now asking to listen them. So here they are listening to one of the stories.
Our girls spend a great deal of time in the hammock. This night they decided to sit in it together. How cute is that!
We have 2 hammocks in our living room. Because we decided against a traditional sofa with cushions, these hammocks serve like a couch. And they are much cooler than a traditional sofa as well.
The hammock has been good for me because I take time to rest during the day, which is not common for me. Down time is important, or margin time.
