Prayer for Unsaved Friends

Dear friends,

I have something that I was hoping you would pray with me about this week. On Sunday, our pastor gave a really good message about how the church often opens up it's doors and expects people to come in to find Jesus. Instead, the church should be reaching outside its doors to bring the unsaved to HIM. He encouraged us to write down the names of some people that we know who aren't saved, and then start to pray daily for them as well as begin to build relationships with them.

During that service God brought to mind three very specific people that He wants me to start reaching out to: Argentina, Rosa and Jesus. I met Argentina at a garage sale we had last year, and found out that she had recently moved to Chihuahua and still has made very few friends. Her mom is a believer, but she lives in California, and I'm still not sure why Argentina doesn't believe herself. Rosa and her grandson Jesus are extremely poor and work hours and hours at the local superstore bagging groceries, only to come away with pocket change. Jesus has some sort of disease that affects his face and his hair; he looks like a little old man even though he is only 12! Rosa suffers from a leg problem that causes her to have a shooting pain whenever she stands on her feet, which means her job must be horribly difficult!

Please pray for me this week as I have invited them each into my home in an attempt to begin to build relationships with them.. Pray that I would be a blessing to them, and that they would see Jesus reflected in my life and want to know more about Him! I have been learning lately that there is so much power in prayer, so I appreciate the part that you will play in this!

Thank you for your prayers, and I'll let you know how it goes!

My Fifth Graders

I want to take a moment to introduce you to my fifth grade class. I have the privilege of having them for two hours every morning right before lunch, during which we study language and reading.

Samantha is an English-as-a-second-language student, and I am continually amazed at how well she keeps up with the other students in my Language class. She is pretty quiet, so I am thankful for the opportunity to spend more one-on-one time with her this year.

This is Sophie. She loves gymnastics and is actually at a competition this weekend in Monterrey. She loves fashion, and I often take style tips from HER :)

John is the class clown, for sure. I'm amazed that I actually got a decent picture of him today. He works incredibly fast and I'm always trying to figure things to keep him busy while the others finish up their assignments (usually 20 minutes or so after he is done!!).

Jack is a sweet, gentle boy from England, although he has lived around American and Canadian missionaries so long that he doesn't have an English accent. Jack is always smiling.

Ben is also a sweetie, very quiet and a hard worker. He has a heart that is so sensitive to the Holy Spirit. Once, after losing his temper, he bawled and bawled and just felt horrible that he had lost control.

Allie is the principal's daughter, and actually a very good friend of mine. I love spending time with her and her mom outside of school. Allie loves hugs, and I don't think I ever see her without getting a great big squeeze from her.

Jesus Loves Me

I want to share a few things that God has done in the last day or so that have reaffirmed the fact that He loves me so very much.

1. In an attempt to organize my life, I was desperately in need of a planner. Finally, as I didn't know where to find one that would suit my needs, I just made my own out of a journal. It's working fine. The funny thing is, though, that last night I was at a family's house for dinner and I pulled out my "planner" to write something down. I explained to the family why I was using a journal instead of a planner, and the husband started giving me this weird look and asked, "so when did you make that?" I told him that I had made it the day before, to which he replied, "You are probably going to think this is weird, but last week, God told me to buy you a planner. I kept putting it off all week, and then yesterday as we were out shopping I was going to ask my wife if it was okay for us to stop and buy you a planner, but was too embarrassed, so I didn't." Wow, isn't that crazy?? God cared enough about a silly little desire to be more organized, that He actually would tell someone else to go buy me a planner!! Thank you Jesus, for caring about my life....

2. That same night, after I came home from the dinner, I was stressing about the cleaning that I still had to do. Living in the dorm with the girls, I'm responsible for a certain portion of the house cleaning every week, and the house gets checked on Thursday mornings. As I was walking up the stairs to our apartment, I was telling the Lord, "Lord, I know I have this cleaning to do, but I am so exhausted tonight (I wasn't feeling well), that I don't know how I'm going to get it done. Please help me, somehow." When I opened the door, I said hi to my roommate and told her that I would do my cleaning, but probably early in the morning because I was too tired just then. Well, she basically insisted that I go to bed and that she would do my part!! I was going to refuse, but God brought my prayer to mind, so I told her that I would LOVE the help. So she did all the sweeping and mopping for me!

3. Then, this evening I just got home and noticed my car was missing! That was strange for two reasons. First, I rarely loan my car out due to insurance reasons (Mexican's aren't supposed to drive under my insurance, I guess), and second, my car wasn't even starting due to no gas AND a bad battery... So when I noticed it was missing, I was very confused. A few minutes later, though, here comes my vehicle, RUNNING, amazingly. It turns out that the husband of the family that lives below me had put gas in my car for me, taken it to Auto Zone to check the battery, purchased a new one for me when he was told mine was trashed, AND is going to fix some of the cables that are messed up sometime tomorrow. All of these things were lingering on my to-do list, and I hadn't had time to even think about getting them done, so when I heard what he had done for me, tears started filling my eyes.

Jesus is so kind to us! "When I was in great need He saved me." Thank you, Lord.

New High School Girls

This afternoon I invited a couple of the new high school girls over to hang out, drink tea and do some homework. I don't know how much of the latter we accomplished, but we sure had fun, and I feel like I know these girls a lot better now!

After a bit, Emily and Hannah came over and brought me an Arizona Green Tea, which made me feel VERY loved...

Meet My Girls!

I was asked by the NewTribes National Training Institute to be a sort of "dorm mom" to their two out-of-town students. Let me introduce you to them:

Silvia is an 18 year-old from Tijuana, Baja California. She comes from an incredibly poor background and hopes to serve the Lord through teaching one day.

Nazareth is a 24 year old from Chihuahua. After her four years of Bible college here, she hopes to serve the Lord in missions.

Visit to Miguel's Village

During my first break from school I made a trip out to La Mesa to visit my parents with a couple of friends. While we were there, we made a hike out to visit Miguel's village. Miguel is a little boy that is living with my parents becuase his kidneys have failed and he needs dialysis three to four times a day. It was so special for him to be able to be back with his parents for a day after having been away from them for several months!

I love this little guy like he was my own brother... Please pray for him that the Lord would heal his kidneys!

Dad doing dialysis on Miguel on the floor of his primitive home.

Playing with some of the local kids (very early in the morning as you can tell by my sleepy eyes!).

Ameritribes Conference

This summer, the directors of Ameritribes asked Evan and I to be in charge of the kids program at our annual staff conference. When we were kids, this was always a highlight of our summer, so we considered this opportunity as a huge privilege and responsibility. After praying over possible themes, we decided that we needed to have both a spiritual theme as well as a fun one. We ended up choosing "The Ninja Armor of God" for our theme, and during the week we combined lessons on the Ephesians 6 passage with games and fun activities with a ninja flair.

Each day we had a teaching session, during which Evan and I took turns teaching a different aspect of the armor of God. It was interesting that the Lord led us to that particular lesson, becuase it seemed like the enemy was really out to discourage us that week, and having our hearts focused on what God's Word says regarding that particular issue helped us to keep going.

By Friday afternoon, after a week of crazy games, small-group sessions and lots and LOTS of snacks, we were pretty tired, but felt like the Lord had allowed us to establish some good relationships with the kids.

A Heart Like His

This semester several of the NewTribes ladies have gotten together to do the Beth Moore study on the life of David called A Heart Like His. Having mono, I haven't been able to go to every meeting, although when I have been able to attend, they have been such a blessing. I have tried to keep up on the workbook, though, which the Lord uses to speak to my heart every time I open the book.At Moody I loved learning to study the Bible: using lexicons, finding out the original meaning of a word in Greek, etc. While the Lord still manged to teach me about Himself, much of what I came away with from my time there was head knowledge. I love it that the Lord is finally reaching my HEART through His Word and showing me how to do the same as I teach others!

For example, today in church the pastor taught the concept of Agape love. He didn't ask the audience to apply it to our lives in any specific way, but since I have been doing this study, I was able to hear the Spirit say, "Okay, so WHO should you be showing agape to?" "How EXACTLY are you going to carry that out?"

I still have about half of the book left to go, so I pray that the Lord continues to speak to me through His word.

Tea Party With the Girls

This Thursday, a couple of the high school MKs called to ask if they could throw a surprise tea party for my roommate, Emily, who also teaches at the school. They wanted us to do something special to let her know that we love her.

Our guest of honor, Miss Emily

I was in charge of setting the yard up for the girls, who were bringing the snacks. Since Emily was sitting in the living room, which is right on the other side of those brown bars, I had to be REALLY sneaky when setting up the back yard for the tea party. To lessen Emily's curiosity, I invited her to drink some tea with me in the back yard sometime that evening. So, as I scurried around back there all afternoon, she thought I was just doing an awful lot of work for a casual tea. Little did she know... *sneaky grin*

Some of our finger food.

We love you, Emily!
To see the complete album, click on the link
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2018187&l=f9d3b&id=163800382

Thank You For Your Prayers

Dear praying friends,

I want to thank you all for the kind prayers, thoughtful notes, and encouraging words during these last few months. I'm finally getting to the point where I will have three or four days back-to-back where I will feel wonderful, which has been a huge blessing! I still have those days where I feel like staying in bed all the time, but those are getting fewer and fewer.



Becuase I was sick for so long, the school had to find a permanent kindergarten teacher as a replacement, which was very sad at first, but I'm now seeing that it was the best thing, both for me, as well as for the students. I am now only teaching music, but I'm finding that the extra space in my schedule has allowed me much more time to actually spend WITH the kids, which is what I'm here for! Also, I have been able to deepen my relationship with the Lord through this time, which I am very thankful for.

So, thank you again for all your love during this time. The Lord is at work. soon.

Much love,
-Erika

Freshemen/Sophomore outing

Since the Juniors and Seniors were gone for the week, Olivia, Emily and I decided that it would be a good time to take the underclassmen out for a special outing. We chose to go to a fun cafe called the Java Times cafe (which is the closest we can get to a Starbucks around here). During the afternoon we spent time playing "Ten Fingers" and "Two truths and a lie" to try to get to know eachother a little better. I'll tell you what, playing that game with a bunch of MK's sure can be interesting. Who would have thought that included among the "truths" we shared were eating monkey, armadillo, cow brains, and a whole slew of other interesting foods.

Our group picture from the upper floor of the cafe

Oh no, Mono!

Well, I have officially proven that a person can get Mono more than once. This is the second time in five years that I've gotten the disease, and no, I haven't been going around smooching on anyone either... :) In order to give myself time to recover away from the stress of regular life, my mom and I been staying at my grandma's house in Indiana for the last couple of weeks. I'm hoping to return to teaching sometime the first week of March.

An Amazing Week

My roommate Emily's birthday falls on the Friday before mine, so we basically had one week-long birthday party.

On Monday, Olivia and Sarah took us out to this neat little cafe in town. Then, when we got back for Bible study with the High School girls, it turns out that they had planned a whole surprise party for us!

My girls being crazy.

My birthday landed on Field Day this year, so Emily arranged for someone to decorate the gate of the location with amazing birthday signs. Super sweet of her!

Blowing out candles at our joint surprise party.

Field Day 2007

Every fall, the school puts on a sort of "Track and Field" day for the kids Here is my class before all the competitions started.

Gracie getting ready for the ball toss.

Because I have such a small class, we got done with the activities in about 20 minutes. The next 40 I spent making up things for the kids to do. Here was Paul competing in my spontaneous "push up competition." Haha. He did pretty well, too.

Harvest Festival

Every year, our school puts on a harvest festival to raise money for the Senior trip. This year, I invited Karla and her daughter Emily to join me.

Emily enjoyed getting her face painted.

Cutie pie!

Me and Karla

The senior with the most money in his cup got the pie in the face!

New Friends

I am so glad for the friends that the Lord has given me here, both in the other missionaries and in the Mexicans that I have met since moving here. Here are a bunch of us hanging out, watching a movie and drinking coffee.

Fake Injury Day

Don't worry, I didn't beat up my kindergartners. :) Our school had a "fake injury day" where the kids could dress up with any injury they wanted to. It was a fun day, although the kids definitely had a hard time concentrating on school work!

My poor, injured class.
I even got into it a little. Haha, they looked so FUNNY!

The winners for each class.

Spa Night with Emily and Karla

My roommate Emily and my Mexican friend Karla were having a stressful week, so we all got together one evening and decided to relax, soak our feet, do our nails, etc.

Emily... asleep?

Me and Karla. I don't think cucumbers actually do anything, but it was fun anyway!

Moody's Missions Conference 07

Thank you to all of you who were praying for my trip to Moody for missions conference. I really believe that the Lord used the trip for His kingdom, and I'm excited to see what will come of the contacts that we made during that week. Here are a few pictures for you to enjoy!

Setting up the booth.

I got to hang out with a lot of the students at the booth. These two are friends from my high school in Mexico that stopped by to say hi.

I was even able to catch up with some of my best friends in the world while I was there. Jamie and Ginger still live in Chicago and it was great to see them both at the same time!

Catching Up

Me and my Bible study girls at our first meeting

Life has been so incredibly busy these past couple of weeks, so I'm sorry that there hasn't been much blog action!!! Instead of trying to put them up individually, I am just going to post the pictures that I have collected in an album from the last month. Here is the link to my September album



http://moody.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2013617&l=bd03b&id=163800382



I would appreciate your prayers for me next week as I will be attending Moody Bible Institute's Missions Conference as a representative for my mission. Here are a few specific things that the mission would appreciate prayer for:



1. That the Lord would raise up the following specific staff members for the mission: church planters for the tribes in northern Mexico; a Communications Manager for the home office staff of the mission; a Graphic Designer for the home office staff.


2. That the Lord would raise up more staff members in general.

3. That he would speak to many hearts during this conference and move them to work in the harvest in ANY mission field.


4. That we would be able to put the finishing touches on the presentations/displays, etc. before the trip.

5. That the Lord would keep us both healthy before, during, and after the trip.


6. That the Lord would help us to be faithful on the follow up with the contacts that we establish on this trip.



Thank you so much for your prayers!! I'll make sure to post some pictures of the trip as soon as I get back :)