Cafe con Leche: December 2013

Student participation!

Smile!

All together now

Beto has been teaching a new class called "Zero English" for a few months now. Our church hosts a ministry called Friendspeak in which community members who want to better their English are paired up with a church member with whom they practice. They use the Bible. Some ability to read, write, speak, and understand English is required. The church receives some calls from people who have a desire to learn English but are not yet at the level required to participate in Friendspeak. Those students now have a place to go, and it's Zero English. Beto works with them on very basic vocabulary to help them get to the point of being able to join Friendspeak. He has wonderful students and they always have a lot of fun!

This past month in November we finally finished up our season of traveling. We are very happy to be home more with the kids and settle once more into a routine. First let me talk about "Fundraising Bootcamp". Even if you don't ever have to raise funds, I would still recommend it! It's a two day intensive lecture style seminar. I certainly can't go into much detail but we really enjoyed it, learned a lot and made new friends. One reason I say that someone could go to it even if they didn't have to raise funds is because many of the principals he teaches can be applied to life in general: building and maintaining relationships, praying for those who encourage you, sharing your life story with others in 30 minutes or less and telling them how God has worked in your life, and how to ask and give Biblically. I learned new insights into scriptures that I had never thought of before about how God provides for His people.

We also were in Portland for about a week. We attended Discovery labwith Kairos, a Church of Christ church planting organization, in which a team of interviewers asks us all kinds of questions about every aspect of our lives over a two day period. They learn about us and we learn about them to see if we are a good fit to partner with them. We were also required to host a time of worship and another time of sharing about ourselves in front of the group: our pasts, how we met, and our call to ministry. We made new friends there too and it was so encouraging to hear other stories of God's faithfulness! Many of you know that we had done this before a couple of years ago but needed to do it again since so much time had past with what happened with Bela. At the end of our time it was clear that right now God has other things in store for us. We are not sure what that may be, but we are going to take a month or two to pray, continue to find healing in Him from all that we've been through these past 17 months, and seek His guidance and counsel.

We are excited about the future and the plans God has for us. We have our goals for 2014 which include finding some more normalcy for our lives: work, getting our own place, and living with two very healthy children. We'd appreciate your prayers.

And for a short update on Bela: yesterday she had an oncology check up and her counts were better than ever!! She is finally not having diarrhea, which is a first for her since October! She only gained .1 oz. in the past two months, but she is developing well, learning a few new words here and there, and eating like she's in some kind of competition! On Tuesday we took her to Disneyland for the first time. It was a perfect day, perfect weather, and we all had a great time! We praise God for simple pleasures like these!