[joe + tay keith]: [abide]

"Oh praise Him, hallelujah, my delight and my reward! Everlasting, never-failing, my redeemer my God"

I think that the biggest lesson that God has been teaching me during this trip is to abide in Him, constantly, fully, completely. To always chose, every moment, to rest in Him and His timing, and trust that He will open up opportunities for me to serve. After all, there is not a single thing I can do alone down here that will bring Him glory, but rather it is Him who is working through me to bring the glory to Himself.

Training went absolutely wonderful! We had training last Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. I trained the teachers on the SEEDS curriculum, and then we spent a lot of time practicing songs, puppets, pantomimes, skits, and going through the English lessons. One thing that constantly amazed me during these trainings was the faith of my teachers. Every day of training, we began with prayer. But it wasn't just a quick prayer of blessing over the training, but rather a time of prayer for the program, for the kids, for the teachers, that God's name would be glorified. I was so blessed to see the humble hearts of the teachers come out in this time. Even though I could only understand about half of what they were saying, they were always first to say "God, we cannot do this without you" and to come before Him completely, humbly, and to ask for His help with the end goal of glorifying Him. I am SO excited to work alongside all of these wonderful people, and was so encouraged to see that spirit of submissiveness and humility in them. I know that these are people who are willing to be used by God, and so I am very excited to see how He will use them. We begin teaching this Saturday. However, we advertised to the church on Sunday and only had five kids sign up, which was a bit disappointing. However, I know that God is bigger than numbers and that even if we only get the opportunity to minister to five kids, that will still bless Him. We have also had another church ask to start a SEEDS program at their church as well, so I think we will be doing a training for them at the end of the month.

Training!

Pantomimes

I also, in the near future, will be leading English conversation groups at two different schools, almost every day to help them learn to speak English better. I have been doing a lot of translating, and ministry preparation, and I'm in the process of setting up a sports camp curriculum for YMI Peru to use during their summer. It's been so amazing to be on the side of just preparing for ministry and seeing what goes on in the every day life of missionaries. I love it :)

I have been able to spend a lot of time with the Serranos, watching the Olympics and playing Phase 10, as well as with some people from the church. I made No-Bake cookies on Saturday, and by Sunday night they were all gone! I was rather proud of my baking skills. My Spanish is slowly but surely improving, and I'm understanding things a lot better which is such an answer to prayer!

I have been so blessed by how I have seen the Lord show up in the last two weeks. While there have been times where I have not had enough patience with something, or didn't trust Him with something like I should have, He still continues to amaze me. His grace and mercy are so abundant, and such an unwarranted and undeserved blessing in my life. I am so thankful for the opportunity to be here in Peru, serving His people and His church, and that I have the honor of seeing Him work down here as well!

If I would ask for anything, it would just be for continued prayer support. Prayer for the ministry of YMI Peru, and all the different branches of ministry they have (English teaching, missionary training, Jungle ministry, possible sports camp ministry). Also, please just pray for the Serranos as well and their continued desire to serve the Lord down here...they are such wonderful people, and I am so blessed to be living with them for two months. As far as me, I would just like prayer for patience and a selfless desire to serve, that I would be open to Him and His plans for this time, and not just insert my own expectations. My stomach also has not been feeling the best over the last couple days, so prayer that that does not turn into something serious would be great.

Thank you so much for all of your thoughts and prayers! Each of you are so important to me, and I hope that you are doing well. I have included some more pictures from my trip below, for those of you who want to see them :)