Lord, I believe, help my unbelief

I can say with confidence that all of us have reached a place of absolute desperation or hopelessness with ourselves. My time of desperation has come multiple times but most recently last week when it came to my studies.  When I sit down and study, most of the time I begin to get anxious because I feel hopeless to gather and order my thoughts.  My memory fails me as I try and remember things I've studied; I can no longer bring to memory things that I myself have considered as I study a particular section of Scripture.  It becomes exhausting as I sit in front of a computer screen for hours and feel like I've accomplished nothing.  A couple weeks back I reached the end of the line and cried out to the Lord.  It was such a beautiful comforting time as the Lord so gently and lovingly directed me to II Timothy 1:7 during our 1st Sunday night chapel with the Bible college students.  It reads "For God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind." The last 2 words "sound mind" shined out to me like a Las Vegas strip neon sign!  A sound mind...a sound mind.  A self-controlled, disciplined or otherwise sensible mind.  The Lord reminded me that He is able to calm my heart, order my thoughts, and give me the ability to communicate His word.  If you or I are experiencing any sort of instability of mind we know that it's not from God, it's from the enemy.  When I'm in that place I can confidently push away the enemy's lies and call on the Lord to give me that sound mind.  What a beautiful place of peace that is!

A few weeks ago on March 19th we had our long awaited soccer tournament.  The last few days leading up to it were undoubtedly stressful as we thought of last minute details that hadn't been considered before hand.  Four days before the tournament date we had a total of 2 teams signed up.  Imagine the doubt of whether there would actually be a turn out at all?!  Finally, the night before the tournament, we had 10 teams signed up; 2 teams short of our maximum.  As it turned out only 8 of those 10 teams showed up to participate.  After some prayer, we sat back and watched the tournament unfold itself.  We started out introducing ourselves to the crowd of at least 100 people.  I gave my testimony and shared the uniqueness of a personal relationship with a risen Lord, as opposed to a set of rules with a common dead leader such as Muhammad, Joseph Smith, Buddha, etc.  Darwin went on to present the gospel in more detail and much to my surprise, he did an altar call to finish his time.  To be honest, I was not completely convinced that this was the best idea.  I feared having a call and standing there like 2 idiots as people looked at us with blank stares.  Much to my surprise we lost count of how many hands went up after 15.  I was extremely excited to see this outcome but also ashamed of my unbelief and lack of boldness.  The tournament rolled on smooth until a player broke his arm.  Shortly after a fight broke out that Darwin and I watched and waited to end.  Until, we were forced to take action and split it up in response to one of the players with cleats, fly kicking another player in the back.  After stern warnings of any more incidents the tournament continued on without a hitch.  6 hours later the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners were declared.  Everyone had heard the gospel, 75% of the participants received a N.T. Spanish Bible, and before we knew it, it was all over! I never thought I could have so much fun doing something like this, but I had a blast!  We had the chance to talk to quite a few of the players after it was all over.  We pointed out the directions found on the inside of their Bibles to Calvary Chapel San Isidro and sent them off expressing a desire to see them there.  All in all the Lord truly did above and beyond what we asked or thought!

Prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place

Prayer to get it started!

Just about ready to start

Ali apparently feeling imprisoned

The tournament officials/scorekeepers, Justine Marees and Ryan Slabach

Sharing my testimony, sharing the good news

Darwin offers accepting Christ

We bow our heads as 18 or more accept Christ

These guys check out their current status in the tournament

Finding out they're in last place.....

Gameplay

We break for a small snack

Darwin and I talking to the players during the break

Darwin was itching to kick around

Oh, we also offered face painting!

The Finalists

3rd place

2nd place

The 1st place champions

The guys proudly wear their winners shirts and check out their new Bibles

One of the major reasons in putting on the tournament was to start a youth group.  We have decided to kick it off next Saturday, April 16th at 7pm.   In the spirit of being honest I would like to confess that I'm not 100% excited about starting it.  I would have to say fear of failure and potential embarrassment are factors in my lack of excitement.   It's going to be a serious challenge getting it started.  It reminds me of a quote I once heard "The problem with Christianity isn't that it has been tried and found wanting, but that it has been found difficult and left untried."  Unlike in the U.S. the kids in this youth group aren't going to be kids that come to church with their parents.  Basically, we're going to have to go out into town and find them.  I ask myself so many questions concerning this: How do you start a conversation like that? What's going to make them want to come? Are they even going to care about God?  The bottom line is it's not about me.  Simply, I need to be obedient to who the Lord directs me to and trust that the Spirit will do the work HE wants to do in them.  So, as I pray, seek, and ask for vision the Lord impresses on my heart the first set of subjects we will be going over: the characteristics of God, starting with His love and mercy.  Everyone here knows about God but the sad truth is that few know of a personal relationship with Him. What better way to show them how true this is than to show them His many beautiful and perfect characteristics.  So I go on asking the Lord to help my unbelief, believing that like in the soccer tournament He can do more than I expect.  Full steam ahead! Please keep the youth group in prayer. 

Finally, we've recently acquired a new member to our team, Bailey Constant.  It's been a huge encouragement and challenge to see her fervor and desire to reach the people in this country.  She hit the ground running as she immediately began to plan a VBS during "semana santa" or holy week, which is conveniently when the kids have a week off of school.  We're estimating 100 kids from the neighborhood and surrounding areas will show up to this 3 day event.  Please pray for her and all the details concerning this "club de niños."

Thank you so much for your prayers.  Please email me with any prayer requests and I will add it to my recently made prayer list that I intend on going through a few times a week.  Thank you for your support, I wish I could thank you individually for that but I do no receive information as to who supports me.  Blessings!

Below are some pictures from the all girls orphanage that we visit weekly.  These pictures are from the 1st time I went.

Goofing off with some songs with Miguel and Peyton

Fascinated with fake mustaches

Working on projects of women of the Bible

I wish I knew what was going on here