First Spanish Youth Retreat

Honestly, I was a bit reluctant to accept the invitation.  Mostly out of my own insecurity about my ability to speak and communicate well in Spanish...make that entirely out of my own sense of insecurity about it.  I've only lived here in Spain for a year and a half and have been speaking (or stumbling through) Spanish for the same, so how could I possibly communicate Scriptural, spiritual truth relevantly to Spanish teenagers?  Sure, I was a youth pastor for five years in the States, but I still haven't had much opportunity to get into the world of adolescents in here.  Even so, at the urging of a fellow missionary, as well as my wife, in mid-September I accepted the invitation to give a couple of messages at a youth retreat the first weekend in November.

So how did it go?  I learned once again that God shows up in our weaknesses and uses us when we simply say "YES" to simple invitations to be His messengers.  That's not to say it wasn't a lot of work on my part in preparation and having poor Rachel correct my still-shaky Spanish.  But God used me to connect His truth with teenagers, even in spite of my lack of vocabulary and questionable grammar.  More than one leader told me, "You have a real way of connecting with youth," and even several teens told me, "I really connected with your talks."  It turns out that Spanish teenagers (at least this group) aren't all that different from their American counterparts:  they're open to God, and they need to hear the truth presented directly and vulnerably, even if that means sharing our own questions and failures with them.  So God is good, He is faithful, and He uses weak, imperfect, cracked jars of clay.  Lesson learned, once again...

Surgery & St. David's Youth Retreat

Well, let's start with the fun stuff. We got to spend last weekend at a youth retreat! I was the speaker for St. David's E.C. Church's youth retreat, and it was a great time! The youth were great--very interactive, very attentive, and several were really in tune with their own spiritual needs. So God met us there and is continuing to work in all of us. It's such a delight and a privilege to be a part of what He's doing, and it was fun to be back in youth ministry for a weekend!

Now, the not so fun stuff. Rachel had a somewhat minor surgery on Monday. I wanted the doctor to email me one of the pictures from the surgery so I could post it, but neither the doc nor Rachel thought that to be a great idea. Anyway, back to Rachel. She's doing well, resting here at home, but she's in a bit of pain from time to time with her healing incisions. She's not doing backflips yet, but she's definitely better than she was on Monday and Tuesday. Thanks for your prayers--God's at work!