Monday-not much eventful, another day of class, and I gave a 20 minute presentation in culture class on McDonald's and the globalization of the world. It went much better than I thought it would! Spanish continues to improve...
Tuesday-A day of blessing. God allowed Agner and William, two young Nicaraguan Christian men to eat dinner with Howard, me and most importantly, Helmer. We all sat down to share a nice American style dinner and afterwards Agner and William talked with Helmer about some really vital things pertaining to Christianity, having a relationship with God, and trials and tests. They asked some really upfront questions that made us all think, and especially Helmer. It was good, I could tell he was thinking things through. I think the situation is best described as a constant battle. Of course we are all in the middle of a spiritual battle every day as Christians (see Ephesians 6--for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against the rulers of darkness...). Helmer's life is being battled over right now, and you can see some days he responds to the advice and counsel of Christian friends and influences. Other days, he seems to struggle more with thinking that to change life is too hard, too much to change. Pray please, every day, that Helmer will realize more and more each day that nothing is too hard with God's strength and it is all very worth the pain to let God change our lives, even if it seems like an impossible task to give up certain things and to let God be number one in every single area.
Here is a picture of us after dinner.
Tuesday was also my tico mom's birthday: Feliz Cumpleanos, Cecilia!
Wednesday: Got some things done around here, and lots of homework! We had class at McDonald's (culture) to further discuss the globablization topic, and to experience the food :) and advertisement methods of MCD's firsthand...at least those were our excuses for going:)
Thursday: Not much except tutored a new lady, Cynthia in English for the second time. She is really a neat lady, a Christian (not sure if she is growing a lot in Christ right now though), and it seems a bit providencial that God has let the door open to tutor her, since she is currently going through a seperation from her husband. He wants to seperate, not her, so pray God can begin to mend their relationship. So many people down here have so many relationship problems and don't understand true love it seems. I think the basis is they were never taught from good examples (their parents), and only were taught what they learned in the Catholic church, so many don't truly understand unconditional love, like Christ showed us, and like Paul instructs of in 1 Corinthians 13.
Friday: Left in the PM for the ILE (the institute) Women's retreat. It was AWESOME. I didn't want to go at first, but I sensed God saying GO!!!!! I went, and wow what a packed day and a half of solid blessing and refreshment. The theme was preparing ourselves for the wedding of Christ and his bride (the church) and being prepared for his coming. The speaker spoke from Matt 25, the parable of the 10 virgins. The key verses for the weekend were:
Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. Revelation 19: 7.
And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you. Isaiah 62:5b
We talked about things that keep us from being ready, we had a session today on spiritual warfare. It was so good. And not to mention the amazing fellowship with the other women I study with daily at the institute. What a time that God knew so much I needed. I learned so so much and was refreshed in so many ways. Praise God! Pictures to come soon.
So that's the past week! Oh, and here's a picture of my tico parents' three granddaughters, the two are Kate and Christine, visiting from Qutar, which is where they live currently. The other is Kiandra, who lives here in CR. This was taken at the birthday celebration for my tico mom. We all went out to eat lunch and had a lot of fun together.Will write more soon...promise to be more regular with the updates!
Bethany
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