Pictures

Ok, everyone...I have FINALLY updated my photosite. Check it out at foreveramber.photosite.com. There is a link on the right that says "Online Photo Album", which links to this site also, so you can check it out from time to time if you want to see if it's been updated. I've had a lot of fun going through the pics and updating this, so I hope you will have as much fun looking through them!

On another note, we have recently had a couple of different youth events. One was hosted here, and was a one-day event. We invited the youth groups from La Cruz, Sinaloa (near Mazatlan); Rosario, Sinaloa; and Rosa Morada (within our own municipality), and with our own youth we had a total of about 50 youth in attendence that day. During the day we played tournement games of volleyball, soccer, and pictionary. There were 6 teams and they each played each game 5 different times! Then in the afternoon, our youth hosted groups of visiting youth in their homes for lunch, and everyone then enjoyed some free time to rest and clean up for the evening services. Our speaker was a young man named Felipe. I believe he was also the speaker at a youth camp in July that our youth attended, and from what I hear they responded well to his messages then. Our event in October was no different. He spoke about real love vs. worldly love and challenged them to love well and to seek the true love that God offers us through His Son, etc, as well as to love each other truly. The evening ended with a time of prayer, and we continue to see fruit and hear stories of how our youth were touched by the Lord during that time.

I especially enjoyed the prayer portion of the service. I was nervous when Steve called me up with the rest of the leaders to be available to pray with the youth who would come up for prayer becuse praying in SPanish is one of the hardest things for me. But as I was going up to stand in the front, I prayed so hard that the Lord would give me the words I needed, and I felt his peace and presence just descend upon me. I had one of our own youth girls come up and have me pray with her, and the words just flowed. IT WAS SO NEAT!!! And praying in Spanish has been SO much easier ever since. Granted, my praying is not perfect in Spanish, and the words certainly do not come as easily as they do in English, but it gets better every time I do it!

This past weekend, we had another youth event, only this time we took 16 of our youth up to La Cruz, Sinaloa. The church there rented a water park to host the event, and there were youth there from Mazatlan and a couple other towns in addition to us. We arrived Friday afternoon, Nov. 3, in time to set up our tents and get settled in before the evening service started. There was worship and then a teaching given by the youth pastor of our overseeing church in Tepic. The church is called La Fuente (The Fountain), and the youth pastor's name is Paolo. He spoke Friday night about living in submission to authority. His message was truly annointed and I know that many of our youth were challenged to re-examine their approach and response to authority in their lives.

Saturday was a free day for the most part. The youth were free to swim in the pool and play soccer and just hang out and have a good time. Just about everyone ended up in the pool; and if they didn't go willingly, they were thrown in. There were also some oraganized relay games, which turned out to be a ton of fun! Then in the evening Paolo taught again, but this time on how we satisfy the hunger that all of us have in our hearts. He challenged them not to satisfy their hunger with what the world has to offer (sex, drugs, alcohol, fashion, etc), but instead to satisfy their hunger in the Lord and to guard carefully the inheretance He has given each of them in Jesus, as well as the destinys that each of them already holds in their hands, not just their own but also the destinys of future spouses and of those whose lives they will affect as they go through their own lives. It was an amazing message and was followed by an amazing time of prayer. He spoke to the girls and boys separately during prayer time, and I have heard several of the girls talk about how the Lord touched their hearts or called their attention from that message. We left shortly after the evening service ended and arrived back home around 3 am on Sunday morning.

Pictures from these events are all posted in that photo site I linked to at the beginning. Make sure to check them out and see what our youth have been up to! The Lord is moving in their hearts, challenging them to deeper relationships with him and with those around them. Please pray for us and for our youth, that we would continue to see growth in the youth currently attending, and that we would continue to reach out to those outside the church. Also, keep the youth in your prayers as the enemy is working overtime to route and destroy them. Thank you!