HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Welcome, friends, to 2007, a year full of promise and possibility!! Our New Years celebration was SO MUCH FUN!!! Since New Years Eve was a Sunday, it all started with another joint church service. That's right! The Arrayanes church joined us for another sunday service..that's 2 in a row! And it was so great! Then that evening, the Cofradia church had planned a sort of pot-luck-esque gathering at the home of one of our families! This is how we organized it! Every family that was coming was to bring enough meat to feed their family and enough tortilla mix to feed their family. Then on top of that each of the family groups had committed to bringing another aspect of the meal: beans, salsa, and a few other things. I wasn't in on the planning so I'm not sure what all they were supposed to bring, but let me tell you we had a feast! Then when everyone arrived around 5 pm, the men all worked on grilling the meat and the women all made the tortillas. Yes, you read me right...hand-made tortillas. It's so normal here for them, but they are SOOOO good! It was a ton of fun, and even some of our guys did a little tortilla-making...quite hillarious seeing Dave (our base director), Goyo (our pastor), and the dad of the family that did the soccer camp making tortillas!

Mati (Goyo's wife), Pola (from Arrayanes), and Maria (Arrayanes pastor's wife) preparing meat for grilling

Dave making hand-made tortillas!

Goyo making tortillas

Mr. Funk making tortillas--quite an experience for his Christmas outreach trip with his wife and three daughters!

Folks from Arrayanes came too, and we all ate and laughed and talked and had a grand ole' time. The later it got the colder it got. Eventually we had a couple fires going with folks sitting around them roasting marshmellows and telling stories or just chatting about stuff. Sandy came from Arrayanes, and we had a good time laughing and spending time with her family that came and others from the church. Everyone went home around 11:30 pm, and right at midnight everyone started shooting off their guns for about an hour! At that point, it was already pretty noisy from all the parties going on. So you could hear the music from all over town plus all the guns going off. It took a little while to fall asleep, but it finally happened!

New Years Day dawned, and I had mentor time with Sandy. We decided to go ahead with it regradless of the holiday since we hadn't had mentor time in a couple weeks due to the Christmas activities. I showed up at her house around 10 am to find her still asleep as she had been up all night at the all-night town party in Arrayanes after returning from our church party!!! We had some great time together that morning discussing some pretty serious stuff that had come up for her the night before, and God moved in amazing ways. I can still see how the look on her face changed as the truth of God's Word in relation to what was going on for her began to sink in deeply in her heart. It is a truly unforgetable experience to be able to see with your physical eyes the transformation that the Word of God has on a life in the instant that it's happening!! It was an amazing way to start the year!

The Lord has his own challenge for me as we rang in the New Year together! As I've pondered over the end of 2006 and the entrance of 2007, the Lord has been challenging me to have an undivided heart (Psalm 86:11; Ezekiel 11:19; Jeremiah 32:39) and to be committed to the pilgrimmage with Him that will lead directly to His throne room one day, from strength to strength (Psalm 84:5-7), transformed in ever increasing glory (2 Corinthians 3:18), finding all my fountains in Him (Psalm 87:7). None of that happens by accident. None of that just sneaks up on us until we realize that it has come to be true without our realizing it! It is something we have to work for; we have to set our course in that direction and commit ourselves to how the Lord would work in us to accomplish that in us since we know it is His will and promise for us! It only happens when we seek it out intentionally. So, that's my prayer, my hope, and my "plan" for 2007, and instead of saying "we'll see if it happens", I'm claiming the truth that it WILL happen because that's the kind of God we serve! I pray that as you begin your new year that the Lord is challenging and encouraging you in your intentionality for 2007 as well, that this will not be a year that just happens to us but rather one in which WE happen to IT and all for the glory and kingdom of God.