Points of (Possible) Interest

To make up for my silence in the last month, some snapshots from April:

The Zoo

Last month we visited the local zoo. I wondered before the trip if I would be putting the cost of my admission towards animal cruelty, half expecting cramped, bare cages and plenty of concrete. Instead, I found a perfectly acceptable little zoo. Worn down in places,  but offering large enclosures filled with the appropriate greenery.

In fact, the feeding practices in this zoo are even a bit more authentic than US zoos. As we walked toward the aviary, I saw a man pushing a wheelbarrow filled with yellow fluff. I watched as he paused by the hawk enclosure, reached his bare hand into the wheelbarrow, and proceeded to fill a bucket with…dead baby chicks. I yelped as he tossed the bucket of limp chicks into the cage. Goodness, I know it’s what they actually eat, but I just can’t imagine exposing a three-year-old to the sight of a pile of baby chicks being decapitated by hawks.

I offer mild photo evidence of the practice:

Note the cute yellow fluff.

Honduras

We spent the second week of April in Honduras. I’ll admit that I was completely skeptical of this trip to Honduras, which was a mission trip with students involved in the Vida Estudiantil ministry from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. I had no idea if we would have any students willing to go. The trip was scheduled during Holy Week, and we would be on the road on Easter Sunday. I couldn’t really think of any girls besides Jenny that I could invite. It seemed like a major effort, and I thought the energy could be better spent in other areas. God had other plans.

I asked Jenny two days before the trip if she could make it. She said yes immediately and said she’d ask her parents that night. Her only other plan had been to go to a friend’s beach house, but everyone would be drinking and partying, and she was excited to have another option. We ended up having five students join us. We were split up into small groups while we were on the trip, and stayed with families in tiny villages.

Our group didn’t do all that much. We moved some rocks. We showed half of the Jesus film. (The pastor told us it was getting too late, and everyone was leaving, so we’d show the other half later. We never did. Oh well. :) We played with children. We led a short evangelism training. Actually, Jenny and another student Rueben led the training. They did a great job, and I was practically bursting with pride hearing Jenny explain the Gospel.

At the end of the training Jenny shared that she knew that evangelism worked, because at the beginning of the year, I had walked up to her in the cafeteria and shared with her, and now her whole life is different. Annnd, then I might have teared up a bit. I didn’t actually share with her that day, Selegna did. But she’s right about her life looking very different, and that humbles me again and again.

The whole trip was far more worth it than I could’ve imagined.

Somebody stick me on a Campus Crusade brochure:

Sharing 4 Spiritual Laws booklets with Honduran children.

Bowling

We went to the only bowling alley in El Salvador for a student event. I bowled a…37. My enjoyment of the night was clearly dwarfed by one of our students who noted in her facebook status the next day that bowling had been “THe bEsT NIghT of mY LIfe!!!”

Jenna rocked me in bowling. Not that it's hard.

Weekly Meeting

Our first weekly meeting at Matias was shockingly well attended. We had at leas 50 students there. Free pizza partly accounts for the good attendance, but it doesn’t account for the fact that a good chunk of the students who showed up are our friends. It turns out that we’ve actually developed a lot of ministry relationships over the last couple of months. There were even students from two of the campuses that we left behind. So very encouraging.

I also met a girl who came by herself simply because she saw the signs around campus and wanted to check it out. For the past three weeks, we’ve been meeting at least once a week. We’ve had some amazing conversations about truth and God.

Bible Studies

We now have two weekly Bible studies on campus each week. God shows up when we do work that He wants done that we are utterly unequipped to do. I know this is true, because leading Bible study in Spanish is a whole different thing than meeting with a student one-on-one. It is terrifying, but also kind of thrilling. We started out with a co-ed Bible study. We’ve now added a girls-only Bible study. Last week we had to meet at Wendys because of the Swine Flu. I’m flattered, frankly, that the school considers our meetings large public gatherings. At the same time, it would be nice of them to let us meet on campus again, considering our groups rarely top 15.

There is April. The month when our ministry really started to feel like a ministry. Not a bad month.

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