Thursday July 16

Thursday we continued at the ES Deaf School—and today we added a new brother in Christ! Mario, who was mentioned in our Prayer Request yesterday, received Christ through the efforts of his classmate Luis, who brought him to Diane Crews, Diane and Dina, our translator, who wrote out the “Evangicube” (a cube with pictures illustrating the Gospel) explanations in Spanish to which Diane pointed Mario as he learned about the Gospel. Thank you for praying!

The New Testament team did their first skit; it was of Jesus walking on the water and allowing Peter to join him. Jared was Jesus, Michael was Peter, while Casey and Jackie (also skit director) were disciples in the boat and Jeremy Tagoo was the narrator. Zach, Navy offspring that he is, manned the blue sheet prop of the “roaring waves.” Jeremy and Jeremy played a rousing chorus of “Your Everlasting Love” and Mariah led the motions (not signing) which the ES students did with our students. We had two more group motion activities which all the students enjoyed (Ask your student about “A Toodi-tot”). After our skits and activities, we did a craft of making Gospel bracelets (bands with black, red, white, yellow and green beads on them in that order. Each color stands for part of the Gospel message.).

We cleared a lot of trash and brush in back of the school and students’ mothers jumped in and worked hard alongside of us. Everyone pitched in, but we found “Michael the machete” particularly potent with that tool and that Casey is good at wheeling old wheelbarrows of brush around. The brush and trash pile in the front is huge and great progress has been made. More importantly, our students are making an impact just “being” with the ES students and on several occasions ES students clustered around our students to teach our students some ES Sign language and work on communicating. We found communication is more than words!

The Principal was absent today but we hope to approach her about meeting with the high school students on Friday afternoon in lieu of a skit (see Requests, below). The school has been very generous in allowing us to use their precious classroom time to be with the students.

Thursday night we were hosted at the home of Andres, one of our translators. His mother had a lady come over, set up a grill on the lawn and make papusas, a Salvadorian treat of tortillas fried with meat and/or cheese in them and topped with a red sauce and shredded cabbage dressing and/or sour cream. They were delicious! We met Mercedes, the El Salvadorian director of the local evangelical organization and Global Action contact. When we arrived, we were able to participate in a small group teaching by a local pastor for whom Edward, Andres’ older brother, interpreted. Some of the team were prayed over individually by the pastor and some small group members. For Tim Pinkard’s birthday, we surprised him with a birthday cake from a local bakery and the Salvadorian believers sang him a traditional Salvadorian Christian birthday greeting. It was an incredible evening and a late night. We met briefly to recap the day; one of the things we learned and discussed was just being with the students, even if communication was not perfect or difficult, meant a lot and was something God can use--there and in our country as well.

Tomorrow we head back to the deaf school for our last day there. Thanks for continuing to pray for us and what God wants us to be and do here.

Praise for:
-- Mario, our new brother in Christ, and those whom God used in his coming to Christ!

-- Continued open doors for the message of the Gospel at the school.

-- Team safety (we seem to have a student each day under the weather, but God has been faithful to restore them in a day)

-- The hospitality of Andres’ family

Requests for:
-- Growth opportunities for Mario, perhaps through Luis, his classmate.

-- Dina, one of our translators, who went to the doctor today for some intestinal pains. She had her appendix out only 4 weeks ago!

-- The OT skit team as we present David and Goliath tomorrow (Friday).

-- Changed lives and hearts in and out of the team. We may have the opportunity tomorrow to meet by gender with the high school students to discuss common areas of teenage life, concerns, and struggles. Pray that God will open doors for our students to share how Christ figures into their life and meeting its challenges.

-- Continued humility, good health, good attitudes, good relationships.