We are so thankful for all your prayers. It has been encouraging to hear from many people of our supporting churches this month. It is always good to be reminded that people are praying, thinking of us and supporting us. While we both desperately want to be able to speak well in order to communicate to those God wants us to reach, there is nothing easy about learning another language. It takes time, discipline and endurance. But we consider it a privilege to be here, and take it very seriously. It is also very exciting when we see ourselves making progress each day!
Praises:
We are thankful for our next door neighbors (vecinos). God gave us a great family next door, and they have become close friends. They constantly help us to practice Spanish, and our kids play together almost everyday. I truly believe God had his hand in this. They are our family here and help us tremendously with our Spanish development.
We are closing in on the end of our first semester and trying to finish strong, but we are thankful that soon we will have a break. This past month we've all been sick and know that we can't continue with this pace indefinitely. We do not plan to go home for Christmas break. Instead, we will stay here with our neighbors, and Lord willing, we will strengthen the Spanish that we have learned this semester.
We have so much to be thankful for here. Everyday our kids go outside and play with so many neighborhood children. They love it here. We also have such wonderful friends here. We are also thankful for our progress in Spanish. Our classes have been helpful and the patience of friends allowing us to practice daily is equally helpful. We are thankful for the cards, letters, and words of encouragement we have received while we are here. It's those little things that brighten up a stressful day and help remind us that we have people praying for us while we are here.
Prayer:
Please pray we can gain our health and energy back. Some of us have had colds for over a month and it's been draining. We hope to start the next semester refreshed so we can learn as much as we can.
Please pray for our friends (neighbors) who are trying to raise money to stay in school this semester. We see their dedication to church planting (they planted a church while students here) and their desire to be career missionaries. But they have had so much trouble financially from their supporting churches in Mexico. We ask for prayer for them that they can continue to study to train to be in full-time ministry. We also selfishly want them to stay while we are here because they have helped us so much and become our closest friends. So we'd thought we'd pass along their prayer request.
We also dropped in support this past month (about $100 a month). It does not affect our time here in Texas, but it might affect our ability to receive financial clearance to officially start our first term. Please pray that we can continue to make partnerships while in language school so we are not detained this summer from going to Spain. We know God is in control, and we will go in His time. It has been a blessing this year to see how perfectly God worked out this year for us to be in language school. It seems that there would not have been any other year to fit so well. There are many reasons we can look back this Thanksgiving and see that the timing God has laid out is better than our own. (Jeremiah 29:11)
