Global Talk

Hi, Church Blog Readers!

This was a busy weekend for Betty and me. Friday afternoon was English Club, where we were able to invite and spend time with several new people. English Club is a great environment for building relationships because the best way for the kids to learn is to talk one-on-one with individual English-speakers. So even though English is being taught, that's not the primary purpose for having the club.

In addition to English Club, we did our best to lead the couples' study of "Love and Respect" on Friday night. Our friend Simon interpreted for us, and we think it went pretty well. Trying to have a discussion among 40 people when it all has to go through an interpreter can be a little tough, however. The people were responsive, joined right into the ice-breaker (I think with Latinos there IS no ice to break!), and seemed to appreciate what we had to say. Afterwards a young unmarried couple came to us and and asked if they could meet with us, and a lady wrote Betty a note asking her to make e-mail contact. We also met with another couple Sunday after church, and have a general appointment with yet another young unmarried couple. I think there's pretty strong interest in this topic here in Merida.

I talked for 50 minutes at church yesterday, counting time for interpretation, about a fire that prayer stopped. I talked about the spiritual unity of the believers who prayed to save the house, and tied it in with John 17 where Jesus prays for those who believe to be unified so the whole world will know God sent Him and God loves us. But my talk was only a small part of the service, which started at 10 AM and ended at about 12:45. Most of it was prayer, in groups and from various people up front, some of it was testimony from people in the body, and some of it was singing (singing at CENFOL has improved 1000% over the last 2 or 3 years).

Finally, as I write this, Betty is speaking at a women's meeting on how Christ can triumph through our tragedy.

We're feeling a sense of fulfillment as we try to get out of the way and let God lead us. We thought our commitments here were thinning out, but now I don't think we'll have a free day for awhile. That's okay, 'cause the exciting stuff seems to happen when we're spending time with the people here! It's kind of exciting to see what God has for us each day!

I've tried to summarize...sorry this is so long.....there's just so much going on!

Tom for the Bergies