Playing Dentist with the Teens

7/9/09
Hello to all, Live from Brasil!!

Well, we didnt see Tequila last night, (he was out "Tequilaing") but we did eat some awesome pastels! (i recomend the chicken with cheese myself). Today i slept in a little on accident and didnt get up until about 20 after 6 and did my devos and some journaling. Then Carlyn and i ventured to the kitchen and had some bread with jam. So good! Erika joined us for breakfast for the first time in a while which means shes feeling better. We had to make our smoothie ourselves this morning though cuz Bill was being a slacker. (Erika said shes thinking about firing him.)


We got to the Grupo CEO building semi-on time this morning and again rolled out the balls for the little guys. this one kid Lucas has got quite an arm! Its amazing how much fun those little ones can have with just the plastic balls. They could play with them for the whole hour and a half if we let them!


Our lesson today was on being a good example. For the pre-teens we read from II Timothy 2 and then threw them a curve ball with another verse. We read Mark 12:31, but tweaked it a little to see if they would catch it. We said that we should treat others as less important than ourselves and that we need to look out for number 1 first. We almost had them convinced too! they didnt know whether to listen to what we were saying, or to go with what they knew from the Bible. They corrected us and then we did read the verse correctly. The point was that they need to be an example from the bible, not only what they hear people say, cuz some people can misinterperet and lead them astray.


After that we had basketball and i also sat with some kids going over some english words in a book they had. I swear, it is not possible for these guys to say "her", "panther", or "shirt"!


When they left, we ate lunch and then killed time until 2 when it was time for the teens. A lot of them didnt show up until like 230, so we got started. We did todays lesson on being and example and yesterdays on accountability cuz we didnt meet with them. Now, all of these kids have great personalities, but once you pull out a Bible, it gets dead quiet. None of them gave us any kind of feedback unless we made them, and if they did it was very general. Then when it was time for basketball, they all of the sudden came to life again. We're getting a little frustrated. Tomorrow we're giving our testimonies and having them write theirs out. Its a chance for us to see where their hearts are at and talk with the ones who havent yet given their lives to Christ. Please pray that we are sensetive to the Holy Spirit!

We tried to play an actual basketball game for the last 30 minutes of time, but whatever was going on was definately far from what you could call the sport of basketball! (we got our work cut out for us, Nate and Robert!) It was like pulling teeth to get them to pray at the end, but finally Patrick volunteered.

The teens left and we had an hour to get ready for Children's Worship Hour. Sula and Alane managed to get Carlyn and me up front to help lead the motions. It was again a blast! We got home around 730 and ate dinner and then Bill announced that we were going to the beach market. So we all piled in the car and headed out. Finding a parking spot was an adventure, but Bill performed an impressive parallel parking job!
We walked up and down the aisles looking at all the different crafts and whatnot. I bought a Ceara jersey and Carlyn got a Fortaleza one. We're automatically rivals now! (but we're on the same team when it comes to keeping our Bibles away from Joyce!)
We got back around 11 and i finally got to bed a little before 12. It was a full day, but im still lovin it!

Until next time,
Jo