A few stories

A few stories for your enjoyment:

• This past week our team went to our first Bible study with a group of Hispanic young adults from the church we're attending. As we were introducing ourselves, they responded, "Beth?! Like 'I have to go to the bethroom?!'" No. Not like that. :)
• As I was helping one of my new 4th-grader friends at the trailer park last week, we had a conversation that went a little like this:
• girl: "Where is your dad?"
• me: "He lives in Michigan with my mom."
• girl: "Oh. You live by yourself?"
• me: "Well, not any more. I live with my friends now, but I used to live by myself."
• girl: "Weren't you scared?"
• me: "Well, sometimes."
• girl: "What did you do?"
• me: "I prayed."
• girl: "Oh."
• That went on for a while longer. It was just a neat, natural little door into cool conversations for the future. Our outreach there continues to be great. My teammates have really been digging in and just loving on those kids. The lady who is there long term has told us that they haven't had this many kids in a long, long time. Especially the older kids. She told us that we are the reason they're coming. A very encouraging thought.
• Jean's birthday is this week! We're excited to celebrate her!
• Today we were slipping and sliding as we played a rainy game of Ultimate Frisbee with a couple other teams. A soggy and enjoyable time was had by all. Though it wasn't taken today, below is picture proof of my (very limited) Ultimate skills. I'm in the navy shorts.

• Hopefully, if all goes as planned, we will be taking a group of our trailer park kids to a bowling alley on Saturday. The homework help program we are volunteering with promised them that if they were able to raise their grades or teacher comments on their report cards by "10 points" (1 point per increase [ex. C+ to B- = 1 point]), then she would reward them with a bowling trip. A lot of the kids met the challenge (awesome!), but she didn't have a way to transport them all. Well it just so happens that Team Chile's assigned vehicle is a huge, old 15-passenger van (named "Ike" with a LOT of personality). We are so excited to be meeting such practical needs there!
• This past weekend, our house held a 24-hour prayer vigil during which 1 person (we took turns) read Scripture, and 3 or more people prayed. We made it through the entire New Testament as well as the Psalms and Proverbs. I personally read 1 Corinthians 13 through Galatians 4 on my assigned hour. During this time we also participated in a "Daniel fast" - only raw fruits and vegetables, and juice. A very cool experience.