Multiply

Thank you all so much for your prayers.  God is SO FAITHFUL!!!  John 16:24 says "Until now, you have not asked anything in my Name.  Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete."  I have great assurance that as you and we join in prayer for SAM's English Village 2013, God will answer us.  And I am confident that He will answer us in incredible ways, beyond our expectations. PLEASE keep the prayers coming!!!  With extremely long and physically demanding days, our blog posts may be few and far between at best.  "Rise and shine" begins at 7:00 a.m., with a tutor meeting at 8:00 a.m., followed by breakfast at 8:30 a.m.  We have some breaks during the day (including a lengthier break of 1-2 hours in the early afternoon), but otherwise we keep going until 9:00 p.m., at which time the students are free to go, and the tutors group up to discuss the day and lay our requests before the throne of God.  For most of us, a typical day will look like going, going, going from about 7:00 a.m. until 10:00 p.m., and we will need the Lord's provision of strength and focus.  So despite the potential lack of updates, know that God is busy at work in and through us, and please be part of the team through prayer.  You are every bit as important in this trip as we are, our brothers and sisters in Christ!

Day 1 of English Village has come to a close, and what a day it was!  For the first time, we broke up into our tutor groups to practice English using Total Physical Response (which basically entails acting out words and phrases).  Each one of the tutors (the 11 GO Trip Team from Calvary Church and a handful of SAM missionaries) is tutoring 2-3 students, and the students assigned to each tutor are on similar levels in their English proficiency.  Some of us have very advanced students, and those groups are able to have normal conversations in English and can focus on more details.  Some of us have maturing students who need to start with the very basics.

I LOVE MY GROUP!!!  I am the tutor of two 20-year-old seminary students from Paraguay who want to be missionaries: Juan Angel and Victoriano.  They did not come to English Village with really any background in English, but they both have a great desire to learn, which is so encouraging.  Today, each student developed three learning goals for the day.  Each goal had to be Specific, Achievable, and Measurable (SAM).  Since Juan and Victoriano are friends, are staying together at the Baptist Mission (we have so many students that we could not fit them all at the SAM base), and are on similar levels proficiency we decided to have the same goals.  They were: (1) Learn 20 words about food and drinks, (2) Learn 10 action words, and (3) Learn 5 expressions for greetings.  Through a combination of pointing to food in the kitchen, of acting out words like "climb," "spin," "swing," and "kick" (the term "kick the dog" has become an "inside joke" in our group and makes for a good laugh every time...you would just have to see it for yourself), of shaking hands while greeting each other, we have been able to learn A LOT in one day.  We have A LOT of fun in our group...lots of laughs and lots of mistakes, which makes for a wonderful experience.  Some of my favorite moments with Juan and Victoriano have been seeing Victoriano and Juan learn new words and phrases, describing chicken and eggs by clucking around the table like a chicken and acting like a egg plopped out of my rear, Juan constantly pleading "SPANISH PLEEEASSSSEEEEE!!!!!!!, and learning how to say "Help! I need to go to the bathroom, please!  Where is the bathroom?  The bathroom is over there...run, run, run!!!"  : )  I am so excited to see how they continue to learn over the next 9 days of English Village, and perhaps my greatest prayer for us is that we would be able to, at some point, be able to talk more about our lives as Christians.  Since both are in seminary studying to be missionaries, I can only imagine how encourage I would be by talking normally with them and, hopefully, likewise with me.  Beyond the physical learning of words, which is SO important, it would be an amazing opportunity to share our hearts as fellow brothers in Christ and to be mutually encouraged!

It is a beautiful picture, this idea of English Village.  There are a handful of tutors (about 15) who are the "experts" in English.  It's our natural tongue, and we don't struggle coming up with words.  There are about twice as many students (about 30) who have varying degrees of proficiency in the English language.  A physical goal during the 10 days of English Village is to take one tutor who is proficient in English and use them to improve the proficiency of 2-3 students throughout the week.  What a beautiful picture!  Each tutor is only focusing on 2-3 students.  This is not a large number for each of us...this is not too overwhelming a task for each of us.  If we each had to tutor 20 students, there may already be tears streaming down from being overwhelmed.  But by focusing small individually, the group can have a significant impact on the students collectively.  

It's a picture of the Church...it's a picture of discipleship...it's a picture of intentionality...and when it is working, whatever the "it" is, it will MULTIPLY.

"So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up.  And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied." (Acts 9:31)

Please pray for us.  Pray that we would be bold.  Pray that we would have peace.  Pray that we would build each other up.  Pray that we would walk in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.  Because when these things are true, there is only one result...and this result should be our one goal:

we must MULTIPLY

to reach a world in need...to demonstrate that our God is worthy to be praised...until all the world hears...all for the glory of God!