Saturday Post -- 02/04/11

Here are a few happy customers from this week's English classes, where, as well as enjoying cheese empanadas and Coke, we awarded the certificates for the first module of classes, which ended the previous week with a short exam. The majority of students scored a solid pass, but we stressed to those who hadn't that their recent progress in a new language was the most important thing to take away from the experience and their mature attitude and determination to keep going was a real encouragement to us.

In the first picture, with the students from the Elementary class, is Ruth Young (2nd from left), from Scotland, who is here as part of a new gap-year programme called 'First Serve' co-run by UK missionary organisations GLO, Echoes of Service and Interlink. During her time here, she has mainly concentrated on administrative tasks, but she has been a great help, too, in the English classes, particularly during conversational tasks. She's leaving after three months here next Sunday, and her input in the class will be much missed.

In the third picture, with me, are three of the students from the Basic class (the whole class is featured in the middle picture). They are, from left to right, Kevin and his cousins Daniel and Diego. Diego is the keyboard player in the new church band which had its first rehearsal on Monday, with my friend from work Wilson on the guitar. We managed to practise two pretty rudimentary songs which we sing fairly regularly in church, though it will be some time before we can play as a unit on a Sunday. The goal is to have a group of around 20 songs that we can play fairly capably together and which I can leave my band-mates with when I'm not around (such as later this year when we'll be in Canada for a couple of months).

Aside from that, it's been a busy week, with all hands to the laptop most evenings as a result. The end of the month brings its usual slew of reports and I've been preparing a sermon for Sunday, the second in a new series on the gospel of John in the church, on the topic of John the Baptist. As I've studied this week, I've found the passage a little dry on personal application, but big on the gospel, and it will probably be the first overtly evangelistic message I've preached for some time. Anyway, I have to get motoring on that just now, so I shall leave you with our prayer and praise points for now.


Prayer
• For a successful end to the first modules (of four for the year) of English classes.
• For more invaluable training for Amanda this week, with another visit from former FT audiologist Maricarmen Fernández.

Praise
• For Craig's sermon, tomorrow, and his preparation.
• For our visa application. We were advised to make contact within a month of submission to check if anything else is required of us, or if there have been any other hitches. So we need to start chasing that up this week. As ever, patience is the key.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda