May 24th 2008

It was a hard night last night because I woke up to multiple dogs barking including one of the family’s dogs. This barking seemed like it lasted for hours and before I knew it the sun was shining in my face which meant that it was time to get up. The time was eight and I got up and had breakfast which was a piece of bread, two cups of water, and a cup of tea. This morning was the first time I had breakfast with almost the whole family. It was exciting to listen to their conversations and be able to respond to all of their questions in Spanish. After breakfast, Kiki and Lucas played hide and go seek. The laughter and the silly comments made by the two boys brought a smile to Susana’s and my face. When I returned to my room, I did my morning devotions and decided to get ready for the day. I thought that I would work on my Spanish some more, but instead I went out to play soccer with Kiki. After soccer, Kiki and I played some games on his computer. While playing games on the computer, I realized that I have been spelling Kiki name wrong. It is Quique which is short for Enrique. For lunch, I had chicken with carrots and onions, along with rice and potatoes. After lunch, I finished one homework assignment for language school and decided to type up my notes from the language school. It is work that has to be done so that I can improve my Spanish. I then made the assumption that Omar was going to pick me up for youth group. Since this is the day that I scheduled to give him my guitar to hold on to for me and transport it since I have to take public transportation and am afraid that it would get stolen. However, I did not trust my gut instinct to make the phone call to confirm plans for transportation to youth group. Another problem is I do not remember the route or have the address to even ask a taxi driver to take me. Before I knew it the time to get picked up had come and gone so I continued to work on my Spanish. This was very upsetting, but I know that God had a reason for me not to be at youth group tonight. When thinking about missing youth group, I think that I was really frustrated last week by not being able to understand a majority of what was being said. Also, after the week I have had maybe God just wants me to relax tonight. As I was relaxing, I received a phone call from Shawnee. She wanted to know if I was coming I said that I did not have a ride and forgot to ask the address last week. Shawnee gave me the address so I took a taxi to youth group. I arrived in time to sing the last song and watch the last video in the video series. I was not able to understand the questions afterwards, but I was able to understand a lot more at youth group tonight than I did last week. When youth group was over Shawnee and I sat down and planned a retreat that is going to happen in July. She said that her and I would be responsible for the talks. It was great to meet Shawnee for the first time. Omar than arrived back home and wanted to hear me sing and play the guitar for him so I did. He asked me to sing them in English which was nice and this means that I will be helping out with music when I can. The evening turned out really well overall. Another point I have to make is that I think that God has a special plan in store for me this weekend coming up in July because Shawnee said that they do not have Happening and that I am the one who is going to help get a program similar to Happening started here. This is great and inspirational news for me after the week that I have had. However, during youth group when I was speaking to people I felt that my Spanish was horrible. On the ride home and talking with Omar I felt that my Spanish was comprehendible. After returning home, I said my night time prayers, showered, and went to bed looking forward to tomorrow. The reason I am looking forward to tomorrow is because Shawnee invited me out to lunch and then a soccer game.