Regional Student Retreat

It was five minutes before midnight. We were still talking with Joel and Ivette, our son and daughter-in-law. They had arrived later than usual to pick up our granddaughter, Allegra and they were going to stay overnight. They had been celebrating with one of their best friends who had just announced: “We are going to have a baby.” We, John and Jan, were packed and ready to go to the regional camp of the U students in the morning. Since our workshops were scheduled for Saturday afternoon, we had decided to continue our usual Friday activities. At 11:55pm the phone rang and the world changed.

It was Ana Bello, the University Compa staff, “The Campgrounds was double booked and we are looking for a place. We can stay in one of two church buildings or we could, if you say yes, stay at your house.”

Jan: “How many are you?

Ana: “We are 16 right now and 5 or more will join us tomorrow.”

Jan: “Let me ask John and I will call you back.”

John said” Yes” right away. We started picking up personal belongs that are always in living areas. Joel and John moved 5 single mattresses into a vacant room in the first floor.

At 1:30 am, sixteen tired young people crawled in. By 2am everyone was in their sleeping place. Girls slept on the first floor and the boys in the living room (second floor) on the sofas, two bean bag chairs and some mats.

Needless to say it was a week-end we will never forget. We had always wanted to use the house for retreats, so this was a dream come true. Of course we found out our limitations as accommodations goes. AND we ran out of water late Sunday evening…..but this was after most had left. (We do not have a continuous water supply.)

Everyone seemed quite happy. There good moments of teaching and fun. (The tether ball rope is shot.) Sheyla spoke in the mornings on the importance of the Bible from 1 Peter. There were good places for the workshops. (Jan taught bible study method on the first floor.) Saturday evening John was “Bible answer man”, as the students asked questions about how the Bible was formed and “Does the Bible have more than one interpretation?” “Why is the Bible so macho?” etc.

Sunday afternoon they hiked about two miles from our house to the falls that was almost no falls at all (because of the scant water flow). But it was a good time in God’s nature.

Three days later we are still cleaning up places in the house.

Would we do it again? YES….But we do need to do some changes in the house.

Thanks for supporting us so we can have all this FUN. AND the kids could learn.

Preaching Workshop in Toluca

We left Mexico city on Friday night to get to a workshop on preaching Saturday at 10:00 am. We just had time to sleep and get to the workshop.

Preaching Workshop
We had 4 come to the preaching workshop, which is a good number. Our first task is to explain that preaching is the explanation of the text as stated in Nehemiah 8:8. Many think that preaching is something else. What that is I´s not sure.

The second thing I try to explain is that the argument of the book or passage is what is most important. Since all have had some experience in Inductive Bible Study they can see the importance of finding the argument.

We try to choose a Bible book that has the same number of chapters as people in the workshop. Each student presents a verse in relationship to one chapter. In the summer we did 2 Timothy. When the did their sermons on one verse presenting the argument of the chapter we heard the argumtment of the whole book. This was great.

We have now trained 15 with this basic workshop and have passed out 7 books by Haddon Robinson on preaching. If the leaders of the student ministry can learn to preach the impact of the student ministry will be much greater.