August ’13 Highlights (Photo Blog)

    We kicked off this month with a bonfire for our youth (pictured below right) in place of our normal Wednesday night teaching. It was a wonderful night to break out of our routines, to come together seeking the Lord and worshipping in His presence. Cadence did a great job teaching on forgiveness, talking to the kids about the importance of not guarding bitterness in your heart, and giving them opportunities to speak forgiveness. As we began to enter in to a time of worship, the Lord began to move on their hearts (pictured below left). It was beautiful to see them enter fully into the Lord's presence. I was so proud of Ariel because he stood up in front of the nearly 40 youth that were at the bonfire and began to share from his heart about how he has been one to hold grudges and to often be argumentative with others. He began to publicly ask for forgiveness. It was amazing to see his bravery and humility. (To read more of his story, read Haille's blog: A Heart Full of Potential). I love to see the way that the Lord continues to move in the lives of our youth! I believe that they will rise up and bring real transformation to their communities. I love being a part of their lives.

    This has been a huge month for growth and success in our student sponsorship program. We continue to see new students sponsored and have begun to see the fruits of our tutoring programs. One student in particular is the first person in her family to attend school. She has been struggling because no one at home can help her with her homework. She was failing three of her classes with grades of 40% and below (some in the 20's). For the 2nd quarter, with weekly tutoring sessions, she has been able to bring her grades up to 60-70% in all of her classes. We celebrate her success!

    Ok, so Cadence and I both tend to be a little nerdy… We have decided this month to do an educational study across our four villages. While I was teaching in Atlanta, I learned about a simple reading comprehension exercise for kids. A big part of reading comprehension is seeing if children can form an accurate picture of what they are reading. So, we decided to do a study of third graders across our four villages and see patterns in reading comprehension from the different schools. We dictated a detailed sentence to each of our kids. They wrote down the sentence, read it back to us, and then were asked to draw a picture of the sentence including all the details. (Talandria and Nikki I thought about you all so much doing this activity!) It was so interesting to see what each child came up with and to discover patterns from the schools. To read more about this study, read: An Educational Study.

    Cadence and I have been talking that for the next area of growth for the sponsorship program we really want to focus on building relationships with the local schools. We want to build relationships with them, share resources and ideas, and hopefully be able to speak into the educational system here. This month we went to visit the school in Santa Matilde for the first time (pictured right Chelin in her first grade class). We spent a couple hours there seeing all of our sponsored kids, meeting the teachers, and talking with them about how our students are doing in their classes. We had a great time visiting the schools and beginning to build relationships with the teachers and principal. I believe that good things will come from these relationships. I'm excited to dive into building deeper relationships with the schools and educators!

    I know that I most often I blog about student sponsorship, children's ministry, and youth (all of my areas of ministry), but New Song is doing so much more than that! I have been excited to see so many of our projects growing and becoming well established. I want to celebrate the ways that the Lord is moving in those areas of the mission. Our garden has been doing so well (One of our garden workers, Emelio, pictured left rejoicing in the pipian harvest)! Our workers have been receiving classes from an agricultural engineer and developing plans for the garden harvests. This month we held a graduation ceremony honoring them as they finished their classes. In early 2014, our current garden workers will become agricultural teachers and we will be able to train others in the community to start new garden projects. This project has become a huge blessing for these families! Our garden workers are able to provide a steady income for their families; they are now making as much as a factory worker. I am so proud to see how well they are doing! They are healthy and happy! 

    I have also been excited to see the Bread of Life Bakery up and running. We have been making bread, sweet bread, and some pastries and cookies six days a week. We have been able to provide jobs for many people in the community, including my lovely friend Jasmina. We are still looking for the right teachers to be able to start our training program teaching bakery, cooking, and sales/service classes. I love to see what the Lord is doing in this place!

    I have been excited to see how the Lord is moving in our churches this month! We have seen the Lord moving in the hearts of our youth in each of our four villages as they have begun to meet together for Friday night youth services bringing the teenagers from all of our villages together for times of prayer and worship (pictured right). I have also been so encouraged to see the way that the Lord is moving and calling our church to stand together to see our community transformed (to read more, read: United We Stand). We have been meeting together every Friday morning for a time to intercede and ask the Lord to transform our community. I believe that He will move on behalf of His children. 

    I have been excited this month to be able to start offering counseling services to some of our children that have been through abuse situations, including my two beautiful daughters (pictured left with Yessica). We have a wonderful psychologist who loves the kids, intercedes for them, and allows the Holy Spirit to guide her as she counsels them. It gives my heart so much peace and hope to be able to help them walk towards healing. To read more about this situation, read: United We Stand Part 2. I believe that the Lord will bring their hearts to full freedom and healing! If you would like to help financially with this project, please click the "Support Me!" link on the left side of this page.    

    We are excited to welcome the Medlins to our New Song family this month (Medlin family: Kelly, Michael, Abigail, Gabriel, Jacob, and Christina- pictured right)! We have known for months that the Lord was going to begin to bring families to serve alongside New Song. The Lord began to speak that to our staff and then we watched as the Lord put on more and more families hearts to come consider serving long-term. The Medlin family arrived this month and will be serving with us for at least a year. We are so excited to see what the Lord has in store for them here in Candelaria! Michael will be working with our finances, offering financial training to families, and helping with worship. Kelly will be homeschooling their four children and wants to help with our children's program as she is able. Welcome Medlin family!

    We had a great time celebrating Ogla Duarte and all of her hard work at New Song (pictured below left). Ogla has been working with New Song for years as our clinic administrator. She brought the clinic from nothing to where it is now. She is an amazing administrator who can resolve any problem, who loves New Song deeply, and who has invested so much of herself into our clinic. We had a great celebration honoring her work at New Song and thanking her for all that she has done during her time at New Song. I love blessing people!