Encouraged

That is the word that sums up how I am feeling at this moment. Since I am quite pregnant my emotions have been playing around with me a lot lately and I have one moment felt encouraged and the next, discouraged..but looking back over these past few days and seeing everything that God is doing around us is a definite reason to be encouraged!

This past week I was so nervous as I had a lot of things to plan for and did not feel prepared to do so. I sought God, cried out to Him, put my weaknesses and fears before Him and He, once again, brought me through it all,ichis Glory, and not my own. Last week Jorge asked me if I would preach in the church on Sunday, and I agreed, knowing that this is something that he would like me to do at least once a month, so as to encourage the ladies in the church to get more involved in ministry and to see that God can also use women in the ministry. But I was so nervous as not only did I have to plan for that sermon, but I also had to think about the English class that we were starting on Tuesday and then our ladies meeting which we were starting off on Wednesday. On top of all that, I had also been having a lot of pain in my lower abdomen throughout last week, and was a bit worried about what that was all about. But really, the LORD gave me His Grace and taught me a lot about how I need to come back to the basics of trusting in Him to put the words in my mouth when I need them, and to seek Him first, above all else. I read a book that was given to me by our Pastors wife and a good friend of mine, Mary Coyne, before I left Canada called, ¨Breaking the Mold¨( I can´t remember the author´s name right now and I´m two lazy to go downstairs and look, lol). But she said something that really made me think. She speaks about our duty as Christians, how we are ALL called to serve God and ALL called to the ¨ministry¨. She made a comment about how it is funny how some Christians say they are called to ¨full-time ministry¨, and then she says ¨aren´t we all??¨ She then goes on to say how as Pastor´s wives, we shouldn´t look at everything that we have to do and say, ¨oh, I have to do that because I am the Pastor´s wife..¨ she says ¨no, you have to do it because you are a Christian and God has called us all to serve Him.¨ This may be something that is not all that new to some people, but for me, it really made me think.

So I gave my sermon on Sunday and spoke on Ecclesiastes 5:1-2 and spoke about prayer and the importance of knowing when to be silent before the LORD. Then last night (Tuesday) we had our first English class and had 27 people come! We were really excited about that, especially as 12 of them are relatives of church members and are not actually attending the church themselves, so we are hoping to be able to get to know them better and share Christ with them. The classes went great, Jorge gave a great introduction and then we taught the ABC´s and some numbers. Jorge and I had a lot of fun translating back and fourth as we want the students to hear english as much as they can. It is exciting for us to see the people excited and encouraged about learning, especially because normally if someone wanted to study english they have to pay a lot of money to take a course, and to know that we are helping these people who would normally never get the chance to do this...it´s pretty neat. We have said that the only thing that they have to pay for is for the photocopying of the book, which comes to about 8 dollars, but a few people, we have found, don´t even have that much...so we have told them that whatever they can give is fine and we will see how we can cover the rest. The people here have so little but their hearts are so big, and they are thankful for what we are doing..so for me, that is reward enough.
This afternoon I also had the ladies meeting at the church and though few came, we had a really good time, so I am glad about that. There were only 6 of us, but that is to be expected as we changed the day and time from when they have had it for a long time...so it will take some ladies time to get used to that. But either way it went really well and I am thankful that the LORD is doing great things among us. I must go now as I have been writing while uploading pictures onto facebook (YEAH!) and now I need to get ready for our guests that are coming over tonight...will write again soon.

Treasured moments

everynight since Josiah has been in his big boy bed, he usually always wakes up in the middle of the night and calls out ¨Mummy!¨ and Jorge and I take turns going and laying with him, one night I will go and the next night he will go. But the last couple of times that I have gone and laid down beside Josiah in bed he wraps his little arms around my neck, hugs me as tight as he can and sweetly says ¨oh, Mummy...¨ then he falls asleep with his arms around me. What a way to make a mother´s heart melt. The other night as I was laying with him and he had his little arms wrapped around my neck I just laid there looking at him...feeling his breath on my cheek, and all I could do was thank the LORD for my little prince. I just laid there and treasured every moment of having him so close to me, holding me so tight, knowing that with his Mummy there with him, he was safe and loved. Those are the moments that a mother treasures..and I believe they are ones I will never forget.

finally, back again...

it feels like is has been a long time since I blogged...and I guess it has! These past few weeks have been rather busy ones, what with the robbery and all, and I have honestly not spent a lot of time online at all. Last week my Father-in-law lent us his laptop and Jorge was able to go and get another modem for the internet(as ours was stolen), but I still didn´t spend a lot of time online, mostly just to chat every now and then with my parents, etc.

We had a good New Years here in the house, all things considering...my sister in law, Paulina came and spent a few days with us which was really nice for Josiah and her, she LOVES spending time with him and he enjoys playing with her also:) It was really comforting to have her here with us, especially the night that we arrived (when we found that our house had been broken into)..because Jorge and his Dad were involved in calling the police and whatnot and Paulina was dedicated to helping me with Josiah, holding my hand and asking how I was doing. She is such a sweetheart! When we first came in and saw that someone had broken into the house she right away was by my side asking if I was alright...I was a bit shakin up but not for very long. After about fifteen minutes or so, we were all standing outside the house and I thought, I just need to go inside and pray. I walked into our bedroom where all of our drawers were open and our clothes and things everywhere, and there was Paulina, kneeling beside our bed, praying. I just knelt beside her and we held each other, cried and prayed together. We prayed for peace, and for the poeple who broke into the house, and really, after that, all of my fears or jitters that I felt were gone...and Jorge and I both felt a lot of peace about the whole situation.

New Years Eve we had a church service and it went really well. The main focus was to give thanks to God for everything that He has done in this past year (or last year now..2009), and quite a few brothers and sisters were given the oppertunity to share the things that God has done in their lives in this past year . It was encouraging to hear how they have seen God working, even with everything that the church has gone through, and how they are excited to see what He has in store for this New Year that we are entering into.

So, I began writing this post almost two days ago and then had to save the draft...and now I am back with some more good news, and that is that yesterday Jorge was able to buy us a car! He went to Concepcion for the day and after meeting with his Dad and some people at a few dealerships he found the perfect car for us..it is a Chevrolet Corsa (I think this is a model that you can only get in South America because I never saw one in Canada) and it is just what we needed:) So we are very thankful that we do not have to take the bus anymore when traveling to and from the city etc. So we are so Thankful that the LORD continues to provide for our needs!

Josiah is doing well and is changing soo much! Everyday he seems to do something cute and say something new and he is at a really fun age. He is getting very comfortable with the brothers and sisters in the church and even runs to a few of them with open arms when he sees them! What?? Josiah, run to someone´s arms?? haha I know, it is very different for us to see also..but as he is getting older he is also learning to be more independant and understands that Jorge and I will not go anywhere for a while if he goes and plays with other people..and that gives us a nice break at times too! He has really been paying attention to the way that things are done in the church, and today in the service he did so many cute things, bless his little heart. The costum in the church is that when one enters the temple you kneel at one of the benches and pray...so he has observed us do this and at times came and held our hands and prayed with us. Today when we walked in he ran to the bench and right away bowed his little head and folded his hands...ogosh, it was so cute! After that he went up to one of the little boys in the church and kindly extended his hand to greet him..lol granted the little boy just laughed and walked away, so poor little Siah was left with his little hand out, and after waiting for a few minutes and realizing that he wasn´t coming back, he just shrugged it off and went about his business. Later on in the service Jorge and I were running out of ideas of how to entertain him (Jorge usually sits up front but today he sat with me on the bench), so Jorge gave him a coin to play with. Josiah looked at it looked up at the brother sitting at his desk in front of the stage,(who also collects the offering) and went over and held out the coin to him. The brother smiled and said, ¨your offering?¨ then held out the offering plate to him and Josiah threw his coin in...he was so proud of himself and it is so fun to watch how he tries to imitate everything we do.

Anyways, this post is getting very long and it is getting very late so I need to stop for now. I will try to write more often now...it is harder when I get behind as I am constantly thinking of things that I should write about, but then I get too caught up in the daily activities and dont find the time to sit and write it down. But I will try harder over the next little while. Blessings to you all and good night:)