La Palma Girl

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse... except for the sound of me gently typing away on my laptop. I would like to send a thousand apologies for not updating the blog more often. Its one of my New Years Resolutions. Blog more. The last month or so has been crazy and wonderful all at the same time. For now, I'll just focus on the present instead of back-tracking.

I have so much blogging to catch up on, but instead of trying to relay the last few weeks, let me just tell you about today.

Today is Monte's birthday and Reina wanted to throw him a surprise party. We had homemade tamales, compliments of Reina, and chocolate y strawberry cake. Delicious. And great company too.

After lunch, I was off to visit Liseth, Edith, and Flor, three of the girls from church. I went to their house and hung out with them and their little brother Edgar and their mom Anna. We had a good time and it was an excellent opportunity for me to practice my spanish. I was there for maybe 20 minutes before we decided to go visit Anna's sister, Morena. Morena is the woman whose husband died last month. I had been wanting to go see her also. I love going to Morena's house. She has a very beautiful garden and lives on the side of the mountains. Its so beautiful there and much quieter than it is in town.
This is one view of her beautiful garden.

They had been working crafts in the artesian style that is famous to La Palma. I mentioned that I wanted to learn to paint and draw like they do because I think their work is beautiful. Here is a picture of Anna and Morena helping me get started!

Seriously. Up in the mountains, in a beautiful garden, on a beautiful afternoon, learning to paint (color-she doesnt trust me with real paints yet, thats our next lesson!) La Palma style. Amazing day.

While we were working, they served us some very delicious coffee grown and produced in La Palma. (Don Jose cafe) and some sweet bread that was made the same way the artesians made it. She said you cant buy this type of bread at a bakery. It was made with black corn. All of it was very delicious and I felt so blessed to be there. While we were sitting there, Morena shared some stories and pictures about her late husband and his work. She said he used to study with Fernando Llort (famous artist) and that Alfredo, her husband, had started a business selling the local artesian style of art. She is continuing with the art in memory of her husband.
These are the finished pieces that I painted! Loved every minute of it!

This is something else her family makes and sells for about $10 or $12. She gave this to me as a gift. So sweet, but a fairly expensive gift to give. I tried to politely decline, but she was having none of that. So i thanked her for the gift and welcomed into my apartment my first Christmas decoration of the season.

More to blog soon!

Teresa

Is Missions About Words or Deeds?
I found the above article to be very interesting. It talked about that famous quote "Preach the Gospel always, and if necessary, use words." I think what this quote was trying to say is that our lives should be a constant testimony to the amazing God we serve. Its easy to consider myself a missionary here in El Salvador, but I should still consider myself a missionary when I move home. Sharing the Gospel in the States shouldn't be less important that sharing it in some far off country. I pray that when I move home, I can take the lessons I've learned here and continue to work for the kingdom in my everyday life.

Something else the article said that I found interesting:
"But man, if I hear another well-fed, TOMS-wearing evangelical kid quote St. Fracis ('preach the Gospel always, and if necessary, use words') one more time as a justification for their unwillingness to utter a word to anyone about Christ as the one true hope, I don't know what I'll do."

Wow. I think in missions its easy to get side tracked and focus soley on the actions of the trip. Building houses, medical clincis, schools, orphanages, food drives, clothing drives. These things are all great, don't get me wrong. I just pray that we never hide behind those things and forget to mention the real reason why we are here. Its because we serve an awesome God and we want to share that joy with others.

Please continue to pray for the work here in LaPalma that we may fearlessly speak the Word of God. Ephesians 6:19

On a personal note:

November is here. This month is going to be quite different from my other time here. Its going to be a lot more flexible and a lot less planned out.

Hello Friends!!!

It has been such a long week for me. I'm exhausted. I have officially been here for THREE months. It doesnt seem possible. Time is just flying by. Part of me is thankful that it is going by so quickly because Im ready to be back home with my friends and family and part of me just wants to cherish every second that I'm here.

This week, my original tourist visa was set to expire. So Monday, Jose and I traveled to San Salvador to try to get it renewed. We came prepared with everything we thought we could possibly need. We were wrong. The Immigration Office told us we needed two additional documents and that they needed to be notarized and brought back the next day for me to stay legal in this country. We traveled the two hours back to La Palma and set to work on getting the rest of the paper work. Tuesday, we traveled back to San Salvador, back to the Immigration Office, and tried again. This time fully prepared. They told us it would take two days to process the Visa and that I would need to leave my passport there and come back on Thursday. Two days without my passport?! With an expired Visa? Not at all what I had hoped for. And I really was not looking forward to canceling class for a third day in one week. Especially on Thursdays because thats the day I teach in the Christian school. I soon found out that due to some tropical depressions we've been having, school was canceled nationwide for Thursday and Friday. So back to San Salvador we went. This time, I left with my passport and my new Visa. Finally. When this Visa expires, I will be home for Christmas break. I'm going to attempt to get my temporary rescidency card when I return in January. I'm already trying to prepare myself for the red tape that will be involved in that process.

About those tropical storms? We've been very fortunate and have not had any real problems because of them. Several other parts of El Salvador were evacuated and faced serious damage and there were some casualties. Most of my classes this week were canceled due to either rain or the Immigration Office. Thursday on our way back from El Salvador, we drove through the remainder of a mudslide just outside of La Palma.

Yesterday was Dia de Los Ninos. Or Childrens Day. The school had activities planned for the kids as well as program day (day where the program kids get their groceries and support). Due to school being canceled, I believe that has been postponed till next Friday. A good friend of mine learned about the work here and wanted to help. He has offered to buy all new sporting equipment and pay to have a basketball goal installed for the kids here at the school. This has been in the works now for several weeks. We're hoping to get the goal installed (if the rain holds off) before next Friday and present it to the kids. They have no idea that this is going to happen. These kids love to play outside. At every recess, theres always a soccer game or a baseball game breaking out. But the equipment they currently have is older and not in good shape. I will take lots of pictures of this and hopefully be able to post them next week. :)

Please continue to pray for me. Pray that I will see God's plan for me in La Palma and that I can accomplish as much as I can during my limited time here.

Acts 17: 26-27 From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.

Last week, I took a few days off to avoid burning out while I'm here. I think its important that when you work every day (except for those lovely days when you are too sick to get out of bed) that you take a few days to yourself to re-energize and come back ready to hit the ground again.

I went to San Salvador and I loved it. It was just what I needed. It was a very relaxed day and included McDonalds and Pizza Hut and a trip to the Cinemax.



This week has been an interesting week. One night, we thought we had an intruder at the school. I was at the Lalli's house and for me to get home would mean walking past the school. We thought it was probably nothing, but had the police do a walk through just to be sure. The police were great, not only were they very nice, but they had their guns out and did a legitimate search. It was almost like watching COPS: El Salvador (although I dont believe they have that show).



We have a team scheduled to come down in a few weeks so I am very excited to see some familiar faces.



In my 3rd grade class this morning, one of my students tripped and landed on his arm that he broke back in March. He was very upset and his arm looked like it was broken again. I took him to the directors office and had him checked out. They determined that it most likely wasnt broken (praise God) and wrapped his arm in a bandage. Brave kid.



As most of you know, my brother is in Afghanistan. I'm working on a little surprise for him and could use your help. If you would like to, send me a picture of you and your family with a home-made welcome home sign/poster. Im making a photo book of pictures of friends and family and people of La Palma all holding Welcome Home signs. I'm hoping it'll be a nice welcome home gift that he will keep forever. AND I'm a little heart broken that I wont be there when he gets home, so this is my way to feel involved.
This is Ulises after getting his arm wrapped up. We had some extra time today after the kids finished their test so I asked them to help me with my Welcome Home project. Any excuse to color and get out the markers? These kids were all for it!


Thank you for reading!

My prayer request for this week: Ephesians 6:19.

Love,

Teresa

Living Water.

Water has been on my mind a lot lately for several reasons. I'm fairly certain that I haven't been drinking enough of it and have been borderlined dehydrated for several days. Tonight I poured myself a giant glass of water and it was so refreshing. Much better than a bag of soda.


Last week, our water stopped working on Wednesday. Thursday it came back long enough for a quick shower, and then stopped again. It returned Saturday and has stayed on until tonight, when it shut off again. We aren't exactly sure what is causing the water issue but we are hoping to get it fixed quickly.

Friday, in the middle of our water crisis, I kept thinking of the Accapella song, "Living Water." Specifically the part where the child sings, "Give me water from the well that never runs dry and I will thirst no more." I started studying the story of the women at the well. She asks Jesus to give her this "living water." so that she will never again be thirsty again. I can relate to being thirsty and I can relate to the woman at the well. What concerns me much more than my physical dehydration is my spiritual dehydration. Friday evenings we have a womans class. Typically, we study one woman a week from the Bible and discuss her story. When we were told to open our Bibles to Juan 4, I knew exactly what women we were going to be looking at. The woman at the well.

Tonight, I'm studying a Beth Moore book, trying to work on this spiritual dehydration, when I get the call about the water being off again. After realizing theres nothing we can do tonight, I came back to the study. Beth Moore takes me to Psalm 63. The first verse of this psalm says, "Oh God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water."

Here in La Palma, we meet as a church every day but Saturday. We are always coming together and encouraging one another. Sometimes though its easy to get caught up in the work and miss out on the relationship with God. It would be easy to focus on the differences in culture, what I do or don't have here, and the other insignificant details. I don't want to spend a year here and leave feeling like I majored in Bible with going to classes night after night. I want to build a genuine relationship with my God. A thirst for His word and for a relationship with Him.

Please pray for me as I try not to drown in the details but to instead drink in the richness of God.

Todays blog is all about super heros.
A few weeks ago, one of my second grade students ran off of the playground. If you know anything about second graders, you know this is highly unusual. So I went to the classroom to check on him. He was starting to cry, so I asked if he was hurt. He said he wasnt. I asked if everything was ok and what had happened. He started sobbing and saying something very fast in Spanish. I have no idea what happened that day on the play ground, but I held him until he stopped crying. Afterwards he was so thankful that someone had payed attention to him and noticed him on his bad day that he gave me this:

It is handmade of construction paper and appears to be wearing a cape. When he ran up to me with a huge grin on his face and delievered me a handmade super hero? Thats exactly how I felt. Like a super hero.

This week in my other English classes, we've been talking about what special powers we would have if we were super heros. I had them write "If I was a super hero, I would...." My class yesterday participated and were a little creative. My class today was not creative at all. Out of five students, only one person even wrote anything. So we had to use my super hero as an example. If I was a super hero, I would make it rain cake. I would have a Patience Wand that could bless people with more patience and I would have a peace gun that would shoot peace at people. My class thought I was crazy. Heres the picture of Super Teresa and all of her cake:

Ok, so maybe my students are right. Im a little crazy and lacking in artistic ability. I asked if they had ever heard of the movie or book "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs." I would really like to have both. If I had the book, we could read it a page at a time, discuss sentence struture, and vocabulary. It doesn't matter to me whether its the new edition or the classic edition. Also, I would really like to get all of my students together and have an English movie night. This movie would be perfect. The characters dont have thick accents making it fairly easy to understand. Also, it has so many different types of food, I think seeing gigantic pancakes landing on schools will help them remember their vocabulary. Also, it might help to spark some of their imagination. Because, really, whats the point of being a kid without imagination?

If anyone coming on the September trip has room to pack a DVD and a childrens book, I'd GREATLY appreciate it and even reimburse you for the costs. (not the cost of flying, just the cost of the movie and book) :)

This is a quote my brother found for me. I feel its appropriate for this blog:

"I am fairly certain that given a cape and a tiara, I could save the world."

And an even more relevant quotes:

"I can do all things through Him who stregthens me." Philippians 4:13

"...if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." Matthew 17:20

Miss you all and God Bless,

Teresa

This week has been fairly unproductive.
Monday I woke up very very sick. It was miserable. Everyone was very helpful though and brought me gatoraides, saltines, and medicine. A group from church even came and prayed for a speedy recovery. Tuesday I was better, but still had to take it easy. I was very dehydrated and exhausted. No classes Monday or Tuesday of this week.
Today, I have my first classes of the week. So far so good, Im still trying to rest in between classes and drink lots of fluids.
Also, apparently, whatever I had, my computer caught because it is not working. At all. Thankfully, theres an extra computer I can use till I figure out what my game plan is.
Today is Normas 25th birthday! We are throwing her a surprise party in her house complete with friends and cake. As of right now, she assumes we have all forgotten her birthday! I cant wait for it and will hopefully be able to post pictures soon! But no guarantee since I do not have a personal computer.
Love to you all
Teresa

A serious picture with me teaching, and a not so serious picture with me drinking soda out of a bag. Or as my preacher back home likes to call it, "coke in a bag."

I have been very busy this week. Last week I had 80 students. This week I have more than 90. This week was definitely tiring, but good. Sometimes I really miss home. Everything about home. OK, mostly the people and the food. But then I have an amazing day here or something small happens that just reminds me that I'm where I want to be and I love it.

For example, in my class this morning we had only two people come today. The other students had other obligations today. Since it was a small class, I thought we'd try something different and fun. I taught them the song, "Here I am to worship." I love this song. Its really great to teach them too because its repetitive and slow. We worked on the lyrics and sang it a few times. (With the help of itunes.) Other students came and joined the class or stood at the door just to hear the song. They asked if we could learn this song in their next class too. It's so exciting to watch them learn and to see them get excited about what they are learning. Most of my classes last about 45 minutes. This one lasted 90 minutes. It was great.

The Other Americans

The other Americans are here! They have arrived safely and are trying to get settled into their new environment. I know it was very hard for me to back up all of my things and figure out what to take and what to leave. Putting it all in a few suitcases was difficult, I can't even imagine the preparation they have had to do to bring a whole family. I'm excited to get to know them better and work with them over the next several months.

Thats all for today, Much love to all of you and a special birthday shout out to my brother! Happy Birthday Tim, You will be home sooner than you know it! :)

Prayer Request:

This week has been a tough one. Its hard to hear that your friends and familiy are going through a really difficult time and you can't be there for them. It breaks my heart. Please remember to pray for the families of fallen soliders and thank them for their sacrifice. Also, pray for the families that have lost a child. That is a heartache that no mother should have to experience.
I've been thinking a lot this week about Crowe, Holmes, and baby Elliot.

Updates:

As for the English classes, this was the first full week. I had almost 80 students this week, not including the students from the La Palma Christian School. Out of those 80, 46 of them were on Saturday. I'm really excited about the classes and hope that the students stay with it. I will be starting another class this week also. The women that work in the Hotel La Palma want to have an English class but because of their work, they cant go. Therefore, twice a week, I will be going to the Hotel to teach a class there. These women are such hardworkers and are always so welcoming when we have teams staying at the Hotel. I know they are eager to learn.

Also, I'm waiting to hear back about a possible Let Start Talking team coming to La Palma. I think that this is just what the church needs to get things going.

The church in La Palma is hosting a Ladies Day on December 4th. We are super excited as this is the first activity like this that we have done. I have volunteered to cook for about 60 people. They have obviously laughed at the notion of me cooking. I told them I CAN cook for that many people, as long as we are having hamburgers. Alas, I think they will sign me a different job.

My Spanish is getting much better! But I wish it was even better. I can say a lot more than I could before, but I still struggle with comprehending. If they speak slowly and use simpler words, I can follow along pretty well. I know that as time goes on, it will get easier.

That is my update for this Sunday afternoon. Love you and I will talk to you soon.

Today is a sad day for me for many reasons. All of which I find too personal to post on a blog. Today was my first day of teaching classes to the grade school children by myself. The professor before me outlined which lessons should come next. Only problem is he told me to teach lessons they learned weeks ago, thus making me look incomptent and having to improv all of my classes today. I'm giving this man the benefit of a doubt and hoping it was an accident or miscommunication and not some intentional retaliation to my teaching. That added with the personal sadness? Not the best day for me.
My favorite new comfort items: Rapiditas: pre-made tortillas, chips, and my St. Louis Cardinals hoodie.
I'll write more soon.
God Bless.

Yesterday, we didn't have power for about four hours. This can be quite common in La Palma, but something that will take me a long time to get used to. I opened all the windows in my room to let in as much of the remaining daylight as possible. Including the two windows that are about 10 feet above the ground. (Chair, kitchen counter, im six feet tall, wasn't that difficult). When the lights finally did come back on, they were so bright and my first reaction was to shut them off. My second reaction was to start charging all of my electronics.
I think it will be to my advantage to buy a few extra flash lights at the store today. Just in case.

Today was my first day in the classroom. Samuel, the other English teacher, taught today while I observed and got to know the students and see where they are at in their studies. I absolutely loved it. The kids are adoreable. I am a little concerned that my lack of confidence in my Spanish will let the kids think they can walk all over me. Samuel left me in charge for about five minutes during one class. Before he left, one by one, students were coming to the board to write the answer to a question. After he left, two students asked to go to the bathroom, and the rest of the students were at the board. I somehow managed to get them all back in their seats before he returned so it at least appeared that both the students and I could handle ourselves. I'm sure it'll be a work in progress and I will learn all of the teacher tricks along the way.

Yesterday, I was sick and spent the majority of the day in bed resting. The parts of the day that I actually braved outside of my room were productive. Jose and I worked on a class schedule. I will be teaching English at the Christian School on Thursdays and holding open English classes twice a day the rest of the week. I´m excited to get to work and figure out a curriculum that will be helpful. I´m also trying to incorporate a way that we can teach the Bible and English at the same time. Maybe in January we could have an LST group come down. Any volunteers? (still figuring out the spanish keyboard, took me a long time to find the right side up question mark!)

So far we have lost power at least once each day. It doesnt stay out for long, but I have given up on resetting my alarm clock.

Some of you have asked for this information again, if you want to send a monetary donation, please send it to the Monett Church of Christ, po box 172 monett mo 65708
As always, your prayers are needed.

I'm not entirely certain how much property damage or road damage was done during this storm, but thankfully our brothers and sisters in La Palma are safe and doing well. I'm very thankful that everyone is ok and I can't wait to get there so I can see everyone!

Please be praying for our brothers and sisters in El Salvador. From the looks of the news reports, the country was hit pretty hard but so far no specific details. I hope everyone's OK!! Check back for updates.

Hi Everyone!! Welcome to my new blog! This is the site I will be using to update you on my adventures while I'm in La Palma. Right now, I'm still in Missouri trying to get everything finalized for the trip. I'm working on preparing a curriculum that will introduce the community to both English and the Bible at the same time. I'm also working on getting the rest of my funding for the trip. Please contact me or the Monett Church of Christ if you are interested in supporting me. Even $10 a month would go a long way. I have half of my funding in place and I can't thank you enough for the help!!!
I will be leaving July 1st and plan to move home December 2011. I will be at home this year at Christmas for a few weeks to rest up and see the family.

I will post more information in the coming days. Please email me if you have any questions!
teresa_barten@yahoo.com