Well, it has been quite a week and it is only Tuesday.  This week is week of prayer (week of preaching - as it usually is also in the States).  Us Americans* decided that we wanted to do something different.  We decided to have a afterglow after the meetings to allow the kids to do something spiritual "by choice".  I went on Sunday and talked to the pastor about it.  I wasn’t' sure how to explain what we wanted to do, but I figured out how to get the idea across in my limited vocabulary.  He seemed excited and said it was a great idea. 

After the meeting that night he didn't announce it so I stood up and caught his eye during the closing hymn.   Then he got up and said something about the parents staying by after the meeting, something he had announced at the beginning.  I was a bit confused.  After the closing praying he quickly came to me and said that he wanted to talk to the parents about it first.   I had to leave right away and we decided that Crissy would stay by to talk to him about it afterward and see what happened in the parents meeting.  She almost left because it was going so long, but, thankfully she stuck around.  One of the challenges of learning a new language is that often you don't understand every single word and you are forced to fill in the gaps with what you assume the person is saying.  What we hadn't really thought about is that the person you are talking to may do the same thing.  After the meeting the Pastor told Crissy that two or three songs would be ok.  "And some prayer also?" asked Crissy.  "Sure, you can pray also."  Crissy thought it was kind of strange the way he said it, but assumed it was fine.  Fortunately Mandy, the other SM that is here, asked him to repeat himself.   They found out that the pastor though that Crissy and I wanted to do two or three special musics at the end of each meeting! 

When Crissy told me this I was a bit depressed about my communication skills.  We made sure he knew what we meant for the next night, and he said that would be fine.   Well, last night at the end the meeting he called me to come to the front.  He explain that we were going to sing a bit more for people that wanted to stay and then said it was all mine.  I looked and everyone was sitting there expectantly.  We were planning on having a small group in a circle, but here was everyone, over 100 people.  Nobody was comfortable just getting up and leaving.  I tried to explain again, in my broken Spanish, that we just wanted people to stay who wanted to, and that we wanted to make a circle in the front.   Everyone just sat and looked at me.  Fortunately Papi Joel came up and explained it again, finally some people got up and left.  It was a bit awkward, but eventually we had a group gathered at the front.  It was still a pretty big group.  More than I expected.  The Lord blessed our time together.  I really believe that these kids need more opportunities to choose to be spiritual.  They need God to be real to them on a personal level. 

*Crissy's brother is here now - check out his blog and his great pictures at http://nathans-perspectives.blogspot.com/

Also another SM who was actually here a few years ago for a school year has returned.  Her name is Mandy. Check out her blog at http://elsalvadorsm.blogspot.com/