Wednesday, 02 July 2008
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Fleet Foxes
By Fleet Foxes
see relatedThe 2008 Summer Team Arrives!
Lots of Christians have notable milestones along their spiritual timeline – milestones which denote life-changing experiences which have been formative in their spiritual development. Some of these milestones are positive, like a sermon or a book or a conversation with a friend which God uses to remove the veil from our eyes and hearts and see a new and great truth. Some are negative, like the death of someone close or committing a horrible sin or a time of doubt and confusion with regard to God and Christianity. These milestones become quite noticeable in one’s own life when giving one’s testimony. My spiritual timeline, however, has very few of these milestones…but one I can certainly place along my spiritual timeline was my “SAM Summer Team” experience in San Ignacio, Bolivia in 2004. How God wore me down for months and months and finally broke me into the idea of doing missions for 2 months in Bolivia is my favorite story to tell about my spiritual development. I can still remember the prayers offered up for me in my parent’s living room by the many people who cared for me only a few days before I left for Bolivia that summer. I remember hearing, repeatedly, about how God was going to use this summer to change me…and more vividly I remember how little I believed them.
So as not to spoil a story that merits a recounting in person, I will just conclude it by saying that my “SAM Summer Team” experience changed my life. The pre-Summer Team Elliott was very different from the post-Summer Team Elliott, and thanks to that experience and the great work God did in my heart I am now a missionary.
That was all just the introduction. Yeah. But I say all of that by way of introduction to explain the meaning and importance I give to the “SAM Summer Team” internship program, and the great honor it is to host Bolivia’s Summer Team this year.
So to confirm the obvious, yes, the SAM Bolivia Summer Team 2008 has arrived! All one guy of ‘em! And for some silly reason the powers at be have placed me in charge of the team. Yeah, get your head around THAT. No, seriously, it is a great privilege to be trusted by “the man” (he would laugh if he heard that) and, like I said before, I take great value in the experiences one has during cross-cultural trips such as these.
My lone summer teammer is Nathan Wade, a senior math major at Anderson University in SC. I know he and his family will probably read this, so I am going to embellish the truth a bit as I describe him. Naw, I’m just joshing ya. Nate and I have really bonded due to our similar personalities, senses of humor, interests, and tastes in music. But really, out here in Roboré, its easy to bond based upon the most simple of similarities, like being American and speaking English.
Despite his lack of Spanish (although he is picking it up quickly), Nate has been a great encouragement to the church, the youth, and his host family. We have been able to build some new relationships with some very worldly neighborhood kids because of his very outgoing personality and mad soccer skillz…which have earned props where I have surely lost them. He has also been teaching some of the youth of the church to play guitar, and I am proud to say that at least 3 of my youth can now play the guitar riff to “Smoke on the Water.” Simply invaluable knowledge. But seriously, he has really added new life and energy into my current ministry, and he is building RELATIONSHIPS, which is at the heart of SAM’s ministry.
This past Saturday was a very special day in our ministry here in Robore. First, we went all out for our Saturday afternoon VBS program. Four of the guys, including Nate, dressed up like clowns and the five of us went around inviting more kids to the program. Here we are walking around town together:
Nate and I also fixed-up an old chalk-board to serve as our puppet stage for the VBS' first puppet show!
Before:
And after, with some puppets acting out the story of Lot choosing to live near Sodom:
The clowns, of course, did a funny little sketch which I was happy to be a part of (although I am not featured here)
And to top it off we served the kids "empanadas," a beloved fried pastry with cheese.
A kid favorite: El Hombrecito CHUECO!! (the crooked man)
The VBS was a huge success. We had 75 kids come, the youth did a great job leading, Nate jumped in and helped where he could, and the kids left exited and energized about God's Word. Pray that we continue to have a good showing this next Saturday!
After a quick shower and some dinner, Nate and I returned to church in the evening to lead the youth service. It was there that Nate gave his testimony, which I know was very relevant to the youth of the church and those that visited. Here is Nathan giving his testimony through a rather dashing translator:
The next few weeks we will be doing some construction on a room to make it suitable for Sunday School classes and an all-purpose classroom for the church to use. It looks like a pretty ominous task (to me at least), but we should have the time and funds to do everything before we take off to Santa Cruz at the end of this month.
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