September 13

Just a quick update about what's going on around here. So our Security Training went really well. We all really learned a lot! Tonight we're having American worship, which I am extrememly excited about! It may sound strange that it's been about 6 weeks since I've been a part of this kind of worship! We are still having house church every Sunday morning with our congregation of 8, and every Sunday night we have corporate worship, but it's primarily in different languages. I think I can understand why it's so important for us to learn the heart language of our people groups....I can worship in Spanish, but there's really something special to worship in your own heart language! Tomorrow we are going to D.C. to try to find people from the region we'll be going to. We've already found a West Africa restaurant...which should be fun? Also, this weekend we'll be completing an assignment where we can't use electricity AND we have to cook from scratch. We are allowed to use the stove but not the oven. It should be interesting! It's so hard to believe that we have less than three weeks left here! It's all gone by so fast!

Looking Ahead

This week will be a pretty stressful week for most people at FPO. It's the infamous week of Security Training. It's something that I don't ever expect to happen in my region, but it's great to have the training. Everything is kept pretty secret about what goes on during this week. Half of my collegues are going through it Monday-Wednesday, so please be praying for them. My group goes Thursday-Saturday. Even though others are experiencing it now, they're not allowed to let us in on any of the secrets. Also, our sessions last for two extra hours every day this week (including Saturday), so on top of the material being stressful, we also have less down time.

Today, though, my group studied personality tests and conflict styles. We did the Meyers Brigg test and found out that most missionaries are ESFJ. I can't explain all the letters (basically extraverts who like facts, are feelers not thinkers, and like lists!). I found out that I have the typical missionary personality except I'm an introvert (surprise, surprise) so I'm ISFJ. They also enlightened us that Contigency Training is really hard on introverts because we'd rather do anything other than be singled out and questioned! I will be glad to get this week over and behind me!

On another note, though, I am half way through with my time here! I can't believe it has gone so quickly!

Cultural Worship

Sunday nights are my favorite times here at FPO. Last night was Latin America night. We were "squished" into a room half the size that we normally meet in. We were greeted at the door with hugs and kisses, which I could have done without. There was lots of music and celebration. We were fortunate to have many Spanish speakers here, so all the lyrics were in Spanish and the whole service was in Spanish with a translator. My favorite part of worship was when we sang Shout to the Lord in Spanish. It reminded me of my second mission trip to Mexico when we sang that same song very often, except in English. Now I know a lot more Spanish than I did then. Mexico was my first taste of international missions, so singing Shout to the Lord in Spanish was sort of like being reminded of how God gave me a passion for foreign missions! Next week we'll be in a worship service where men and women will be separated again, and there is a specific dress code including head coverings. It should be interesting as well.

CPM's

Friday we did a pretty neat example of church planting multiplication. So there are 250 of us and we divided up into groups of four, which means we had about 62 groups. The example started with 2 men (A) who taught one group of four (B) the "10 Universal Elements of Church Planting" with hand motions, so they were easy to learn and remember. After A taught B, two members of B were sent to pray for the church planting and two were sent off to share with another group. It gets confusing, so I hope it all makes sense. This time A & B go to group C. Group C is taught by the members from B while members from A watch the new teachers to make sure they're teaching correctly. When group C learns, they send 2 more out, and the pattern continues while A starts teaching another group. At first it took forever for new groups to be taught, but obviously as more people got the message, more were able to share. By the end groups were learning pretty rapidly. When we were done the director asked if we continued this exercise 29 more times how many people would we have reached. Now I'm not smart enough to figure this out , but I was thinking we would have told several thousands of people. The room fell silent when he told us the answer - the whole world!