Let the fun begin!

    As mentioned in our last post, the past month or so has been full of meetings, program planning, stratergizing (theres a George-ism for ya), and basically working on the 'boring' behind-the-scenes stuff that makes an organization run. Since Barb and Gerry came we've been focusing on getting them acclimated and ready to take over the show when we leave in July. Although that type of work is never officially over we are happy to be moving to more of the fun stuff in the ministry! We had a great debrief of sorts with Barb and Gerry last Thursday where they basically encouraged us to put away the computers and work on what is most important in our last two months...the relationships. They have a lot of experience with this having been missionaries in the Congo before coming to Guatemala. The gist of their very wise advice was that yes processes are important but its the people and the moments together that you will remember long-term.
    So as our first order of fun business, we decided a dance party would be the most appropriate - of course! We mentioned a while ago that we have started tutoring a group of about 10 junior high students who are in their first year of school in the big city. This is a huge transition as the schools in Yalu SUCK! The kids have really struggled but praise the Lord we are starting to see improvements little by little - especially in the ones that faithfully come to the tutor group. As an incentive to get all of them to come, all three days we are there we started taking attendance. Unfortunately teenagers are too smart for their own good and they decided that putting a little white dot on an attendance sheet wasn't good enough for them. In a moment of weakness it might have slipped out that I would make them cookies if they all had perfect attendance for one week - whoops! Well it finally happened this last friday and to celebrate we had a little dance party. At first the kids weren't so into it but as you guys know...its hard to sit still once Gregg starts dancing.

The kids had a great time once they got over the initial fear of having to compete with Gregg's dancing! Plus there will be homemade chocolate chip cookies tomorrow, so really, everybody wins.