ENGLISH!!

So a lot has happened these past few days. Monday was our "day off" and we got to go to the internet cafe and get away from everything for a few hours. Monday night was Donna's last night before flying back so she cooked an American dinner for everyone and all the youth came over. We watched "Santa Clause 2" in spanish and then we all stayed in the living room in a circle and taught them all english in a fun relaxed way. We did different exercises where they would say their names, their favorite hobbies, colors, music, etc. They loved it! It was so simple but it occupied most of the night and it got some of the shy ones to practice their english :) After, the youth had praise and worship practice for the Tuesday night service. The youth are in charge of most of the planning for the services. The preacher Macklin preaches but they run the music and do the announcements and prayers. And when I say pray...they PRAY! The youth are so passinonate and strong in their walk and are born leaders as young as 14 and 15 years old. All the youth, boys and girls are prayer warriors. They had four people on microphones, the pastor and another boy Freddy on the guitar and a girl, Sheyla rocking it on the drums. Also one of the youth ran the sound board and 2 girls had tamborines...EVERYONE IS INVOLVED! This church is the place they can come and get away from their circumstances and they're here whenever the doors are open...which is always :) We sang with them tryign to learn the words in spanish and we taught them some of the same versions in english :) Amber and I are starting to fall in love with these people. They are the nicest people you'll ever meet and every single one of them stand in line just to hug and kiss you...they're so grateful that someons has come there to help them or taken the time to teach them something. The kids are PRECIOUS! Us coming here is such a BIG deal to them and they're so excited they're going to learn english! So thank you for all of your support and helping us make a difference in these people!



Tuesday we took Donna to the airport and said good-bye to our translater :( We picked Celeste, pastor Macklin's daughter from school and went to eat chinese for lunch. Already we were missing Donna, a whole chinese menu in spanish...we had NO idea what we were ordering :) haha We had our first class for the adults and youth at 5:30 on Tuesday. Amber didn't feel well all day so I taught the class myself with the help of one of the youth Luis to translate. WE HAD 15 PEOPLE SHOW UP!! This was huge because it was the first class and most people don't even know about them yet..so we're expecting a lot more people once they all start talking :) I taught them all the Alphabet adn how to pronouce everything and we went over all of the basic greetings....Hello, how are you?...what is your name?, my name is____....How old are you, ETC. I also taught them the days of the week, the colors, the numbers and I had them partner with their neighbors and hold a conversation and had some demonstrate for the class...I think it went really well, I might have a future in teaching :) haha After the class we had the service and it went really well...I could actually sing to some of the songs that I had learned the night before :)



Today I got to teach the kiddies....we had a morning class and an afternoon class because some have cschool at different times. We had 9 in the morning class and 10 in the afternoon. They were all really excited and brought their notebooks and were copying everything down. They're young but they are SO SMART! They were picking up the english really fast so I'm pretty positive they all learn how to speak before we leave :) We taught them all the same things but used some different tactics with them becasue they're a little more shy :) I had them screaming the alphabet and their numbers and maybe because they were allowed to yell they got a lot more into it and prounouced everything really well!

Everyone is already coming up to us and speacking their english..I taught them all hello, hey and Hi and they're all saying "God Bless You" in english now...two of the grown men came up to me after the service last night and were nervous saying it but the youth was like "go ahead and tell her" and he just blurted out God Bless You really fast, it was hilarious...and these are grown men so it was really cute! haha Tomorrow we'll teach another class for the children in the morning and the afternoon and a service at night at one of the homes...pray for us that we can keep up the momentum and energy for each class and for strength...this experience is a great one but it's also a hard one. We're away from home and everything is so much harder here so just pray for us :) We love you all and will blog again when we can! Until next time...

ONE UPDATE: You can view my pictures on picasa at this address, http://picasaweb.google.com/alisamflores
it goes straight to my pictures! I can't get them on facebook and it takes forever on here but there are the mountian pictures and some from the music practice...GO LOOK :)

Alisa