´´for as the Heavens are higher than the earth, so are His ways higher than our ways´´

PICTURES ABOVE: 1) the school... ´´el colegio´´ 2) me and some chicas in the town square playing their favorite pointing game which i call ¨how do say this in english´´ haha it pretty much drives me crazy after awhile! 3) our spaghetti dinner at anita´s which i wrote about a few days back...it was heavenly!!! 4) sarah with a happy plate! 5) hey--we love each other a whole lot!! we were passing time waiting for our dinner date with Julio -ps. matthew and i are making the same face without knowing it!

To say that the past few days have been interesting is a short-coming of the english language! By the way... we all speak, dream, and pray in spanglish now unintentionally!
ON wednesday, we were supposed to meet with the head of the english department...which was a no show because it was marching day in the town square. then on thursday...we were supposed to go to the lagoons with alcalde (the mayor)...but he forgot to come get us at the cafe. so quite discouraged about our uselessness and lack of productivity...i came in here to check some emails and look up some possible ESL lessons for the group of men who have asked us to teach a course (PRAISE!!!). so i leave the little internet cafe and ask manuel, the store owner what exactly they want to focus on language-wise...he tells me to follow him down the street to another office to speak with the man who originally asked us. so while waiting for this man ( the village lawyer and judge?!) his apprentice who is also a lawyer begins talking with me about culture, why i´m here, what i believe etc. He is a jehovah´s witness! So he begins to ask me questions...the man i´m supposed to be talking to is nowhere to be found so Julio and i get to talk for quite some time. i tell him i´ll bring him a bible..he´s excited. so i invited him to have dinner with us, he accepts, and goes to church!

dinner by the way -- we found a new resturant and it was soooooo good! we had ´´broasted´´ chicken. announcement: ME, Jessica Lauren Roberts, at MEAT off the BONE! only because it was white meat and seasoned well and i was starving! and of course they served us papas fritas too... french fries. i know my friends and family are astounded! we all enjoyed the meal and the woman is of such sweet disposition! we are looking forward to building a relationship there as well. she´s cooking beans for us today! yipee!

okay, so julio, he enjoyed the service - and is coming back sunday! it was made very obvious to us why we were forgotten and appointments were missed...God had bigger plans! Yesterday afternoon, we went back and talked with the judge about the course...it´s a group of professional men here in town who want to learn- they are astounded that we are not charging anything. we plan to teach grammar and vocabulary and also include a devotion from the Word at the end of every lesson. last night...the service at the church was so amazing...so much music and testimony by the members as to what god had done in their lives recently. i understood almost all of the sermon. sarah and matthew are doing so well picking things up too! then we went into town, checked our emails about some current situations at home etc and bought some desserts aka candybars. at this point we all had upset tummies from the fried meat and potatoes which we hadn´t had in awhile...then things got really interesting. we headed back to the house-- it should be noted that they turn off the water here in the village at a certain time in the evening, around 5pm. so if you use the toilet...it stays there ´til morning. yuck.

following is a story in pictures:
1) there was a hole in the street where some men had been doing some ground work...and there was a boy named matthew walking down the street with two girls, all sharing their chocolate and cookies
2) he then, in the dark (this street´s light wasn´t working) happened upon this hole in a very personal way and face planted in...
3) the mound on the other side of the hole while his bottom half was submerged...
4) in the contents of the hole.

and then...(no picture available)...two girls lay dying of laughter in the street practically using the bathroom on themselves and cookies and candy bars just falling out of their mouthes...
´´are you okaaaay mateo?!´´.... ´´yeah other than the fact that i´m covered in CRAP!!´´



and we were still singing that wonderful song ´´HOW GREAT IS OUR GOD:)´´
Gloria a dios!!!- jlr<><

progress

Finally- pictures! i´m gonna post twice ´cause it works better that way. 1) Mateo playing soccer with the men of the village 2) Saturday- Matthew sooo thankful for the food before him....2) Matthew realizing it´s the same food he´s had for 5 days straight! 3) Sarah and I...all bundled up together cause its sooooo coooold! this is the day we bathed:)

and more progress!

more pictures! 1)sarah and i with clean hair and smelling good right before church...which we didn´t get to have due to the elections. 2) Felecita and Mateo in her garden 3) some of the children we play with in the village...pray for their hearts:)

today, we met again with the director of the school...we are to return tomorrow morning to meet with the english coordinator. i´m going to be working in the classrooms teaching ESL helping the english teachers. sarah and matthew may be going back and forth between teaching in the classrooms and helping with PE. they like the idea of PE better i think! they were both such good sports yesterday in the classrooms even tho they´ve had little spanish schooling. the attitudes of my teammates are wonderful! on our way back from town we were stopped by a man of good dress and speech...there´s a group of men here who want to learn spanish. they meet in the resturant in the town square on wednesdays and fridays. they want us to teach them! god is opening doors EVERYWHERE. these people are approaching us right and left. we are heading back to the house here in a little while to do some more bible-storying. we hope to spend some time with the kids this afternoon telling them of the stories in the old testament.

ALSO, on a lighter note- the food homefront- we got beans and rice yesterday for the first time in a long time! and then last night we took our spaghetti noodles and tomato paste to Anita- she kind of operates a resturant and bakery out of her home. she made us spaghetti! hallelujah! we practically made ourselves sick. we spent some time in the square with the kids while she was preparing our food. after dinner..we had what we refer to as ´´group reading time.´´ it´s kind of a nightly occurence...we´re learning a lot from the books of previous missionaries in the Word and books published since:)

thank you for the prayers and messages and support. pray for our ESL lessons...we didn´t really come with ´´material´´ haha! and pray for us as we story in spanish and break down barriers or ´´religion.´´ gloria a dios! gloria a dios! gloria a dios!

praises and pictures

so i updated a lot yesterday... and at the end of a very trying day... the computer froze and i lost all the updates. i will try to recreate them to the best of my ability. the weather here has been very flippant...rainy and cold, hot and sunny. the rain really hinders our morale and our ministry because we can´t do much outdoors then and there aren´t many people out and about.

two of the three of us really had trying days yesterday. there are many frustrations: the weather, the language barrier, and the lack of food yesterday. they had national elecitions...and no one wanted to cook for us and even when we bought our own food felicita wouldn´t let us use her kitchen. so we ate bread and jam for breakfast, ritz and peanutbutter for lunch, ritz and jam and trailmix for dinner. que triste! we are trying to remember how fortunate we are though because many people have nothing to eat at all. let´s just say we´re really tired of rice and it´s only week 2!

please pray for felicita, the woman whose house we live in. please pray that our relationship with her would be intentional and purposeful...that she would come to know the Lord.

we went to the school today, the mayor himself escorted us! so when we got there we were some sort of a specatcle for the children. we kinda felt like we were a zoo exhibit! they were all just standing outside the principal´s office peering at us. so anyway, we met one of the english teachers who was very excited to have us...and then they seperated us! we taught in three different classrooms! mateo and sarah embraced the challenge even tho they haven´t had much or any spanish before! and in the midst of all that... i feel at home with these children in a classroom setting. i know that God is working on my heart in that area. sarah and matthew are doing a fabulous job putting forth efforts with the language barrier. we sang some songs with them and taught them some random english stuff... the director asked us to come back tomorrow and make lesson plans to continue teaching them twice a week for a couple of hours. foot in the door there! gloria a dios!

please pray for the children...everytime i try and upload their picture it fails, even tho i´ve downsized it. satan! pray for our relationships with them...especially the teenagers, they are always hardest to pull in to the circle. also, please pray for each of us on a personal level. it has been our prayer that the Lord would make us more like Himself. this of course doesn´t come without pain or burden....so as He works on each of us, some moments are harder than others. we sweat together, eat together, cry together...we´re growing together. please pray that we continue to be able to spur one another on as we have thus far.

we are under spiritual warfare as there is much oppression here in corongo...we try to remember that such attacks should be taken as encouragement...satan doesn´t mess with those who are no threat...and it has been our prayer that we may be a threat to the kingdom of darkness and we serve as ambassadors for the King of Life. what a privilege!

on friday, mateo was able to bond with some of the men folk here in a soccer game! what a praise! and people are beginning to ask questions of us....what kind of missionaries are we...which church do we go to here, the catholic or the evangelistic. they do not understand why we dont make the catholic sign across our chest or celebrate fiestas of the saints or practice witchcraft or believe in superstition. they are all so curious...pray that we will be able to use their curiosity to pull them in and then tell them of the works of our Savior! that they would lose interest in us (as we gringos are somewhat new and exciting to them right now)but gain interest in the One whose name we come in!

pictures- mateo playing soccer with the men! he even scored a goal! the computer and internet are being very fickle right now... so i´ll try to upload more of our pictures later!

en el amor de jesucristo- jlr<><