Allbutt Journalings
What have we been doing in recent days
An online web journal (weblog) of Mike & Vanessa Allbutt. (Updated as often as we remember to.)
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
4 months in
Life
The days just seem to fly by. Mike's day consists of going to the beach in the mornings for a surf and/or chat with the people he meets. He continues to practice and learn more Spanish during the day. He hasn't started formal classes as yet, as he finds it more helpful to keep his own pace.
We continue to attend the weekly Thursday night surfers Bible study. Mike has lead it a few times, and Vanessa contributes with meals every second week. Through this study we continue to build relationships with the young people that attend, as well as be encouraged to keep Jesus at the centre of everything we do.
Every fortnight we also meet with Mando and Mayra, the other family we work with. We meet to encourage each other and pray for the town and the ministry. The beach front continues to be a spiritually dark and oppressed place, with many christians slipping into old habits.
Vanessa has also just started to attend a small ladies Bible study group on Monday evenings. This has been an excellent opportunity to encourage younger women in Christ. Many struggle with non-christian or luke-warm christian husbands, all of whom are part of the local surfing community.
We have also found ourselves spending time with a young married couple who have really struggled in their relationship. Due partly to the culture and partly to the local church, we have found very little resources and support for these situations. We really want to help them to sort out their difficulties and share our own experience, but without taking over their decisions and life.
Our family has grown, from two children to four (no, we have not adopted twins!). We have taken in two street pups, who have given us just as much work, if not more, than two babies. The children adore them, and slowly they are learning not to pull on tails or ears, or grab them or throw them. The pups are getting bigger now, so they are learning to fight back with their sharp nails and teeth.
The children continue to settle in. Priscila spends time with the workers here, and she has surprised us with the number of Spanish words she has learned. She hasn't started kinder as yet, as we feel she isn't quite ready.
Joel has a larger range of sounds and even says the word 'mama'. We are now entering the stage of continual fighting between the children, as they both learn to play together and to share their toys.
Where to from now?
Our biggest priority right now is to change our visas from tourist to a more permanent volunteer-worker one (called an FM3). We don't anticipate any problems, but it may take a long time, depending on who we deal with.
The vision of the Thursday night bible study group ('El Faro': the Lighthouse) is to start free surf lessons for the local kids who have no resources, and thus exposing them to a friendly christian environment. Many of them are exposed to negative lifestyles at home and grow up doing following the same paterns if they aren't shown another way to live. This vision for surf lessons also includes surf and skate contests throughout the year.
Vanessa also has a vision to start some kind of playgroup/mothers group later in the year, as she knows there is very little support and activities for mums and children.
One of Mike's priorities is to continue to learn the language. He is aiming to finish the current courses/books he is doing before taking on formal lessons soon.
Prayer points:
- quick and easy visa application process
- provision of surfing boards for the surf lessons
- wisdom in helping our young friends in their marriage
- wisdom in knowing the timing for this mother group and the resources required
- for speed in language learning and continued motivation
We can't thank you enough for all your continued support, prayers and communication. It is such a joy to see photos, hear news, even receive packages! as well as know we are in your prayers. We feel so close to home because of these things. So THANKS!
Mike, Vanessa, Priscila and Joel
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[By Mike 6:45 AM ] +
I trust that this Allbutt Journalings helps bring you up to date with what I have been up to recently. If you want to contact me then click here. Thanks for reading some of my thoughts. If you want to read some of the older files then they have been stored in the archives here.