It's been a bit since I wrote, so I'm just checking in to let you all know things are going well-ish here. A quick recap of the last week or so.....

Last Saturday night, we had our first fiesta!! Eben and I are in charge of the "socials" team, so it was definitely a challenge and there was a lot of confusion, but luckily we have great students working with us that showed us the ropes and the best ways to get things done. We had a quite a few people show up at the fiesta, which was exciting! We danced (here, salsa and merengue are the norms of what people do at parties), we ate snacks, we had a dance competition, and Claudia shared her testimony! She did a fantastic job, we were very proud of her. I spent a majority of the evening trying to learn these dances, which simply eluded me. I discovered that, in fact, like most "gringos" I do not have much rythm. Oh well! I'm sure I will have more fiestas to practice at in the future.

Yesterday, we had our second weekly meeting of the year. This one was actually on campus, and there was quite a crowd of students that showed up and packed into the small room. Things went smoothly for this as well. We spent some time in worship, Sarah shared her testimony (all in Spanish! she's very brave), and students were shown a video and encouraged to sign up for the Retiro (Retreat) that is happening in November. Afterwards we served everyone lunch, and hung out and chatted with students for quite a while.

Other events this week have included spending a signicant amount of time planning with Amanda and Leonel for our first meeting of the English Club on Friday. Basically, we simply sponsor/lead this group that allows any students who want to practice and/or learn English with Americans to come, play games in English, and learn some simple phrases and stuff. We have spent a lot of this week making fliers (it's so much harder than in the US!), coming up with games, and making "lesson plans". This happens Friday at 3:30 in the office of Vida Estudiantil, so pray that people will come!

On another note, my major stress for this week, and the main reason I need prayer is the following. When the team jobs were divided up a week or so ago, I was given the job (and actually asked for the job of) the Catalytic ministry. What does that mean? Well, essentially, a catalytic ministry is one that has no staff on its campus. A few hours away from here there is a city called Santa Barbara, its university is called UNESUR (the one in Merida is ULA). I am making the trek up to Santa Barbara tomorrow for the first time. I'm going to be accompanied by two students who have been there before (praise the Lord!). Although I have been in contact with the main leader at this campus, he speaks no English, and I'm not sure my Spanish has been quite capable enough to truly comprehend everything he has told me. So, I am somewhat blindly walking into this situation. All I know at this point is I need to catch a bus (with my two gentlemen tour guides) at 6 AM!! and head towards a city on the outskirts of town, where I will meet up with Alvaro (in charge of the movement at UNESUR). If you know me at all, you know - I'm not exactly a "fly by the seat of your pants" type of gal.....! Needless to say, I'm a little bit frazzled this week. This is my main prayer request - confidence, some more answers to questions, and the Lord's hand in all of this despite my own chaotic approach, at the moment.

That's it for now.....hopefully after I make it home tomorrow from Santa Barbara, I'll have a much more excited blog for you to read about how well it goes....for now, keep praying! Besos.