Praising Him for opportunities.

Buenos dias mis amigos!

I hope that all of you reading this blog today are finding joy and peace in our God Almighty. He is so good and worthy to be praised. I hope to encourage you all with a few stories that I have to share about some great opportunities that the Lord has presented me with!

This past week we had a group of people come to give/install some water filters to the Island that we work with. I was talking one night with a boy named Pedro who is Guatemalan but goes to high school in the US. One question he asked me was if my parents supported me doing the mission work here, and somehow it lead to me talking about my life with Christ and what it was like without Christ. One cool thing was that it was all in Spanish! Hallelujah! The second thing was that this boy actually was not a Christian and he told me that he was really encouraged to search more and think more about faith. I was really encouraged by one of our missionaries here, Ashley, as she told me that I basically just shared my testimony in Spanish. It's funny because before I came here I was asked by our short-term coordinator to share my testimony in Spanish, but I was not confident at all in my speaking abilities and could not do it. Then to add on top of that night, one of the girls from that group straight up asked me what my testimony was. She also is a Spanish speaker so that whole conversation was also not in my native language. I just smiled seeing what the Lord was doing that night. What a cool God!

After having that night to share spiritual things in Spanish, I felt more confident and also prompted to do more. I felt that God was showing me...Lauren you can speak Spanish well enough to share what I've done in your life and the experiences you have had as a Christian. So this Monday I gave the devotional for the afternoon session at the soccer school. I talked about my experiences running track in college and how my first year I really didn't understand what it meant to honor and glorify God in my sport. Many times I was only running for myself, my coach, or my team. But God taught me that it doesn't matter if I win or lose, it matters HOW I win and how I lose. I can honor God by having a good attitude, respecting my coaches, having humility when I when, or still having joy when I lose. So that is the sum of what I shared with them...just to encourage them that there is peace, freedom, and joy when you play your sport for the Lord. But it's their decision to either play for God, or someone/something else. I am so thankful to the Lord for the opportunity to share that with them...but im even more grateful that He gave me the words to say in SPANISH! Although I'm sure that my Spanish was not perfect, I think the guys all understood it and God was moving and speaking to their hearts!

Could you please continue to pray for opportunities such as these to share the word of God and how incredible He is! Also pray for our missionary Ashley who just left this morning to go back to the States. That means the only short-term missionaries left here are David and myself.

Thank you for YOU and I'm praying that God is doing amazing things IN and THROUGH you as well! :)

With much love,
Lauren