Buenos Dias-Good days-to friends and brothers and sistas from other mistas. Is everyone in Vermont enjoying the blizzards? The coldest I experience here is in the cold showers in the mornings. Guess what I have been reading about? Caleb Spitler gave me this book called, "The Seven Longings of the Human heart," by Mike Bickle. It has been great so far except for now I am reading a chapter called, "The longing for Beauty." The first section is called, "Beauty Imparted, Beauty Revealed." I have always known that I posses the beauty like that displayed in "Gladiator" by Russell Crow, man Beauty, but as wild as it sounds, it has been refreshing to read about.

            Among many innate

desires, we have a desire to look fiiine. Some people suppress and even repent of this desire. Others go "Hog Wild," as a teammate of mine would say, and go to great lengths, doing their nails, excessive makeup-like Eric Carter on Sunday. When we allow the Holy Spirit and God's Word to, "[Show] us what God is like and then [show] us what we look like to God [our Creator], something settles in our hearts, minds, and emotions," and we find a healthy balance. All right, that is just about all I can handle talking about beauty.

            Guys of the Church-Patrick, Charlie, Lawrence, Donald, David, Nathaniel, and John, to name a few-who do you want to dominate tomorrow? Shep-I know you are all about Roethlisberger...Josh...not sure if you watch football, what is it, Women's Tennis? Ha, yeahbutthesteelersaregoingtowin, endofstory. Our team here is having a Super Bowl party with barbecue chicken at Mario's house, I can't wait. (But I've got to).

            Time to talk about my Barrio ministry! I had my first meeting with about fifteen parents and their children. Here is how it went down: SO, picture a nervous Joe. I am on edge, so much so that I tell my translator the wrong time to come to this meeting. Now, we have nervous Joe who is supposed to run the meeting, his two friends, Caleb Spitler and Laura and a community of Spanish-speaking Nicaraguans constricted into one room at the Pastor's house. The Nicaraguans are dead silent and, as we are waiting in vain for my translator, Mario, I decide that we should all stand up and do a prayer while we are waiting. Five minutes pass and the prayer is over and we are left to sit back down in silence. Caleb, Laura, and I are talking but no one else is. AAAAH the tension! A half an hour of this goes by and I have a revelation. SHOOT, I think I told Mario to come at 2:00 instead of 1:00.  NO! Within two seconds I am tearing down a sketchy road in the Barrios to find Mario...leaving my friends behind in the silence; I feel horrible. FINALLY, Mario arrives after I called him and told him the real time and we start the meeting. 

Out of my stressful situation we were able to make a joke out of things and everything was smoothed over. The community was very receptive to what I had to say and even had some suggestions. The plan is to meet at the church with the youth at 9:15 on Mondays and Tuesdays. Then, we will play some intense water games, throw some kids around, and then have a reading from Laura's Spanish/English Children's Bible and run with the theme of the week. One idea of a theme is to teach kids why we pray, how to pray, and how to pray for our friends when they are sick. Another idea is to teach kids how to Worship with their hands in the air or with their eyes closed. These themes will depend on where the Lord leads us. I cannot wait to get started-Monday is the first official day. Please pray for this ministry! God has given me a vision that He will start a revival in this neighborhood. On Tuesdays, we will have meetings from 1-3 where we will pray with the community about financial issues, our ministry, and for Church unity.

            Well, that is it for today-I had a little something to say about the, "Bridal Paradigm," in the Bible, but Annette Carter said NO! One more thing, Mr. Robinson, I am really enjoying the Pod casts that you post on the Church website. I have listened to the last two and they bring me back to Vermont, the state of the brave. Thank you for posting them. Words of wisdom for the day: live life and then don't. And Bill O'Neil, in response to your comment: A fact about machetes: They are the leading cause of death to those with names that start with "B."