"Let us become more aware of Your presence."

Where has the summer gone?!  It seems like just yesterday we were saying goodbye to our spring semester students and now we only have an outreach and a half to go before our "summer season" is over with.  I am so thankful that we have had the opportunity to work with so many wonderful high schoolers, college students, and adults over the past months in the Tutoring Center.  Every two weeks, new faces come in and are nervous about the language barrier, but are excited to love on our kids and help them the best that they can with their homework and test prep and art projects.  It is also such a joy to see how they fit into the vision of the Tutoring Center, and how by the end of day 3 they have started to build friendships with our kids that will continue into the second week of their outreach with us.

What about me?  What have I been learning these past months?  I will admit, sometimes in the hustle and bustle of trying to get the English speakers plugged in with the Spanish speakers and spending time with the interns and planning art lessons and Bible time- I don't have a lot of energy left to focus on me.  There is a danger in "doing missions without Jesus" because this work I do here is my job.  It is how I pay the bills, in a sense.  And it can become automatic- every other Wednesday morning I talk with the team about storing up treasures in heaven rather than treasures on earth, and about the importance of not worrying because each day has enough troubles of it's own.  Every morning and afternoon we pray with our team to start and end our work day.  Every Monday at staff meeting we talk about the Bible together.  I would imagine that anyone who has been in formal church or missionary ministry can understand where I'm coming from. 

But God is faithful and when I take the time to listen to the Holy Spirit, He continues to speak to me, to challenge me, to grow in me.  During one of our outreaches this summer we sang the song "Holy Spirit" every morning during devotions, and I was really struck by some of the lyrics: (speaking about the Holy Spirit)- "Let us become, more aware of your presence.  Let us experience the glory of your goodness."  As a believer, the Holy Spirit's presence is constantly with me.  I don't have to ask for His presence to be with me.  But I do need to be aware of His presence, to welcome His presence. 

We have also been going through Ephesians as a staff, focusing a lot on unity in the Body of Christ.  There are so many nuggets of truth that can be taken from those passages, including the idea of being really careful about the words we use and the talk we talk, but rather, "speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.  Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."  Now I don't know how literal we are supposed to take that, as in, do we really need to go around singing songs to each other all the time?  (Sidenote- I do LOVE musicals, so maybe that wouldn't be such a bad idea. ;) )  But that part about always giving thanks for everything- if I'm giving thanks, it's pretty hard to say something rotten to or about someone.  If I'm giving thanks, it's hard to have a negative attitude towards someone.  That's where I'm at right now- wanting to be more aware of the Holy Spirit's presence in my life and to allow Him to renew my mind so that I can have more of an attitude of thanks that changes the way I speak to others. 

Transitioning from there- what would a blog post be without some photos of what's going on at the Tutoring Center?  Two weeks ago my students had their two week vacation from school, and we did a lot of fun workshops and a few field trips with the kids.  Below are some highlights of those activities.

Water Day!  It was a bit overcast this afternoon, but they had a blast!

Girls' club! 

So excited for our field trip to the National Stadium

Everyone was thrilled to be on the field level at the Stadium

Baking fruit pizzas with our 4-6 graders

1-3 graders enjoying their fruit pizzas.  They are adorable children, they just don't like smiling for pictures, apparently.