We've gotten to do a lot more ministry on campus over the past week, which we have been so patiently awaiting. Communicating with UFG / UTEC staff, Alvin and Sylvia, has been much more difficult than we anticipated and has really stretched us, especially in the area of patience and humility. We knew we were a pioneering group coming into this year, and knew we were going to have to be really flexible in our approach to ministry here, but the past few weeks (minus our brief recess to visit the toilet) has shown us how flexible we have really had to be. 

A mix of cultural factors and poor communication has left us always wondering what we'll be doing on any given day. We never really know what time we're going to get picked up to go to campus and the planned time can change sometimes as much as 2 hours. Then on campus, we haven't had much of a good idea of what staff would have us do and we would be told we'd be doing something without any warning or discussion. I think the most frustrating thing has been the few times they told us, without prior warning, we were going with student leaders to sit in on classes. Sometimes we would just sit in class and do nothing as the teacher taught a lesson in Spanish, and we saw this as greatly unproductive for us. But luckily there were other times where we went into English classes and got to interact with students and invite them to our English club meetings, which we're using as a way to meet students and test their interest in God. 

Despite all the frustration of the past few weeks, things have definitely progressed. I think staff have started to trust our Spanish skills a bit more, giving us more time to witness to and interact with students outside of an English class. But we're also coming together more on the strategy of focusing on English students, because firstly, we can communicate with them much better, and secondly, these tend to be the students with the biggest leadership potential for the future. 

We've also started praying a lot more as a team, and with the staff, which can only help things. On Tuesday this week we went with Alvin and Sylvia for a small retreat to go and pray up on this small mountain for a while. It was so good to all pray for one another, and at this point I think we were totally desperate for God's help to empower us with patience, humility and love for one another. So please pray for these things for us. Also, please pray for a couple Christian English students who just started coming to some of our meetings -- Erick and Alex-- that they would really desire to grow in their faith and keep meeting with us. Also pray for a sweet guy who grew up in Boston -- Rody-- I met on UTEC because we heard each other talking English. He is a total leader, he speaks perfect English and he's exactly the kind of student we're looking for to build into in order to have a maximum impact on the country.