GREAT FIRST YOUTH

we had 85 people at our first night...when Linda and i went to get soft drinks and chips/cookies she said i was getting to much, but it was ok becasue we could use them next week...turns out we didnt have quite enuf but it was ok...we were thinking about 50

Oscar got a taxi to run grrups in from and back to Santa Matilda and La Isla. They really enjoyed ti and we asked if they want to continue coming..they said they would love to come back every week.

I am using the first wire i got to cover food and taxi service...the food was 26 and the taxi was 21...this will be a weekly expense but i feel that the youth is my primary focus at this point and we will need a little more food and drink next time..so more or less $55 a week will go to friday night youth group...thanks to all that have already contributed to this fund.

Last night and probably from now on, with a few changes to what they like better, we do games and contests, dance offs, schrades, other ice breakers from 6:30-7:30..at 7:30 i will show videos and pictures of things around the villages from the previous week...and some other fun things on the computer...7:50 worship

Our praise band is Tommy on drums, Herman and Nidia's dad on guitar, Daniel on keybaord and vocals, and 4 youth girls singing as well...Alfredo and Rigaberto run the sound board, and Scarleth and I run the powerpoint...i think Alex and Rigaberto are very interested in the powerpoint and other computer things...and i hope others will want to learn because int he future computer school is my ultimate goal...right now the band (Daniel and Nidia/Hermans dad only know the 5 songs we did last night) but we are starrtin Sunday afternoon practice of new songs as quickly as Scarleth and I get the powerpoint lyrics translated to Spanish.

Worship is abotu 20 mins and the youth is waving colorful flags singing dancing clapping along..very alive and great!

We follow the worship by opening in prayer, then a lesson...last night i spoke on teamwork and discipline with Scarleth translating...Then around 8:30 we asked them to get into groups of 7 and talk with each other personally for about 8 minutes and then have one person in each group pray for the rest of their group...Then I closed in prayer as a whole and we enjoyed snacks and drinks and broke down the front.

It was great, but it was our first time and we will learn from it and adjust in our youth leades meeting sunday at 12..it is myself sccarleth and 10 of our most involved youth (Joses daughters, Bismark, Saul, Alfredo, Rigaberto, Tommy husband of Maryuri)

Leaving now to be back there from 11-3 today...youth soccer game for myself and Linda is teaching a dance class...hope you all have a great day..i will add soem youth photos soon and it will have a lot more content on the .info website soon

Have a GREAT weekend!

Diego

GOOD THURSDAY

I spent a lot of time today choosing songs for our praise & worship, among other things for our first youth group tomorrow night.

We got a call from Manangua saying that they were bringing a trcuk load of Tomym and Linda's personal things and a lot of bulding supplies that has been stuck in customs for months. They said they would leave around 2 and be here by 5, then that shcnaged to leave around 3, then 4, then 5...the truck left about 5:30 and go tto Leon around 7:30...it was not everything we need, but ti is a start so we Thank God for that. They have been jerked aorund about getting this stuff for a very long time and now it is starting to come to them, finally.

Tommy held his leadership of 12 pastors meeting again today...it is every Wed/Thurs/Fri from 3-5...i go with him during that time to play with the kids who have morning school...so far they do not know that we are coming every Wed/Thurs/Fri...so when we get there i walk around the village for about 20 mins and our group grows from me to me and 2 more, then 5 more, then usually within 10 mintues we have a good 15 person group of kids ages 3-15...and head to the church

Within30 mins more kids start showing up, i think they go to find their friends at each others houses and when they find out we are at the church playing they get a group and come...by 5 we usually have 20-25 kids

There we play kick ball or baseball or soccer or throw frisbees...just giving them something to do than sit in the house, and be around me and other kids...today i had about 15 shirts packed in my backpack so we played a game with the frisbees to win shirts...they stood at home plate and i got to move aorund the infield...one at a time they got to try and throw, and if it landed within 3 steps of me in any direction they get to pick a shirt...if it is a bad throw they get in the back of the line

When somone wins a shirt they must then help me collect throws and watch/cheer for the other kids, so that they cant rack up on shirts...the game seemed to work well, and i told the kids we can play it more on wed/thurs/fridays..i also told them that i come at 3 on wednesdays thursdays and fridays...so maybe they will begin to show up without spending the first 20 mins gathering..not that i mind but we will have more playing time

Tonight i spent a long time preparing powerpoints for our youth group...i slected 5 songs and put lyrics into slides with large print in spanish and small english print below...i also made a photo story with pictures of all the youth from my trip in january...and another powerpoint with pictures from my first week back this trip...and the optical illusion of Jesus's face

I am preparing my lesson on teamwork/discipline...we plan to have our first 30 mins with fun and games...then 30 mins of projector things..videos picture shows..praise and worship...followed by the lesson and small group prayer and full congregation prayer...one final song and then snacks and fellowship

click this for the praise songs ppt file:

http://makemsmile.info/PRAISE.ppt

right click and choose Save Target As....to see the photostory 16 MB:


http://makemsmile.info/022208video.wmv

Please pray that our first youth group goes very well in hopes the group will grow and be a great ministry here for the hardest group to get at chruch 15-25 years old..

hope all is well with all of you

Diego

Good Meeting here and Good Day in Candelaria

found out this morning in our weekly meeting of the Leon team..(tommy linda myself leo oscar scarleth) that we are going to have a very busy next 2 months

The months of March and April are filling up fast! We actually only have 5 days from March 1- April 19 without at least one group here and a few times where they overlap. There will be 23 people minimum here from the states in those 7-8 weeks..some groups as small as 2 and others as large as 5+. This is wonderful we are very excited for the weeks to come, but we will be very very busy and we hope and pray all goes well.

We also disccussed days off, because Tommy knows that without a day or 2 a week it is too easy to get strung out or burnt out and lose our focus...We are making our Mondays a day off for everyon whether a team is here or not..if a team is here they will use Monday as their fun day and can do any tourist thing they want. We can then choose any other day Tues-Sat to take off.

This coming Monday Scarleth a friend of hers and I are taking Leo early (4 am) to fly out of Managua and then driving on to San Jaun del Sur..the beach...fro all day Monday and Tuesday.

Other things today were some fellowship and leadership meetings in Cadelaria as well as myself playing baseball and passing out vitamins. Leo called me the pharmacist because i handed out probably 30 bags of 10 daily childrens chewables as well as 2-100 packs to 2 large families. The baseball was fun and my spanish as well as learning names are coming along.

Tonight i have added some more to the official webpage http://www.makemsmile.info/ about half of the links down the left are hot "clickable" now..the content on each page is no where near finished but u can get the idea...

Please look at PROJECTS CALENDAR PRAYER because project Leo is there and the groups coming in and prayer requests respectively...

Also...from about 8:15-11 Central we enjoyed a beautiful Lunar eclipse..i took a series of pictures for about 45 mins i guess that u can see below..i know Boone was cloudy and other friends missed it so i hope u enjoy...it was much oranger and pretty than the pics show..but still cool



heading back to Candelaria tommorrow, hope all is well with each of you

Love, Diego

Room coming along

this morning i finished watching "The Natural" with Yader before he had to get ready for school...cant believe i had not seen that movie til now but we both enjoyed

this morning i got my website up..only 2 pages are up so far but the setup is what requires the most time:

http://www.makemsmile.info/

i also changed my bed to face long ways and it gives me so much more room when entering the room..it is also better for my monitor to be up on the desk and the speakers to sit on top the bathroom walls

Now there is room for a couch and the projector will take up more or less the entire largest wall over my bed...i think Yader and Maria are going to be impressed and hopefully we will have time to watch a movie tonight

this picture was taken at 2 pm..with the door open and a lot of sunlight coming through the windows, at night it is a great picture.

I found some very cheaper silverware, and dishes this afternoon in Leon within a block of my place...also got some mayo, lettuce, and tomato at the market for making sandwiches in my room.

I helped Yager with some of his English homework and then he told me he needed to watch "The Pursuit of Happyness" with Will Smith by Friday for a class discussion. He invited 2 of his friends, Anner and Jorge as well...we all enjoyed the movie very much...i had seen it once before, but it was the first time for all 3 of them.

Tonight i have added more to my website and finished setting up my room for the time being...if you go to the "Projects" on the left you can read about Project Leo and i will be adding more pictures and detailed information that i have collected as soon as i find time.

www.makemsmile.info/projects.htm

heading to tommy and linda's in the morning for our weekly wednesday Leon team meeting, lunch, and then an afternoon in the villages..very eager to see the kids but also very happy to have had these 2 days in Leon to get familiar with stores and setup websites and other contact etc

Love you all..dos dedos, (dos dedos means 2 fingers in Spanish..as in peace...i am working to have it catch on with all my kids here)

Diego

Day of CatchUp

today Tommy and Linda were wanting some time to catch up, and relax and be together because of all the back to back teams etc, so i too had a day to catch up

My 3rd and final bag got here around 3 PM so thank God and thank all of you for praying for it, nothing wa damaged in all 3 bags and i have been setting up my room today

I also walked around a few blocks so i know where i can get bread, peanut butter honey, water, etc for eating at my own place

i rode with Scarleth and a man named Mike from Boston out to Candelaria breifly this afternoon just to deliver some money for feeding goats and pigs and see a little bit of baseball practice

tonight i have been working on my coming soon website makemsmile.info and been in touch with a lot of friends and family via email and AIM...i have enjoyed that very much

i got my projector in and i invited Yader, 16 and Maria, 14 to watch a movie in my room...they are the adopted children of Dona Leticia whose house i am renting a room in...Yader loves baseball and we wacthed the Natural in english with spanish subtitles...they have school in the morning so we only saw the first 3rd of the movie (2 hrs 15 mins total)

we will watch the rest when we can, and they are very excited that i have some movies here and want to bring their blank CDs over in the morning to burn some CDs from my music library

all is well and i thank God for a nice day to settle down, rest, setup room and websites, and keep in touch with everyone back home..So glad to have my 3rd bag which is about 70% gifts for people here

i think Tommy and Linda are taking most of tomo off too so i will be hanging with Yader and Maria and maybe getting together with Scarleth to work on the adopt a family project and the sunday school attendance excel sheets

hope everyone had a great Presidents day and ill be in touch more tomo night

1st SUNDAY SERVICE

today we went to Candelaria for the childrens service from 10-12 and it went great

the sewing ladies were honored and the 3 young men that put in the lights and fans

linda did the service talking about giving back to the church

people need to know that when they are given sports teams, sewing classes, electric work, etc for pleasure and money that they need to also give back to the church with time, work, and money

the garden needs water so i am trying to work on making the youth age boys 15-25 do it, without being asked..now they onyl do it when im there doing it with them but it needs it sometimes in the mornings and weekdays that we are doing other things

scarleth and i had a meeting with 10 youth group leaders from 12-2 about this comign friday night for ourfirst youth night...it will continue you every friday from 7-9 and i am the primary leader for that, along with scarleth translating and MCing

we are getting the front wall of the church painted bright white so that newsongs and my personal projectors can be used for movies, videos, powerpoints, karaoke, etc etc and the youth are excited

i guess that is more or less it for right n0w...please pray for my 3rd bag to come in tommorrow and then scarleth and i will viist Candelaria by bus in the afternoon because Tommy and Linda are taking some much needed day(s) off.