Projects, church and kids, oh my!

Hello from the mountaintop! It has been an eventful week, what with the concerts, projects and teaching we have been doing. On Sunday, the team split up between the Freedom in Christ church in Lutopan, and Jesus Christ is Lord church (a more rural church one of our teachers at Shofar attends). Our team members showed a Francis Chan video about the Fear of God and we had a discussion about that subject with the youth groups in both locations. The youth were a little shy since we are new people for them, but they slowly opened up and discussed the content of the video and how it applies to their lives. It was surprising how relevant the subject matter was for them, and it occured to me that young people struggle with the same fears, insecurities and sin no matter where they live. The team I was on went to the more remote location, which was a lot of fun: a long dirt road led us through a jungle-like atmosphere until we arrived at the "end of the road" (literally!) and hiked about 20 minutes before we arrived at their church. The location was beautiful (and very hot!)
Back "home" here at Shofar, we have been aquainting ourselves with the kids, doing devotions with them everyday and teaching a comic book Bible curriculum. They are very sharp and attentive children. Yesterday, Nick asked the question in class, "How can you KNOW that God loves you?" and several kids answered 'prayer' or 'the bible', but one tiny girl sitting next to me said in a tiny voice "discipline". I quietly tried to encourage her to raise her hand and say it, but she was a little shy! Many of the kids are skilled at English, but we are interpreted during our
lessons so all the kids can fully understand us.
I love hearing the kids doing their school lessons throughout the day while we work on projects outside. At any given time, you can hear them learning English phrases, and answering the teachers in a group. Sometimes we can hear them singing, too. It's a nice myraid of sounds drifting over the mountain. Before I came here, I didn't realize that we would be able to hear them all day long. It's pretty neat.
Keep praying for us- and we will pray for you too!
-Rach