I (Brian) was supposed to lead my growth group this morning but last night at about 11pm Cybil started throwing up. She did some more this morning. So I had to ask Mark to lead in my place. Mark is a neat guy, 45yrs.old, single, had his own construction business and came to the Lord 6 years ago and for the last 9 months has been a missionary in Guatemala working at overseeing short-term teams and the construction of the children’s homes. There are 10 kids to a home and they have a national couple raise/parent them. He is a guy that has realized that there is so much more to this life than making money and buying the next new toy (he was in corporate America). He’s not sure how long he will be where he is at in Guatemala but he knows he can never go back to the way it was.

I’m a student of people. I love to just watch and listen. There is so much you learn and often it is what they don’t want people to know. A third of the people here are right around our age yet Kel and I feel old around them. I think it is the kid factor and some of them have not been out of school all that long. I am finding that the people here are very genuine. I think it’s neat that the info we sent here (names, pictures) was distributed to all the staff (office, cooks, cleaning ladies) so they could learn who we where, refer to us by name when we saw them. Usually Kelly will go through the lunch line and gets food for everybody (the food is amazing!! It’s like eating in a restaurant for every meal) but the other day I went through and the gal behind the counter said “Brian this is the first time you’ve been through the line, how come?” It may seem simple and insignificant but it really struck me. Or to have the cook come out and say “I had to come out here and meet the one they call Bubba.”

I saw an answer to prayer this morning and I want to share it so you to can praise God with us. Cybil really looked tough this morning, very pale, eyes dark and sunk in. Definitely not my Cybil. In one of the first breaks this morning I went in to check on her. She was sound to sleep. As I was standing there I clearly felt that I was to lay my hands on her and pray over her for healing. That’s what I did; nothing happened, she just kept sleeping. I went back to class, at the next break I went to check on her and it was the Cybil I knew. She was sitting up reading a book (surprise, surprise) and having something to drink. I knew right away and I could see it in her eyes-God had touched her and healed her. PRAISE GOD!!!

Robin, our instructor gave us some not so easy assignments for over the weekend and for next week. For this weekend we have to talk to our spouse, another family member and a close friend and ask them 3 questions:
1) How do you observe me handling conflict?
2) How does that affect or impact you?
3) What could I do differently or better?

Now doesn’t that sound like fun? The other assignment is to speak into the lives of the others in our growth group. To speak some affirmation and also maybe point out whether or not you’re the one who should. This is no small order.

This morning class was about the greatest discipling and evangelism tool. What is it? My life! My marriage! My family! What does that mean? And what does that look like? It means that as important as it is to farm the land, my most valuable ministry will be the example of my life.

This afternoon we started talking about conflict and we will be talking about it all day Monday. Today we began learning who we/I am in conflict and how I deal with it. 70-80% of missionaries will leave the field and not come back due to conflict. A survey of 500 missionaries at various stages said the number one stress was dealing with conflict. We are just getting into whether conflict is just basically destructive and only a little constructive??

We’ll see where it goes!!