Today was Janell’s birthday, so we went to Friday’s for dinner. We haven’t been to an American restaurant by ourselves in a long time (except pizza or fast-food places. I got her Shrek 2. We also went to Baskin Robins and bought some chocolate-peanut butter ice cream to eat with the cake she brought home from school today. Overall, it was a good night. Tomorrow, I am sharing at a youth conference downtown and then we have the big movie night at church.

This Saturday night at our church, we will be watching the Lord of the Rings. We are planning on viewing the movie outside on the wall of the church building. We have given out over 300 flyers to this event both in the church and in the neighborhood. We really want it to be an event to build relationships with the young people of the neighborhood and also with those who come to church but are not involved in the youth ministry program. We are still working out some of the details, so please pray for this event.

Today I stayed home sick. I really just rested because I had a sore throat and headache the last two days. I think it’s from working a lot in the last few weeks. This week is no different. It will be a busy week. Please pray for us in the next few weeks.

This weekend, we drove 3 hours south of Mexico City to a town called Zacatepec to present a youth ministry conference to youth leaders from 6 different churches. It was a good conference, and I think they left with a better idea of how to organize a youth ministry in their church. The guy on the right of the picture is in charge of the youth for his region. At the end of every conference, each church group gets together to develop a rough “game plan” about what they think they could do in their church to lead the young people towards spiritual maturity. I feel that overall, this was a good conference. Unfortunately, now I’m a little sick. Please pray that I will get better soon. Thanks.

We’re back in Mexico after going to Orlando for the weekend. We attended the AYME Conference and saw our family. It was a great break from the “normal” life that we live. We had a great time catching up with our family, and the conference was good to go to as well. It was a good networking thing. I met a girl who is starting a youth ministry program in Puerto Rico as well as a professor from Eastern in Pennsylvania. Overall, it was a good trip. I’m glad we went.

I’ve calculated the final grades for Youth Ministry 110. The average grade was 86, with the highest being 99. The students did really well in the class, and they seem to be understanding how to put it into practice in their Christian service work.

Today was the first day of Youth Ministry 120 – Youth Culture. I have 8 students this bimester. We will be learning how to study and evaluate a culture and subculture in order to be culturally relevant in our ministries to young people. I believe that youth workers are missionaries, entering into the student culture and looking for ways to appeal to the needs of that culture with the gospel of Jesus. I am looking forward to this class, even though it poses some language problems. The textbook will be the National Survey of Youth done by the Mexican government. Students will read and comment on a different set of statistics every week. They also have a group project in which they will research a subculture and interview young people from that subculture in order to make a plan for ministering to them. I think it will be a great project and a great bimester.