Progress at San Pablo
|| YOUTH GROUP||

We have attended and volunteered with the youth at San Pablo Presbyterian Church for almost 9 years. During that time we have had varying degrees of involvement and responsibility with the youth program: we were appointed "coordinators of the youth ministry" by the session; served as advisors to the teens elected by their peers to direct the youth societies; walked alongside the
youth interested in spiritual growth as those youth societies disintegrated; led the "youth church" and mentored its servant teen leaders; supported and encouraged a seminary graduate, Veronica, as she pursued her calling by made the transition from women's ministry to youth ministry (becoming only the second paid youth leader in our city of 1.5 million). During the five years Veronica has been paid to do youth work at San Pablo, we have mentored her and provided her with training, resources, and any kind of support she has asked for.

In June, with Veronica at the helm, the youth of San Pablo held their first completely in-house "EJE" youth encounter (the first one was in January but much of the weight of the organization was carried out by the Argentines who came to help). We had responsibilities in the June event, but it in no way depended on us. It wasn't a perfect event - they never are - but everyone pulled together and the results were great. It's always a highlight to see kids lives transformed and families impacted.

It's a good feeling to know that when we leave Mexico, there is a solid youth program in place at San Pablo, one which hasn't depended on us for quite a while so shouldn't be affected by our absence.

Youth Ministry Manual & Interactive Classes
|| TRAINING, WRITING, EDITING AND INTERNET||

Annette has also finish editing 10 chapters of the youth ministry manual and has sent 6 of those chapters to the team who is designing the book. Together with our web team we have also completed 3 more interactive classes (this is the culmination of 5 months of previous work) of the 22 total classes. Only 3 more left!

Mentoring
|| RELATIONSHIPS||

The fact that we've been home for almost two months in a row has meant that we've been able to get caught up relationally with some youth leaders that we have meet with weekly for years. It is encouraging to see continued growth in their lives, personally and professionally.

Dreams & Visions
|| OUR FUTURE ||

During the last month we've been in contact with teams in Brazil and Indonesia about how we can help them in the areas of resources web sites and distance training (e-learning). In short, they are interested in being able to publish materials and online training similar to what we offer youth leaders in the Spanish-speaking world.

Together with our exisiting network, these new relationships are helping us define how we might be able to serve Christ and His people in the future...and we are excited about the possibilities.