Dear Grandma,
A couple weekends ago, I had the
chance to go visit Merida, where I lived
last year. On our last day there, I went
"canyoning" with a few friends.
Canyoning is basically hiking down a
river, rappeling down waterfalls with rock
climbing harnesses and ropes, and the
occasional jumping down short rapids.
I've been a few times, including with Dad
when he and mom visited in 2007. It's
always a lot of fun. God bless, Eben

Dear Grandma,
A couple months ago, we went to a beach on one of the keys just off the coast of Venezuela. Here are my teammates Justin and Oscar and I on the 20 minute boat ride to get there. It was quite an adventure, and as you can see by looking at Justin, we got pretty soaked on the way there.
God bless, Eben

Dear Grandma,
A few weeks ago, our team took a trip to Quito, Ecuador to renew our traveler's visas. While there, we went up a cable car high into the mountains overlooking the city. We also got to go visit the equator. I think my favorite part was watching water drain in a clockwise swirl on one side of the line, a counterclockwise swirl on the other side, and without a swirl on the line. God bless, Eben

Dear Grandma,
About 3 blocks away from our apartments there is a botanical garden. I finally went and explored it about a week ago. There were all kinds of birds; I saw some black ones with bright yellow tail feathers, a hawk, a woodpecker, and many others. In the middle of the garden there is a clearing for this giant, epic tree. It was much bigger and its limbs sprawled further than any of the other trees. I think it is probably now one of my favorite places in Valencia. Love, Eben

Dear Grandma,
A few weeks ago on our way to and from the beach, we drove by a "forest" of palm trees. I don't think I've ever seen so many in one place before. On closer inspection they seemed to actually be planted in rows, so I think it was probably a coconut plantation. However, even though it may have been man made to some degree, it was still a pretty fascinating sight. God bless, Eben

Dear Grandma,
I think in a prayer letter a while back, I mentioned that we were praying for an apartment with hammock hooks. Well when we found this apartment, the landlord told us we could put in hammock hooks, and we finally got them installed back in December! We've enjoyed the hammock ever since, especially because we can fit two people in it (they call it "matrimonial" size here). It's been a fun answer to prayer. God bless, Eben

Dear Grandma,
The little corn-meal patties I'm cooking up in this picture are a typical Venezuelan food called arepas. I learned how to make them last year, and I have been called upon several times by my teammates to make them this year in Valencia. I enjoy making them; it is fun to knead the dough and get the right consistency based on touch. They are kind of pita like in that you put meat or other sorts of sandwich fillings in them. God bless, Eben

Dear Grandma,
Over the break, my friend Darwin from Merida invited me to his house to learn how to make pan de jamon, a traditional Christmas food. It literally translates to 'ham bread" but it has ham, bacon, green olives and raisins in it. We got to be part of the whole process, from the first step in activating the yeast for the dough, to kneading it, to putting the ingredients inside and rolling it, to glazing it, and finally to baking it. It was a lot of fun, and in the end delicious. God bless, Eben

Dear Grandma,
At the end of the trip with the girls from UP to Merida, we went to a beach to review the week. The beach was on an island, and this shipwreck was there. It reminded me of the Peter Iredale wreck, though this wreck seemed a little more popular with the pelicans. I also caught a hermit crab to look at him close up before letting him go. It was a lot of fun, and the water was perfect temperature for swimming. God bless, Eben

Dear Grandma,
This last weekend I went to a men's retreat at the beach behind me, called Cata. The waves are pretty good size and really fun to body surf. Since the retreat was for guys from all over Venezuela, I got to see some old friends and make some new ones. We had great food, several discussion times, played soccer and other games, and had lots of time on the beach. It was an all around great weekend. God bless, Eben

October Prayer Letter

Dear Friends,
Three Sundays ago, my alarm went off at 2:15 am, signaling the start of my part of the Fall Break Merida trip. Four hours later, I was in the Caracas airport, welcoming Christine and Ashley to Venezuela. Even though their trip had started Saturday morning, they still chose to go to church with us. It was the first of many instances in which these girls from University of Portland demonstrated their character and trusted God with the details. It made for a great week.
Later that day, we had “Christmas in October,” opening the suitcase of rare-to-Venezuela-goodies that my mom had sent down with the girls. We started our week-long study of Galatians, covered schedule details, and then spent some time together as one big team, eating dinner and talking. Monday, we went to Universidad de Carabobo here in Valencia and the girls got their first experience sharing in Venezuela, striking up spiritual conversations and presenting the gospel. During that time, Ashley saw a guy and a girl pray to receive Christ as their personal savior. That night Sarah, Ashley, Christine and I got on an overnight bus and embarked for Merida.
Once in Merida Tuesday, we went up to the humanities campus and met with Keren, one of the student directors of the Merida ministry. After a time of worship and fellowship with another Christian group on campus, we once again went out sharing. Christine paired up with Keren, and while sharing, saw another girl pray to receive Christ. We finished out our day with another student-led activity: a prayer walk around the university grounds. On Wednesday, the girls handed out weekly meeting flyers and continued to meet Merida students during the games, worship time, and teaching time of the meeting itself. That night at a fiesta, after playing games, dancing, and talking more with students, both girls were asked to give their testimonies. Even though it was really impromptu and hard to hear over the torrential rain outside, both did an awesome job of sharing their stories. After a typical round of Venezuelan goodbyes (hugs/cheek kisses to every girl and handshakes/hugs between guys) to everybody in the room, we ran through the pouring rain, crossed a few shallow rivers (aka streets), and finally caught a taxi back to our hostel. Thursday, after an early lunch of arepas with the student leaders (arepa: traditional Venezuelan cornmeal pocket/patty), we went sharing on the technical campus where, as I translated for Ashley, we saw one more girl accept Christ.
Friday morning we arrived back in Valencia, and the girls had a relaxed day as our STINT team met with the student leaders here to plan for a few weeks. Saturday we went to a nearby beach and a spent a little time debriefing about the week and a lot of time enjoying God’s creation. Then, early Sunday morning, we were once again in Caracas, this time to see the girls off to Oregon. As the girls left us to go through security, I felt a deep sense of affirmation that the trip went well. While there were a few learning moments for me, I felt like I engaged and initiated throughout the trip and did not hold anything back. In short, I would not change a thing, and I am incredibly encouraged by the fruit of the trip. Christine and Ashley felt accepted by our team, they connected with the students in Merida, and God changed lives through their being here. I feel like that is exactly what I had hoped to see, and God made it happen. To Him be the glory. In his grip, ~Eben

Please Pray:
-For wisdom and time for filling out reimbursements for Merida trip expenses; that it would process quickly.
-For God’s continued work in those we shared with, especially that they could connect with other Christians.
-For our STINT team as we start establishing discipleship relationships; that what we relay would be relevant, and that we would develop a fully functional method for us and for students to follow up with new believers.

Dear Grandma,
Two weekends ago we went to a local orphanage to help out by playing with the kids. This one found a popped ball and decided I should wear it as a hat for a while. I had been carrying him around for quite a while, when all of a sudden he leaned in close and clamped his teeth into my neck! Fortunately he didn't break the skin, but it definitely made the experience all the more memorable. Even so, the experience was definitely good, and I'm glad we went. Love, Eben

Dear Grandma,
Here is the view from the girls' apartment here in Valencia. We have not been able to secure an apartment for Justin and me, though today we did find out about another one for rent on the second floor of this same building. I think we'll try to look at it tomorrow, and hopefully we can get into it because it would be such a perfect location (we had a really hard time last year finding an affordable apartment nearby the one we had). Thanks for your prayers; you are in mine. ~Eben

Dear Grandma,
I'm glad I got to see you just before I left. I met up with the team in Atlanta, and we arrived in Venezuela without any problems. We visited the campus to get to know where we'll be working and took this goofy picture in front of the lagoon. L-R are Justin, Allison J, Allison P, me, and Sarah. It's going to be a fun year. God bless, Eben

Dear Grandma,
It was good to see you Thursday, even though it was a short visit. I just got my camera back (it's been broken the last few months), so I decided I'd send this picture from visiting Elsa last Wednesday. This is Greenlake, the area near Seattle where Elsa is looking for a new place to live (I'm sure she'd appreciate your prayers for the process). We took Blaine's dog for a walk around the lake and had a lot of fun and really enjoyed the scenery. God bless, Eben

Post Congreso Prayer Letter

Dear Friends,
Three weeks ago yesterday (Saturday), the final two busses rumbled off into the night, taking with them the last moments and participants of Congreso Nacional 2008: Prueba de Fuego (National Conference 2008: Trial of Fire). I have sat down at least four times since then to try and write this letter, but every time the words either do not seem to come out right, or I end up otherwise occupied with other tasks. So at last, I hope to not only share about the conference, but about the busy weeks since. It’s enough that I need two pages…

CONGRESO FIRSTHAND:

From my perspective, Congreso is pretty well hyped by staff and students that have been before, and I think I went in subconsciously expecting to have an amazing ‘Congreso Experience,’ essentially to witness God work mightily in students lives and learn something profound myself alongside them. However, being there to help run it instead of just attending it (I was pretty much in charge of setting up the stage and supervising the technical aspects of the main program), I felt like did not have the chance to take in much of the content or do much interacting with the students. It actually left me a little frustrated, feeling like it had been busy and stressful work instead of the rewarding, inspiring time I had expected.

Since I knew that Congreso was much more than how I experienced it, I asked two guys in my bible study to share their experiences. Both wrote in English since they study foreign languages, but please forgive the grammatical errors as both are fairly early in their studies :

“In my opinion, I think that Congreso was WONDERFUL, AMAZING, MARVELOUS. I mean, it's an experience I'd never known before. I really, REALLY loved it. I must confess that, in the beginning, I was like "ok, I have NO idea of how it's gonna be like", and I actually got to think it was gonna be a little boring. But WOW! I couldn't ever imagine that it would be so great, even though the trip wasn't good at all, it worthed it! I never knew how really wonderful God was until that Congreso. The workshops, the talks, the time sharing with our friends, and of course, the praising time (that was the thing I LOVED the most).” - Leonardo

"I really learnt how to keep a good communication with God, how trust him. One of the most activities that I loved more was the [main sessions]”... “I really liked it because while we were singing those songs we could felt like God's love through us. I also like when we went to the beach to share with other people our faith. At the beginning I was really nervous and worried at the same time because I had not done that before. I mean, I had shared before but not like by myself , I always were the translator so it's easier”… “But when you trust in God you never are going to feel afraid of anything. Fortunately, with the guys that I was sharing, they were really good doing it, but I [prayed] and I talked to God in order to he could helped me of not feel any [fear] or insecurity of myself while I was sharing with other people. After I [prayed], I really felt good”… “I did it really natural. I could not believe that I had shared and I was not scared of it. But now I feel confident about share my faith with someone else. I really like that conference. I hope the next year I can go to the following one.”

    – Neuro (slightly condensed, some spelling corrected)

THIRDHAND CONGRESO:  During our staff retreat after Congreso, I learned that over 20 students had attended a lunch for those interested in either a 4 month or year long full-time ministry commitment. At church the following Sunday, one student, Jesús, talked about personally seeing 15 people make decisions to follow Christ during the 2 hours of sharing on the beach Friday of Congreso. Waleska shared about having her perspectives changed on missions, Yuliana shared how God established the path He wants her on in the future, and Angela shared that it was simply impactful to her that God provided to take her there and that she’d really been ministered to by a staff couple there. Saturday of that week we had time for students to share about Congreso, in which Darwin talked about being challenged to please God in the little things, Leonel said he was able to see how much he’s grown since last year’s Congreso, and Jatniel explained how a workshop helped him see how he can be distinct from the crowd to reflect Christ to them.

BY THE NUMBERS:
4 days, 3 nights (Mar 19-22)
180 Students
-30 from Merida
-9 from Santa Barbara
20 Ohio State Spring Breakers
26 National Staff (e.g. me)
9 Cities represented

SINCE CONGRESO:  So even though I didn’t necessarily enjoy my own experience at Congreso, in light of so many positive testimonies, I’m really beginning to see how much God used it. Even for myself, I’m seeing how He’s been leading me to scripture (like Psalm 91) about taking refuge in Him and His sufficiency, and as I consider how little I did so at Congreso, I’m relearning how vital it is. It is definitely a learning process, especially in the craziness of the past two weeks.

In three concepts, the last two weeks have been servant team, finances, and moving. As a team, we created a new model for our team of student leaders (aka servant team). Instead of the current model of a group of core students helping plan all aspects of ministry together, the new model has core students in smaller groups, each focused on a particular aspect of the ministry. It’s been a process of trying to specify those key aspects of ministry and trying to figure out what core students we should invite into the leadership roles. Please pray for the process as we are hoping to finalize who to ask this week and ask them for a decision by the beginning of May. In the finances department, Congreso costs along with upcoming events(including a trip next week to help jumpstart a movement in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital), made for enough financial details that I took all day last Thursday in my role as team administrator to organize them. Please pray for clarity and accuracy in that department as there is a lot to track, especially with the new apartment. Speaking of moving, our money exchange contact has an apartment we can use temporarily while we keep looking for something longer term. So Tuesday and Wednesday we spent the afternoons packing, and moved here to the new apartment Wednesday night. It is not close to the girl’s apartment and is a little on the expensive side, but it is a Godsend to have a comfortable apartment in a nice part of town in the timeline we needed that even includes good relations with the landlord. Please keep praying for long-term housing solutions for our whole team, seeing as I was told Friday that the girls need to move before the team ends its year here in July.

  Finally, thank you for your prayers. I recently looked at last month’s letter and realized that God provided a bus the same day as bus details appeared on the calendar. Your prayers are powerful and effective, and I love that I get to see Him answer them specifically. ~In his hands, Eben

"March" Prayer Letter

Dear Grandma,
Our travelers' visas (our permission to be in Venezula) expire every 90 days so every three months we take a short trip to a nearby different country. This last trip we went to Trinidad and Tobago, which is just off the northeast coast of Venezuela. Our last day there, we went to a beach in Tobago, and as we were leaving saw this sunset. It was a great way to end the trip. You are in my prayers, Eben

Dear Grandma,
Today I thought I'd send you something kind of random from my day to day life. This hole in the fence at the humanities campus is the easiest way to get off the campus and onto the street where our office is located so we end up climbing through it quite often. Every vacation somebody wires it shut, but within a few days students have it back open because it's so well used. Anyway, sorry it's been a while since I've sent a card. You are still in my prayers. Eben

Dear Grandma,
After Christmas, my teammates and I went to the plains, or Los LLanos, region of Venzuela for a few days. We got to see a lot of really cool and exotic animals including an anaconda, piranhas, turtles, iguanas, caiman (basically alligators), freshwater dolphins, tons of different birds, anteaters, and even capybara (in the picture and also the largest of rodents). It was a lot of fun.
God bless,
Eben