Birthday Celebrations!!!

Greetings once again from Santa Cruz! I don't have a lot of time to write this morning as we are doing achievement testing at school and I am responsible for providing modifications for students. That part isn't so hard, but my room is also being used by the other resource teacher who has a larger group of kids so that means that I don't get as much computer time while I'm here! However, I just wanted to touch base on a couple of things. First of all, thank you to all of you who sent birthday wishes and greetings! For those of you who didn't know, Saturday was my 33rd birthday! A couple of people commented that I was now ready for my ministry to begin...following in Christ's footsteps! Lidia, my friend, started my day off right by bringing me breakfast at the house...it was a wonderful surprise!!! After that, there is a girl from school, Veronica Apodaca (pictured above) whose birthday was also on Saturday so her parents invited me to her party. That was a lot of fun as well...although I don't know that I've ever been to a birthday party for someone else on my special day! Then, I went to visit my friend Avelina, who had prepared a special lunch for me (which I ate at about 4:00)...after that there was a women's Bible study at church (and more eating since they brought food for my birthday)...then in the evening we had our first divided youth group meeting. I have been asking you to pray for that time, for awhile. We started this past weekend so that I could begin with a party for me...I decorated my house, made a cake, and had pizza for them to eat!

They tried to get me to bite the cake...as is the custom here...which then means that someone will push the cake in your face so that you end up wearing about half of it! Fortunately, I was quick about it and they were kind to me...so it was only a small bite out of the cake!

Praise the Lord, things went SUPER well! We had a great group of girls...two people even brough friends so we had a couple of newcomers! I am so thankful for this group! Please continue to pray that they will desire to come and grow in their relationship with the Lord. Not to mention, I'm pretty sure that one of the girls who came is not a Christian so this is a great opportunity of witness as well! Due to the fact that I have a school event on Saturday night, we decided that our next meeting will be Sunday for lunch! In addition, there also appear now to be more older girls than there were before (upper 20s...and me) so we have begun talking about doing more things together. I think that could really be a great time of support and growth as well! This new ministry is exciting for me!

The celebrations, however, didn't stop on Saturday night...on Sunday afternoon, a couple of friends from SAM invited me out for cake and ice cream. We went to a local cafe, which has the most delicious chocolate mousse ever...and there awaiting us were ALL of the SAM ladies, with gifts in hand! It was a very special time and caught me quite by surprise! I didn't even have my camera with me...so I'm still waiting for someone to send me the pictures before I can pass them along to you.

Thank you so much for your support of this ministry! Well...I need to give up my room for testing now! Blessings to you all!