Ellen's Report

Greetings, praying friends. First of all, I want to thank you for all of your prayers, especially for our trip to the US.

It was with some trepidation that Vicky, Nacho, and I set off. Vicky was having problems with her eye, after an operation that didn´t go well, Nacho´s blood pressure was doing strange things, and I wasn´t at all sure how my back was going to take all the travel, etc. However, God was very merciful, and we actually did better there than we had done here!

I really like to know what I am doing before I do it, know how the day is going to go at the beginning, etc., so it was somewhat frustrating to leave Acapulco without having finished making contacts, plans, etc. However, it´s a good thing that I decided to try to get into the mindset of "going with the flow" early on, because from the moment of our arrival in the US, (missed connections because of bad weather in Houston) most of the things didn´t go as planned. Almost every evening found me calling ahead to try to make sure that what we thought we were doing the next day was actually going to happen, and sometimes it did! At any rate, it was a very helpful trip - for starts, although nobody offered us $250,000 yet. They did give us a lot more work to do - possible contacts, ways to go about looking for funds, ways to improve the school, etc.

In our 9 days of work we traveled from Nashville to Chattanooga to Chestnut Mtn. (GA) to Lawrenceville to Chattanooga to Nashville to Memphis to Chattanooga to Dayton and back to Nashville for the flight home. Wherever we went, there were people to help us. A member of the church here who is living in Chattanooga offered us her car, a man at the last church we visited shook hands with Nacho, said, "This is to help with your travel expenses" and left him with almost the exact amount he had spent.. We were able to talk about our vision in 5 churches, and with some individuals and small groups. We spent a day at MTW, getting helpful tips and materials on fund-raising. We were able to visit 3 very different, but excellent Christian schools, and talk with leaders there about their philosophies, ways of putting them to work, etc. At one, we were able to talk to the president of CSI, an organization of Christian schools, about the possibility of getting help from several International Christian school agencies who are talking now about some joint projects to start schools in other countries, as well as foundations that might be able to help us. At another school, we spent more time talking about their curriculum and integration of a Christian worldview into everything they do. They offered to help us get some of our teachers up to visit some of their classes and work with some of their teachers, which we are excited about.

I´ve been back exactly two weeks. The first was somewhat frustrated by my computer that I was afraid had completely bitten the dust, but by Friday night it had been de-virused and cleaned up, and was ready to go back to work. However, Saturday my back decided that this slow recovery wasn´t exciting enough, so it would do a roller-coaster dive. For no good reason at all, it unaligned itself all over again, and put me back in bed again for the next few days. I had a very interesting time listening to tapes from Covenant Seminary, Western Carolina women´s retreat, etc. - 10 in 2 days, I think. Then I started having students, my secretary, etc. come to my house and worked from a mostly reclined position for a couple of days. I´m back at the office now, more or less realigned, but still not able to sit very long at a time. Please pray that I´ll be ready to go to Veracruz early in July for a Christian Teachers Conference. This is being organized by the National Presbyterian Church, and MariCarmen, Mari and I will be participating with some workshops.

A new set of prayer requests:

1. That I will be able to do what I need to do, preferable with a "happy back", but if necessary, one way or another. Besides preparing for and participating in our regulat summer activities, I need to get ready to be away from Acapulco for about 10 months, starting in September. That includes planning and getting materials for the courses fot the Bible Institute for the next school year, packing up my house (to move out, or to have someone sublet), revising translations for several projects that are in our computers, but not ready for use, including materials for the Christian school, an evangelism course, Bible club materials, followup on our trip and fundraising for the school, and just generally making sure that I don´t leave things hanging when I go.

2. If possible, that I could sublet my apartment - maybe to someone who´d like to come help teach in the Bible Institute while I´m gone (That would REALLY be nice.)

3. For the trip to Veracruz - that we can make some good contacts for future teacher training.

4. For the preparation for this summer´s music institute.

5. For some training that Nacho and I are going to be doing with the Christian School teachers - discipline, teamwork and integrating a Christian worldview in their teaching - July 4, and August 19-23.

6. Forty new students for the school for next year, and land for building.

Thanks for sharing in our dreams and bringing them before our Father.

In His love, Ellen

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