Thanksgiving Break

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This year I got a special treat for Thanksgiving--my friend Melissa and her family came to visit us in Missouri! They drove over 24 hours to get here from Florida, and spent most of their week here entertaining us! What a treat to have them back with us for a short while. Thanks for visiting, and see you at Christmas!



I also got to go home and visit with my church family and friends. Thank you for all your prayers while I was travelling and ill. They meant so much, and I am officially back safely. It was great to see you all again!

Please pray for me these next three weeks before the end of the semester that I would finish well and persevere. I'm excited to be heading to North Carolina after classes end, but I need to be here mentally and physically until then! :-)

Love,
Carrie

Youth Retreat 2006

We had a great time this weekend at retreat with the youth. Justin Franchino (in yellow) spoke on evangelism and methods for understanding what a person is thinking before giving them the gospel. This enables the person doing the evangelism to know what the listener is thinking when they hear words like "God", "grace", and "sin".



The youth worked hard to raise money to go on this trip. Here they are at the end of a carwash. It couldn't have been over 50 degrees this day, so two hours of being water-soaked was enough! All the students that wanted to go were able to go. Praise God for the finances that came in for this trip.

In February, these youth will have the opportunity to go to Dare 2 Share in St. Louis. Please be praying for them to receive the finances to go on this trip also.

Thank you for your prayers for this past weekend. This weekend I will be travelling to Louisiana for Thanksgiving Break and to visit my home church. I look forward to seeing you all--maybe even tomorrow night!

Love Carrie

espɑnol

Our first week of Spanish is nearly finished. I've learned so much this week, and it's exciting to see how much I can retain. We aren't allowed to speak most of what we learn for 2 more weeks, so right now I'm only comprehending Spanish. This seems to be a good way to learn a language, as I can now understand 108 nouns and 26 verbs--I'm shocked! This is Alexa, the Spanish guru!


I'm praising God this week for a software program created specifically for this method of language learning. Praise Him with me for the program and a great computer to run it on! Thank you for your prayers and support.

Love, Carrie

And so it begins...

This week was busy for our class. We had a few long days of classes (we usually go from 9-12, 1-2) and we were in the process of preparing for our first language session on Friday.
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What's a language session?
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Good point!

First of all, the "why". For the next six weeks, I will be in "Live Language Practicum" learning Spanish. This is a time for me to learn the process of learning a language. I also am already being encouraged by how much can be learned with the process of learning I am being taught.

Second, the "who". I'm paired up with my classmate Elisabeth Poarch. You may recognize her name from teaching CEF last year. It's nice to be with someone I have worked with in the past. Together we go to Alexa's house each day. Alexa is an MK (Missionary Kid) from Mexico. She moved there when she was 6, so Spanish comes easily to her as a second language.

Thirdly, the "how". Each day we spend two hours with Alexa. Friday we worked on nouns. One of the ways we learned to acquire the language is by pointing--in fact, that is all we are allowed to do for 3 weeks! We took 12 items with us and laid them out on the table. We would learn them one at a time, then have her quiz us. Believe it or not, we were comprehending by the end of our session 30 nouns and a handful of daily expressions.

Our days have been incredibly switched around, as we are in a new phase for these six weeks. A day for me starts early, and by 8:00 I am at chapel. At 9, Elisabeth and I spend one hour planning for the next day's session. I review from 10-12. After lunch, I prepare for going to the language sessions from 1:30-3:30. When I get back, it takes about an hour to put our information we learned and recorded into the software created just for this purpose. After that I'm "free" to go to meetings, youth group, or to spend time with friends.

Please pray for me during these six weeks that I would spend my time wisely and grow in the Lord. Pray also for our interactions with Alexa as we are coming into her life during a busy time for her.

Thank you so much for your prayers!

Love,
Carrie

PS--A picture from the Fall Festival with the youth group on campus...