Wish you could have been there! The purpose was to communicate the vision of our school to the local churches in the area, San Carlos, Guaymas, and Empalme. However I think we as a staff (perhaps I should just speak for myself!) came away as encouraged as the pastors if not more so!
The event took place last week Monday here at the school and Jorge, one of our teachers has been working the phones and paying visits to many different local churches, getting more acquainted with the pastors and local church leaders. It has been difficult at times to build bridges with local churches as many churches are hesitant to get involved with those outside of their denomination. When doctrinal differences get thrown in the mix and the question of "what could a school not part of our denomination possibly be teaching that we don't agree with..." can inadvertently build up walls. (I know the same issues and questions have built the same walls in Canada and the US but praise God that in many places those walls are falling down!) With that said, it has been difficult at times to overcome those superficial boundaries here in this area in the first years as a school but God is bringing down those walls.
Through a lot of legwork, Jorge was able to "confirm" around 60 local pastors and leaders interested in coming out and hearing about the school. As is often the case here in Mexico, you never know how many will show up until, well, they show up! As the time came to begin, there were about a dozen or so with people slowly trickling in. But taking a count about half an hour into the event, I counted up to 80 people, not including any of us. Wow! What a blessing to see such a great response from our local church community. We spent the afternoon with each of the different in-house teachers sharing what their respective courses were about, emphasizing a couple of things: one being the desire for transformation and not merely information; another being the Biblical-Christ centred teaching, meaning the important things are not the things that often divide us but rather knowing Christ and preaching Him to those who don't.
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| The pastors/local church leaders hearing about CEC |
We sensed a real positive response from the pastors and even have some new student prospects from connections made. Not only that but since then we are seeing a much higher response than we have seen in the past for two conferences coming up the beginning of November to the point where we have been throwing around the idea of what to do if we run out of space with our current facilities. What a great problem to have! But personally what was probably more encouraging was not only hearing the other teachers share but also from the four past students who shared from their experiences of their time here at CEC. It was so encouraging to hear how God powerfully used their time here in CEC to seriously change them and use them in their places of ministry. And I don't write this to say, "how amazing we are as a school" but rather "how amazing God is, how He brings change to people's lives and what a privilege that we can be a part of it!"
So yeah, I wish you could have at least been a fly on the wall but I suppose reading this blog post will have to do for now!
MOVING IN
On another front, this past week I was able to move into a new place after having lived in a (albeit clean, dry and cool - when the AC was turned on!) camper for the better part of seven years. As I had mentioned earlier, we sold the camper I was staying in to be able to build this little house. A number of you helped as well, for which I am very grateful, and finally this past week I was able to pull out all of my stuff from storage and move in. It's situated on the same lot as the Dining Hall and has already been a huge blessing, having a place that is a little bit more fijo, more permanent in nature, and some more space to enjoy. A huge thanks to all who were involved in making this happen!
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| The house while it is still under construction |
