Last week we kicked off the summer with Las Princesas with a fun night making flower pens! The girls loved making their own pens and every girl fought over "rosada" which is pink in Spanish...I guess some things are no different when it comes to a girl's favorite color- young girls love pink in the Dominican too!
Last summer the other girl intern and I used flowers as an analogy as we encouraged the girls to become more like " SONflowers". Each week we talked about the process of a flower growing and related it to our spiritual lives as we encouraged one another to grow deeper with the Lord and to learn to be more like His SON. Holly liked this idea and we decided to do this with Las Princesas this summer. We made the flower pens as something to kick off the idea of growing this summer and the girls seemed to like it. Holly helped translate for me and it was really awesome to be able to have her do that so the girls could hear from my heart.
After we made our pens, we told the girls that one way we can grow to be more like Jesus is to learn to encourage one another. Encouragement is rather obsolete in this culture and the kids absolutely crave attention and affirmation (just as we all do!) So we created our own little encouragement board in the Outreach Center. The girls wrote encouraging notecards to each other and used the clothespins to hang them up on the rope! The word above "animemonos" means " Let us encourage one another" in Spanish.
This letter writing proved to be absolutely contagious. Once the girls wrote and received these notes, Holly and I were bombarded with girls wanting more and more cards to write more letters to their friends and families. I believe God makes things contagious, those things that are of Him. Once people have gotten a taste of Him, the can do nothing more but crave it and fight for it. I hope this continues to be something the kids really enjoy this summer!
I love teaching because it reminds me of how I want to live and it helps hold me accountable. In just one word, I believe the Spanish language captures so much of what the gospel is about.
Animemonos.
Let's do just that and encourage one another.
4 comments:
Doodle-
You are so right! The flower pens were a fabulous idea! Im so glad you are implementing the "Encourage ment Board" for the kids. Encouragement is contagious and it is so important for all of us to give encouragement and receive encouragement! I'm so proud of you! Keep the blogs coming...we love reading about what you are doing!
LoveU4ever!
mom
Miss Mickey McCloud..it was such a rush of memories to hear you describing how you used some toold from last summer to help reach those girls. It is truly inspiring and amazing how God uses the same things to work in the lives of girls all over the world! We are not so different after all! You and your encouragement board is something I will never forget. The teen center is getting a CRAZY, and I mean CRAZY makeover. It looks so great and I know you would love it. You are in my prayers, you and your flower pens too (which I use daily, no joke)
♥ Meredith
ps- please ignore my typos..clearly, i am not a proofreader!
Good read Mickey-
I wonder if Hebreos 10:24 could help with "animenos"
or "animemonos" depending on the type of Spanish. I love you Mickey and I want to let you know that you're a pretty good sonflower, siggie chaplian! ;)
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