Living in a tribe:

That´s what I think when we are all in the dining room together or we all go out. I live in a tribe!! We are six and sometimes if the bus is crowded we cannot fit in the same bus. We don´t all fit in the kitchen either and if we add some good friends to the number things get even funnier. Sometimes when go out we look like a school field trip!!

I am not complaining, it is really fun. Each person in this tribe has a special ability or something like that and they are still learning more. Let´s take a look at the members of this tribe:

First we have Eben Allen a.k.a. Ebencito(little Eben), the rock. He is our cochroach killer, our dictionary (English-English and English-Spanish), bodyguard, sound effects man "paw!! push!! slam!!", and he is our fix-it man too. He eats like ten people and has a lot of stories to tell.

Eben is excited to have his Bible study. He seems like the kind of guy that knows a lot of things about the Bible, that we have no idea.

Ok next, we have Ivan Bucher. He can really manage the only word that he knows in Spanish, "si". At least he can let you know if he agrees or not with something and that is very helpful to the ministry. He can pronounce the "r" really well, which he learned watching our president Hugo Chavéz on TV. He is learning Spanish really fast. When he came here he knew nothing about Spanish.

Ivan is a man with passion for sharing his life experiences with other men. Ivan is a really funny guy and kind. He likes to cook; his special dish is mantaraya (Manta Ray) with mayonaise. When you eat it, it makes your mouth fall asleep. :(

Now we have Amanda, but I call her Amandarina. She is the kind of girl that gives peace to you when you talk to her. She is also pretty funny. She is always available to help. She loves coffee and drinks it in industrial quanties, as does Ivan!!

Amanda loves to spend time with the Lord and she is always learning something new about Him. She really likes to pray and is always taking care of us.

Then we have Sarah or Sarita (little Sarah). She is a sweet, beautiful girl. She speaks Spanish really well but with an accent from Spain, so I make fun of her sometimes. She loves nature and volleyball, but I think she doesn´t know or maybe forgot how to play. hahaha

Sarita is kind and she always trying to learn something about God and ministry.

Also, we have Chelsea Hasenfplug, but her last name is kind of dificult to pronounce so I call her Chelsea Rrrrosa. This girl loves cats.

She was pretty involved with Vida Estudiantil in the USA so she knows really well how ministry works. She came to Merida before with a summer project and she already knows some students. She also speaks Spanish although she says she doesn´t.

Chelsea is always learning slang in Spanish, so she surprises me sometimes and I have to ask where she learned those crazy things!!

Well now me, I am the Venezuelan in this team so I teach some important things to my team, like how cook arepas and platanos (traditional dishes). I make them laugh sometimes with my English mistakes (some of them are inappropriate, which is embarassing for me!!).

Ok now you know my tribe. I want to let you know that this a really fun adventure for me and I feel really blessed.