June 21′ Family News

Ministry

Staff Counseling Conference

On June 22, we attended the staff counseling conference with the title “The Basics of Biblical Counseling”. Whoever attended agreed to be open to counsel church members. There were two goals: 1. to help us walk in victory over our own struggles in life and 2. to help us counsel others and help them walk in victory. The conference was divided into six different teachings and each one was taught by the person, mostly our pastors, who had the most expertise in the field. The six teachings were, “5 Keys to Counseling” (1. Listening, 2. Compassion and Comfort, 3. Give Hope, 4. Teach a Bible Verse, 5. Give Them a Plan With Homework), “Marriage Counseling and Premarital Counseling”, “Rebellious Children”, “Counseling Women” (for women only) and “Q&A” (for men only), “Overcoming Sin And Enjoying God” and “Sample Daily Counseling Session”.

The staff counseling conference was very interesting and we took a lot of notes that we will be able to go back to and read over. We also received the “Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling” by John G. Kruis, an amazing collection of Bible verses to a lot of different subjects, alphabetically listed. We are sure we will not only use this book when we are counseling someone, but also to prepare our sermons and just when we want to look up something for ourselves.

Anja

Band

The worship leader I am usually singing under went to visit the churches in the US who are supporting him. During that time, the ministry leader took over for him and challenged me in a good way. He made me sing a higher harmony in one of the songs because I was able to sing it better than the other singer. He also gave me two songs to sing lead, which surprised me and he told me to sing it more solo like. He seemed to struggle to explain what exactly he meant, but when he sang to show me what he meant, it was clear to me. Sing it, as if you were singing a love song to God and to Him alone. As if it was just the two of you. The ministry leader told me that if I did that, I would not only have more intonation in my voice, but also be able to hit the notes better and he was right. It made a huge difference! That was maybe the best piece of advice that I have ever heard.

Another nice thing was that each band member received a ministry t-shirt. In the front, there is a small circle with the words “calvary worship” and in the back, it says, “There is no better way to unite than praising”, along with the Bible verse Ephesians 4:3-4 in Spanish, which is the following in English, “Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling;”.

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Livestream

This month, I ended up having a severe cold and staying home for about two weeks. My livestream team made a video for me, telling me how much they were missing me and that they were hoping to see me again soon. I did not expect it at all and it was just really nice to know that you are loved and missed by your team mates.

Photography Course

For the last part of the course, we received an introduction into the software “Adobe Lightroom”, which is basically a slimmer version Photoshop, just for editing and organizing photos. The course leader showed us how we can import, save and organize new pictures before he showed us how we can edit pictures, using one of his own pictures as an example. We then could each edit one of the pictures we took to put into practice what he had shown us.

Since I had been sick, I did not have time to take any new pictures with the camera of the course leader. However, the course leader allowed me to use one of the pictures he had taken by night. I was not too excited at first, but once it was edited, I really like it. I also asked the course leader’s opinion and he was quite happy with the result, but also showed me how I could have improved it even more. It was a good end of the course and I am happy that I was able to learn more.

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Fit2Serve

What is that?, you might wonder. Well, it is, in essence, CrossFit combined with worship, a bible study and prayer. The goal is to use fitness as a way to evangelize, to bring people closer to God and to grow together physically and spiritually. When we meet, we pray and then start with an hour of workout and stretching. In the second part, we sing two songs, share something we are grateful for and a prayer request, we study a bible passage together and end in prayer. Why am I mentioning Fit2Serve here? Well, I am one of the three people who volunteered to be trainer here, at Calvary Chapel in Rosarito.

The funny thing is that, a couple of months back, actually before I was pregnant, I was asking the Lord to help me to eat healthier and to become fitter so I would be able to keep up with Ziva and everything else that is going on. The Lord told me that he would send someone who would help me and then these founder of Fit2Serve in Las Vegas show up with his team to implement their program here, in Rosarito. I tend to be lazy although I like sports, so being a trainer is perfect for me.

So far, we only had one session with the guys from Las Vegas, but we are going to start doing the program on our own next month. The founder will be giving us the workout and the Bible passage each week via Zoom meeting and we are leading the program accordingly. We are three leaders in total, a man and two women, one of them bilingual, so we are able to translate everything as needed. Each one of us received a t-shirt and apparently, they are designing a special Rosarito t-shirt for us. I am curious to see what they will look like!

In the front of the current t-shirts, there is the Fit2Serve logo, on the side, the Bible verse from Galatians 5:13 “For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” (NKJV) and on the back either “no excuses – get comfortable with the uncomfortable” or “fit physically & spiritually to serve others”, which are their mottos.

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Chris

Phone Repairs

Since our Executive Pastor found out that I am able to repair phones and other devices, he keeps bringing me broken devices. The challenge here is that most of the modern phones are glued together, which makes it a pain to take them apart. Especially when the display or some glass is broken, it’s a challenge to not cut my fingers. So far, I haven’t had any injuries and it always makes me happy when the devices are working again. However, all of this leaves one question open…

Is there no one to teach people how to do repairs?

Since I started to take care of the lights, this question was on my mind until I received this answer: Here in Mexico, if someone has a skill, they don’t want to teach it to anyone else because they could end up taking their job. Sad story…

Talking about teaching, more and more people have been approaching me and asked if I could teach them some programming. Sure, why not? However, since there’s a couple of them, I am not able to do individual sessions. While talking to different people about this matter, the idea came up to start a class. Since this is coming up over and over again, I assume the Lord is trying to tell me what to do next…

Lights

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Family

Staff Family Retreat and Marriage Family Retreat

On June 15, Calvary Chapel Rosarito invited us staffers with our families to a retreat at Rancho Don Pancho, just a bit outside of Rosarito. It is a nice place run by Christians with green areas, pools, basketball courts, etc. We had a lot of fun together talking, eating, playing games, swimming, etc. It was already nice and warm when we arrived, but by the time we left, the thermometer showed 38 degrees celsius! It was really hot and it felt like the sun was hitting our skin thousand needles.

Ziva went swimming for the first time. In the beginning, she was only dipping her toes in the water, but Chris encouraged her to get in more and more. In the end, Ziva was holding on to a swimming noodle, which Chris gently pulled or she was holding on to his neck while he was walking around. She had so much fun, that she did not want to come back out again. Ziva was not able to sleep at all during the first time we were there, so she ended up being exhausted and fell asleep in the car on the way back home.

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On June 24, the leader of the marriage fellowship Bible study asked who would like to come out to Rancho Don Pancho for a time of fellowship with our families. We decided to go, because it is a cheap holiday and it’s nice to spend it with people you know at a place that you like. Unfortunately, it was not as nice and warm as it was the last time. There was a cold wind blowing at all times which made it unpleasant. Chris found a frog sitting in a water hole in a tree, which was quite unexpected (see picture below). One of the couples that were there gifted us their old beach set and Ziva had a lot of fun digging in the sand. There was also a boy that was playing soccer with Ziva, making a fool out of himself, which she found hilarious. Ziva went swimming again, but this time, it was no problem to get her to go into the water. After lunch, Anja was able to rock Ziva to sleep and she slept for like one and a half hours, which was nice.

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Ziva And Anja Sick

Ziva came down with a fever (38.8 degrees celsius) one evening and ended up having a bad cold that included a nose that was running constantly as well as a lot of coughing and sneezing. It was NOT fun at all. She was so miserable for a couple of days. And then, when Ziva was starting to feel better, Anja started to show the same symptoms. The downside of being pregnant is that you are not able to take your usual go-to medicine. Anja tried to suffer through it, but after four days, she contacted her gynecologist to ask what she could take and he prescribed pills against the flu as well as vitamin c, which helped a lot. It took a while after that until Anja was back to normal, but both she and Ziva are good now.

Cold Brew – Next Level

Ziva

Ziva is making good progress, as usual, especially in her language development. She is now not only pointing at things, but also saying something like “the?” or “tada?”. Whenever we are outside, Ziva is pointing at vehicles, wanting to know more. Anja usually tells her the color, the type of vehicle and the brand, e.g. a white truck, Ford. Ziva also says no, with a Spanish accent though, and according to her Mexican babysitter, she also says yes in Spanish. Another word she only says in Spanish, is “agua” (water). Some of our American friends told us that their kids said agua before they said water, too. It seems to be just easier. The funniest thing however is, that she uses the word “apple” for the color red. Whenever something is red, Ziva says “apple”. We believe it’s from one of the videos we let her watch, where they are talking about “the red apple”. When we ask her if she wants to watch a video, she says, “babees”, which we believe is due to the fact that we have two videos in her playlist that show babies and pets. One of the videos is the “animal sound song” and Ziva is able to make almost every sound in it now. It’s amazing!

Ziva is now able to take her shoes off all by herself and she also puts them back in their place, if we ask her to do so. In general, we are making an emphasis on her putting the things back that she is not using or playing with anymore. As soon as she is done with one book, we ask her to put it back before she gives us another one. We hope that it will pay off later.

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This months, we received a bag of clothes from a friend. There were mostly clothes in there that either fit Ziva right now, like a cute unicorn tank top, some hairbands and a tiara, or that are a little bit too big, like two winter jackets, two winter pajamas and a poncho. That means that we will have at least some things waiting for her. There was also a cute little onesie that we will put on Ziva’s little sister, as well as a nice white t-shirt, a nursing t-shirt that Anja can wear at home and a couple of towels.

On July 25th, our little big girl is turning 2! We are organizing a birthday party for her. The theme is going to be red, since it seems to be her favorite color and we are going to serve pizza, which she loves, and some deserts. She doesn’t really have any friends yet, in the sense of friends she likes to play or hang out with, so we invited people that she knows and that really like her. If you would like to help us to celebrate her, you are welcome to purchase something from our Amazon Wishlist or to send us the money so we can buy it for you, whichever you prefer.

Pregnancy

He also mentioned what we could do to have a boy next time, Chris should drink two beers and eat meat on the 11th day of my menstrual cycle. At first, we thought he was joking, but he was being serious. Apparently, drinking beer and eating meat leads to higher levels of testosterone, which would also make sense in regards to more boys being born during soccer world championships. Well, if we end up trying for a boy, we might try it. Another interesting fact that the OB/GYN mentioned is that in general, there are a lot more babies being born during COVID.

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Prayer Requests

• Health
• Easy pregnancy, healthy baby
• Finances for hospital and paperwork after birth

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