Some Urgent Prayer Requests - Part 2

Continuing the list of urgent prayer requests...

Urgent Request # 2 - The kids' Spanish

When we went to Costa Rica to learn Spanish, it was with the belief that we would all learn Spanish together. That was not quite the case. While we appreciated the kids' school in helping them make the transition from home-schooling to classroom learning, we were disappointed that they did not learn very much Spanish. We had also expected that they would possibly pick up some of the language by making Costa Rican friends. This also was not the case. The neighborhood we lived in was mainly American missionary families. On our street, there were no other kids our kids' ages besides Americans. And the Costa Rican kids in school all spoke to our kids in English. They did hear some Spanish each week in church, but clearly you don't learn a language only hearing/speaking it two hours a day once a week.

When we came here, we knew that their school would be in English. But we also prayed to live on a street with lots of Mexican kids our kids' ages. Unfortunately, this is not the case. We've heard that one of our neighbors have two girls our oldest kids' ages, but we've never seen them, as they are rarely home. They would be getting Spanish at church, but right now we are visiting a different church each Sunday with the goal of visiting all of the denominational churches before we are assigned one to work with. This will happen after the first of the year. The only other option we have is to seek out after-school activities for them to participate in. We're very happy to do that. The only problem is that every night, the two oldest kids come home with hours and hours of homework. There is no time to participate in after school activities and get their homework done. Which leaves us with weekend activities.

Please pray with us that God will help us figure out a way for our kids to learn Spanish and have an opportunity to practice what they've learned. Pray with us that God will show us just what to do and where to go to best help them. We want our kids to be able to speak and understand Spanish so that they can make friends and feel like they have a ministry of their own here in Mexico as well.

Thank you!