Prayer Requests

Please pray about:

~ My student Lionel (she's a female).  She came to Friday Night Bible study two weeks ago to play guitar with me afterwards, and is coming again this Friday.  We've talked about faith and she thinks believing in herself is the only safe thing to believe in.  She used to go to a church until she felt pressure to be baptized, so she left.  Please pray that she's willing to go into the Bible study class on Friday night, or if not, that God would give us opportunities to talk about faith again just between the two of us.  I have so much compassion for this girl and want to see God bring her to faith.


~  My 11th grade Spanish students.  We had a big fieldtrip to Taiwan's 2nd biggest city to see a museum and eat Spanish food, and God really blessed our trip-- I didn't lose any students (can never take that for granted!) and we had a wonderful time.  It gave me time to observe how the student's interact with each other and also helped me to build my relationships with them (They nicknamed me "Shia Shia Shao Jie", which means "Miss Shrimp".... it's a long story).  Lately I've been hearing students saying inappropriate and hurtful things (in general, not just this class), so I decided to have a discussion with my 11th graders about the Power of Words.  We watched a video, read some Bible verses, and discussed the affect that words have on us.  I told them that if I teach them to have perfect Spanish, but they don't know God's love or how to love other people, then I have failed.  What is the point of knowing how to speak another language if you use it only to say evil things?  This is the class that I know the best, feel the closest with, and I pray for them every day.


~ Endurance.  Like life anywhere, it's hard to stay on top of everything.  I think I've taken on too many activities outside of school, and now I'm trying to cut down on my schedule to not sacrifice the quality of my work.  Please pray that our team's endurance and joy in the stress and monotony of life would shine throughout the school and community.  It's easy to "get comfortable", and want to sleep or relax instead of helping out with the Bible studies and fellowship events.  Relaxing is important sometimes, but too much can make me greedy for even more than I need.  Pray that I and the rest of the team can find a healthy balance.

~Homesickness.  As Thanksgiving is coming up, I often find my thoughts wandering back home.  I assume the rest of the team is more accustomed to being away for the holidays, but they still deal with homesickness from time to time.  Please pray that this won't be a distraction for us.

How about you?  Prayer requests from home?  I'm hungry to hear from you my friends back home, so if you have prayer requests or just want to tell me how life is going, please email me: anna.gruen@cuw.edu or anna.gruen@lcms.intl.org.


Thanks for your prayers!


Anna