Pre-Season Conditioning

Pre-Season Conditioning

When I (Steve) played basketball in high school, there was always one phrase that struck fear in my heart.  Pre-season conditioning.  Usually the entire month of October was spent running, lifting weights, and spending large amounts of time doing repetitive drills.  To say the least, it was not fun, but it always paid off for us late in the basketball season.  To get in shape prior to the season was essential to having success in the season.

For the last 5 months our family has been living in Siguatepeque studying Spanish at the Honduras Spanish Institute.  Alissa and I take 4 hours a day, 4 days a week.  Our oldest daughter Katelyn takes 2 hours each day, 5 days a week while Kenzie takes 1 hour a day for 5 days.  Our toddlers Gabriel and Kiera are just picking things up as we go (haha).  I have to confess, learning a new language at 47 years of age has not been the easiest thing to do.  But we are doing well and feeling more confident each day!

I look at learning Spanish as a type of pre-season conditioning.  Sometimes it is our heart’s desire to just stop where we are and proceed with the ministry program we moved here to start.  This is particularly challenging to us when we see news reports or hear first hand stories about things being done to young girls in Honduras.  The need here is great!  However we realize the truth of the situation is we need to stay focused on the language training for now, so that when the time comes we can be the most effective for the participants in our program.  We need to be able to share things on the go, to translate strong biblical teaching, and to quickly add personal stories and anecdotes to conversations without stumbling over broken Spanish.  So even though language training is not always “fun”, just like pre-season conditioning for basketball, it’s essential to success later.

In his 2nd letter to Timothy, Paul challenged him in the first few verses of chapter 4 to be prepared, in season and out of season, to preach the Gospel.  Though we will not necessarily be preaching sermons to the girls in our program, we will be communicating the Gospel.  We will be demonstrating to them grace, mercy, and forgiveness.  We will be showing them by word and deed the deep love of the Savior.  So even though this is not yet our “season”, we are working hard to be prepared, so that when those opportunities present themselves we are ready. We covet your prayers not only for us, but for the future participants of El Camino de la Vida.

God Bless, Steve Rose

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