Youth Retreat - "Transformados por Jesus"

Hey everyone,

Things around here have been super busy as we just got back from an awesome weekend with the youth. Each year the youth from the church, as well as those from the surrounding communities, and a short term team from the states, go on a weekend retreat. The weekend is filled with tons of activities and games, with the goal of attracting those kids who don´t normally attend church or church activities.

The main activity of the retreat is a fierce game competition. As soon as we all arrive at the camp, each youth individually draws an envelope containing one of seven colors, which represent the seven different teams. Each team has an interpreter and a team leader. Throughout the whole weekend, the teams compete in an array of competitions challenging our minds, strength, creativity, and stomachs! The games ranged from physicaly strength (as in the sock wrestling competition), to mind (Bible trivia and puzzles), creativity (each team had to prepare a drama and song), and stomachs (onion, watermelon, chile, cat food, and tang eating competions- EWWW!), and were all worth points. At the end of the weekend, the team with the most points wins, and medals were awarded to the top three places (my team took third place! The group photo is us!). In addition, the short term mission team will also take the top three teams to pizza hut next weekend as a reward - YUM! Oh yeah, I forgot, each team was also given a giant bullfrog that they had to take care of for the whole weekend. At the end of the weekend, if you still had your frog (and it was still alive!), your team got points. As you can imagine, there was a lot of frog robbing going on!

One of the funniest parts of the retreat were the dramas. Each team was randomly assigned a Bible story and had to use their creativity to put together a drama of the story. As you can imagine, the most outlandish and crazy the drama, the better. I have never seen David and Bathsheeba, Noah's arc, and Moses parting the red sea interpreted like these kids did! They should win oscars!!

In addition to all of the crazy games, we also had worship and a message every morning and evening. Bobby delivered one of the messages, as well as Daniel, another leader in the church. The other two messages were given by guests. One was a young man, named Uzziel. Uzziel is a highly tatooed, former 18th street gang member and drug trafficer (top left photo). He has been shot several times and spent several years in prison on charges of drug trafficking and murder. While he was in prison he gave his life to Christ (thanks to some American missionaries!) and is now a children's pastor. The other speaker is Samuel (top right photo). Sam is from Uganda and survived years of living in refugee camps during the war in Uganda as well as torture and abuse from the police there. The theme of this years camp was "transformados por Jesus," which means "transformed by Jesus," and these two young men have truly been transformed by Christ. Their testimonies are powerful and were a huge blessing to all those there.

One of the things that Sam said during his message really stuck with me. He said, "if I came here this morning an hour late and told you that I was late because I had been hit by an 18 wheeler semi, would you believe me? Of course not because no one can be hit by an 18 wheel semi without being transformed or changed. The 18 wheeler would have a noticable impact on your appearance, right? Well, how is it that we say that we have had an experience with God, yet we remain completely untransformed. God is much bigger and powerful than any 18 wheeler, so it is impossible to come into his presence and not leave transformed." I thought about that alot...

We have a great video of the retreat that I hope to get posted to our phanfare website soon, so please stay tuned! Thanks to everyone, we love you all!

Dios les bendiga,
Britney and Bobby

We've moved!!

Hello all!!

So the past two weeks have been super busy for Bobby and I. Not only have we been keeping up with all of our regular responsibilities, but we have also moved. This is a super good thing for us! As many of you know, we would like to potentially open our home up to other youth in the future as we have done with Bea and Yami. Our previous home had 2 bedrooms and we had been praying that God might open up a home to us with 3 bedrooms, but with our current financial situation we knew it would be difficult. In addition, we were very specific in our prayers, asking for a home in the community where we live. We really like the little "colonia" where we live and feel, due to safety and security issues, that it is a good place to raise kids. Well, God, being the amazing God that He is DID open up a home for us to rent with 3 bedrooms, in the same community, and (to top it all off) cheaper in rent!! Yeah!

In the middle of all of this we also held an awesome late night "vigilia" at the church with the youth. Vigilias are really popular here, and might be compared to revivals or prayer vigils in the states. It is basically 2 back to back high impact services that start later in the evening and last past midnight. The vigilias are always popular with the youth and are highly attended.

Last night we found out that one of the youth that visits our church from time to time was killed this past weekend by some gang members. I was trying hard to remember if he had come to the vigilia, and wondered if he had accepted Christ as his savior. I have to admit that I have been thinking about this boy a lot since hearing about his death...wondering if we reached him, wondering if we are doing enough. I know that we can only plant the seed, but sometimes I wonder if we are even planting seeds?

Even as a missionary it is easy to get caught up in the unimportant things in life. For example, when we moved to our new house, we didn´t have a stove (the stove that we were using belonged to the old house, so when we moved we had to leave it behind). We made due on lunch meat sandwhiches and pupusas for a week and then (thanks to God!) were able to buy a very used gas stove from a lady. I spent more than a week complaining that we didn´t have a stove and how were we going to afford one, and then after we bought the used stove I had been spending all of my time complaining about it(because I think its like the first gas stove ever invented and only 1 of the 4 burners works all of the time, and the oven is another story). Finally, after 2 weeks of complaining I had to smack myself for being a spoiled brat, give thanks to God for all that He has done for us, and remind myself of the real reason why I am here - and it has nothing to do with stoves! The apostle Paul said that he leaned to be content in all situations, and I know that I too must "learn" this, as it is not somethng that comes naturally for me. So, for now, I am going to try and be content with all that I have, and don't have, and keep on planting seeds.

We love and miss you all!!

Dios les bendiga,
Britney

2001 Coachmen Cascade Camper for sale

For Sale! Se Vende! Now that summertime is upon us, if anyone is interested, or has been thinking of purchasing a camper (or would like to help out a missionary!), here is your perfect opportunity! In 2001 we purchased, brand new, a 28 foot 5th wheel camper and have only used it a handful of times. As you might be able to guess, it hasn´t been used in 2 1/2 years but has been lovingly maintained by Bobbys brother for us. We are currently looking for someone who would be interested in either (1) purchasing the camper, or (2) taking over payments.

Here are some details:

*2001 Coachman Cascade 5th wheel
*28 feet long
*Central heating/airconditioning
*Sleeps 6
*Indoor/outdoor stereo system/CD player
*Complete kitchen with refrigerator/freezer, stove/oven, microwave
*Heating/airconditioning and refrigerator can run on electric or gas
*Bathroom with garden tub and skylight
*Bedroom with queen sized bed
*Additional outdoor shower for cleaning up, or spraying spraying all that sand off of your feet!!
*Asking $10,100 or take over payments of $276 per month
*For more photos go to http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=101267&id=610861439&l=429f34a558

If anyone is interested, or has further questions, please send me an email at britney_hibbs@yahoo.com or make a post on my facebook wall and I can answer any questions for you and set up a time for you to see the camper.

Hope to hear from someone soon!!

Lots of love,
Britney

Umm, hello again

Okay, so where does one begin when you haven´t updated your blog in almost 2 years?? When I decided to take on the daunting task of keeping up my blog again, I didn´t realize how long it had really been since my last posting. Has almost 2 years went by, really? Time sure flies when you are having fun...(for those of you who have kept up with our lives over the past 2 years, you can find the humor in that!)??? For those of you new to our blog, here is what is up in our current life.

Bobby and I have been serving as missionaries to El Salvador since Dec. 2007. For the first 18 months we served in Shalom Childrens Home, and then due to circumstances that I don´t even want to begin about blogging now, we left there and are now serving with Teams to the Nations (TTTN)and Love and Hope Childrens Home (Amor y Esperanza). Bobby is the fulltime general pastor for their all youth church and I teach english to 5-6th graders in a public school. We also have a teenager, Beatriz, who lives with us. Our time here has been a complete roller coaster and the road has had more twists and turns than we ever imagined, but as the saying goes, God is not interested in our comfort but our character, and we are daily learning to be joyful in all circumstances.

Bobby and I definitely feel that our passion is working with teens,and we have done so for years now. We feel a huge burden on our hearts particularly for teens who have left or are leaving orphanages. During our time in Shalom we seen many teens leave, and all were very ill prepared for the real world. In addition, when they leave, where do they go? Many have no family, and those that do tend to have highly dysfunctional ones (hence the reason that they were placed in and grew up in an orphanage). The time that they first leave an orphanage is a highly vulnerable time, they have lived in this protetive bubble of an institution of all of their lives and are at a huge risk of falling. We would love to open up our home to these youth (ages 18 and up) who are leaving these institutions and have no where else to go. We want to give them the family environment that they have never had and help to equip them and transition them into the real world.

We have come to learn very quickly, however, that this is not going to be an easy task BY ANY MEANS. Those of you with kids, particularly teens, know how challenging they are, and these youth carry burdens, scars, pasts, abuse, and challenges that we can´t even begin to imagine. Currently, we only have one young lady with us, and there are some days that I think that she is the equivalent of 20. Their emotional and spiritual needs can be overwhelming. But, despite all of the challenges, we are so excited that God has laid this burden on our hearts and we know that He will give us all that we need to fulfill this calling.

We love you all and I promise that it WILL NOT be 2 years until I post again!!

Con mucho amor,
Britney