Just so you don't think I don't do nuffin'

Yesterday was my last class with the "Radicals" or as you might call them "Volunteers Without Frontiers". I admire these young people greatly as they give up their "identities" to go and live among unreached people. Being young they can adapt and flow with the punches. At least that's the idea. They will certainly be in my prayers as they face innumerable challenges when they get to the field next year.
In their last class they each had to tell a Bible story with all the details from the Bible, without written notes, geared for people of an oral culture. The class took a lot of preparation, since oral culture is not exactly my specialty, but I really became convinced that we have geared our evangelism for the 20% of the world's population that is totally literate. Even in our churches here in Brazil it is probably much more effective to assume people don't really much like to read. So telling a story is much more effective than a three point sermon. But who will ever convince our seminaries of that?
My class was a 30 hour module that I found extremely challenging to teach in three hour segments since I had to model what I was teaching, meaning I had to teach through stories and oral methods, rather than use any kind of written or audio-visual material. In the end I felt I had begun to get the concept across, but the students didn't get enough practice to be really "confident" in the process. Even breaking them into smaller groups, it was hard with 27 people. Tuesday's class was a riot as they had to tell a story through song. You should have heard the songs. It was so much fun.
Today I am busy with this that and the other as I try to get ready to share four messages with our youth at their retreat. Since I will be with them at the retreat center, you can imagine how much sleep I'll get Friday night. I also must get the house ready for our revival speaker who will be arriving on Saturday. And I need to leave enough food for the family to eat while I travel. I am procrastinating by writing this post. I do that sometimes when I am overwhelmed with all there is to do. João has promised to vacuum and since that's the biggest house cleaning chore, I think I am basically okay on that score. I have made banana bread this morning, so at least I have something for our guest to eat for breakfast on Sunday morning. (If I can keep my family from eating it all up before then...) Next chore is to grocery shop. So off I go since I only have 20 hours left to get everything done! Since today is May Day, International Labor Day, I guess it's appropriate that I am laboring.