A Day in the Life of the Mattix Family

A day in the life of the Mattix family begins bright and early for us. All of us get up and begin our day at 6 a.m. After showers, getting dressed, and eating breakfast, and Sherry making the kids their lunches, Chariti, Kaylee, and Chaz head off for school. They get on the bus (van) at 7:05 in the morning. They head off for a day of school at Sojourn. Later, we will have some pictures of their school posted to the web.

Sherry and I have a few minutes to finish getting ready. Then, it is our turn to walk to our school. We usually leave between 7:15 to 7:30 in the morning. The walk takes about ten minutes, and it is actually pretty good for us. In fact, I have lost a little more than forty pounds since we have been here. I think a lot of it has to do with walking to school every day. How many families can say that everyone in the family goes to school every day? Interesting, isn't it?

The top sign on this picture has the name of our school on it: Cincel. Cincel means chisel. I think the name says it all for our family. We have been here eight weeks now, and we have already been "chiseled" in many different ways: physically, emotionally, mentally, and especially spiritually.

We are learning that we can handle getting everyone up and to school on time. We can go to school every day (and learn something new). We can walk a mile or two, get groceries, and walk back home before dark. We can learn new things no matter how hard it is to understand at first. We can conjugate verbs in present and past tenses. We can trust God to help us learn a new language even though sometimes it seems impossible.

Today, in my interaction class, I had an interesting conversation with my teacher, Maria Rosa Gomez. I was very frustrated because I felt like I should be further along with my conversation abilities. I am understanding grammar. I can read Spanish. I can understand a lot of what people are saying, but I am having a tough time formulating the words to answer people when they talk to me and ask me questions. Dona Gomez helped me tremendously. She explained that the hardest thing about learning a new language was the speaking part. I wholeheartedly agreed. She also said that my expectations for myself were way too high. I needed to lower my expectations in order to allow myself to meet realistic expectations. She encouraged me by letting me know that I was where I needed to be in my new language acquisition.

You know, it got me to thinking about our relationship with the Lord. We have a lot of expectations when it comes to serving the Lord. We want to do great and mighty things for him. Sometimes, we get impatient with how long it is taking to do what God has called us to do. We want to know more about how it is all going to happen: what we are going to do, where we are going to go, how we are going to get there, how many people will give their lives to Jesus, and how long the ministry is going to be.

I don't know if we need to lower our expectations, but I do know we need to learn patience. For me, I am afraid to talk a lot in Spanish because I do not know everything about Spanish that I need to know to effectively communicate. Do I stop trying? I can't. I have to break through the wall of fear and try to talk with people as much as possible. In our service to God, we cannot let fear stand in our way. We must push through the barrier of fear and continue to talk to people about Him. Each day, we are given the opportunity to show this world the true Jesus Christ. Let's all grasp the opportunity and give this world a dose of Jesus Christ. Love them all into His kingdom. After all, what else is more important, and why else would we be on this earth?

Blessing to all of you world changers,

Charley