The Adventures of Kori Wawa

Bus ticket and toilet paper: (essentials for the skimmers)

• Training is over! I passed all my tests!*
• All 5 Yenes in training were baptized!
• Up 'til the end of training we were continuing with classes on the Biblical church and learning stories.
• The Xtreme Team just got 4 new missionaries: Graham (2 yr. Journeyman), Amanda (same), Kyle (summer volunteer), and Drew (same, but also my partner 'til the end of July)
• We learned how to make hammocks because many of the the trainees need a means of support as their church are often unable or unwilling to support them.
• Sadly, the 5 Yenes ended up directly disobeying Jeremy and lying to the rest of us in a severe situation. This resulted in them almost getting sent home early, but they asked forgiveness and were welcomed back. Praise the Lord, most really had changed for the good afterwards, but one stole money from a teammate and was kicked out of the training.
• My health is wonderful. PTL!
• Drew and i are going to the Tigre River next week to meet the Tigre Quichua people!

*(Kori wawa is the king of the graduations everywhere... ok, maybe not.)

Fubu jacket: (extras for the non-skimmers)

Dear fam,

For those of you who don't know, my mom calls me "the golden child" and ironically enough the Quechua phrase for this is kori wawa. Kori... corey... sounds strangely the same. It's my nick name down here. Enjoy.
This past Tuesday, May 15, we celebrated our graduation from the XT training. It feels so great to be out and free for a few days. Our gradation was proceeded by a written test, oral story test, and physical test. If i may, here's a quick overview of the last weeks of training.
I had the privilege to baptize my brother Edgar, the Yene, in the training, and in turn he baptized a couple others and those baptized two more. In all, 5 trainees who had never been baptized with a right attitude were done so! Praise God!

With details that i won't go into for now, the 5 Yenes disobeyed Jeremy and lied to the rest of us, breaking several other rules in the process, which eventually led to the all being put before the church as described in Matthew 18. They confessed and asked forgiveness of us, saying they would changed. Praise God, i saw huge improvement in some of them in areas of humility and servanthood --attitudes i hadn't seen in them up to this point. However Lucio had not meant any of his confession, as he told us later, and with one day to go in the training stole some money from Levi's wallet. It hurts to think that you can't leave material objects sitting around among a tight group of brothers in Christ, but it happened. Lucio was kicked out of the church (according to Scripture) and training. Do pray for him to be broken.

Ok, here's the skinny for the next couple of months. Next week, Drew and i will be heading toward Intuto, the largest town on the Tigre River. There we'll be trying to collect all the info we can on their culture and worldview in order to prepare a Bible story list that is relevant to them. For example, if they like to fish a lot, we're going to include many stories and parables from the Bible about fishing. I understand they are very animistic. Also, i'll be studying their language intensely with the help of study materials, courtesy of Wycliffe. We plan to return to Pto. Maldonado a week before August, so i won't be able to receive snail mail until then