Let’s Talk About Sex, Baby.

The past few weeks we have been teaching students in their teens about the importance of abstinence before marriage. We teach at nine different schools through out the week which makes it slightly challenging to build relationships with individual students. We start each class by reading Genesis 1:27-28 which says:

"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, And God said to them 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the Earth.'"

Before we knew this was going to be our subject, our team had been listening to some Andy Stanley sermon series titled "The New Rules for Love, Sex, and Dating" In the third sermon of the series, Stanley makes the point the Sex is not just physical. He says this over and over and over again during the series, thrusting it into our minds. Stanley also addresses how unifying, special, and fragile this act of intimacy is. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXJYd8ewZ-k )

After hearing these messages we found ourselves standing in front of small classrooms packed with students who were waiting to hear what the foreigners had to say. By the grace of God, we have been able to depict what sex should look like. We have had the opportunity to teach these young learners that God created sex to be unifying, special, fragile, powerful, fearless, and intimate.

One of our teammates gave an illustration during each of our talks that allowed the students to better see how unifying sex truly is. She took salt and mixed sugar with it to symbolize a man and a woman having sex. Afterward, she would ask a student to separate the salt from the sugar. All the students looked at us like we were crazy and replied "No es posible" (It's no possible).Exactly. It's not possible because when a man and women have sex, they are united as one.

Each lesson ended with Mercediez telling the class that by the grace of God, we are able to become clean again through the forgiveness of a perfect savior. There are still consequences you can face or different challenges you can struggle with, but God takes us as we are and meets us where we are at. What a refreshing way to finish a talk that can be extremely uncomfortable for most.

Even though the topic is sensitive, we have become very comfortable with the students and teaching. God is stretching us and putting us in situations that are uncomfortable, but he is speaking through us and using us which is a huge honor. We will continue to teach the students values for the rest of September and then begin teaching English and visiting a Cerebral Palsy hospital for the remainder of our time here.