Wednesday, August 19, 2009

A blessed week!!

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We had a wonderful week with the Center Church youth from KS here. They accomplished an awesome amount of work, but even better they were such a blessing to the children and staff! They lifted our spirits and were such an encouragement with their love for God and their joyful attitudes. Thanks again so much to all of you for sharing with us!

Thursday, August 13, 2009

20 years and still best friends!!

What a wonderful thing to be married to your best friend!! It seems impossible that we've been married for 20 years! It used to be only the old people that were married for that long. :) God has been so good to us! We had a very busy day here but in the afternoon we went to Tecate to buy some more supplies and Lorne arranged for Greivin's to be here for the evening so that we could go out for supper. We went to an awesomely relaxing, romantic restaurant. Water fountains, green plants, soft music, and (best of all!) time alone!

Yesterday, right after lunch, I sent Nevin to the store for ice so that Gina would have some for the afternoon break time. He had taken the gray minivan and after he didn't return for quite a while, Lorne sent Gideon to check on him. Gideon didn't go far until he met Nevin walking! It's around 3 miles down to the store and Nevin was almost there when the back wheel of his van fell off! He didn't know what else to do but head home on foot and he almost made it. He said that after a time it was pretty hard to keep on the straight and narrow but he made it. Nevin had put the tire against the van and when he and Gideon got back to the van the tire was gone! Later Greivin went along to tow it home and down the road they saw a house so Greivin checked close to there and sure enough the tire was there behind some rocks and bushes. So the tire was recovered and the van is back along with the boy who is sure he's had his exercise for the week!

After lunch yesterday Brent said he has such a headache. I checked and he had fever. So we looked a bit more and sure enough, he has chicken pox now too! He was quite miserable today and is breaking out more but hopefully a few more days and he'll be fine. This week we have 8 more children breaking out.
Oh! yesterday afternoon we got another 5 week old baby. Now we have 10 children 15 mo. and under.

We have a wonderful group of workers here this week! They've gotten a tremendous amount of work accomplished and with such joyful spirits! The biggest project has been to paint the interior of the house. They've done 11 bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, the main dining room/living area, kitchen, pantry, laundry room, 2 apartment living rooms plus started on some other ceilings. Today was the day for our house and they did all of it except a bit of the boys room because we ran out of paint. And we have it almost all back together again tonight, wonderfully clean and fresh! The guys also did a bunch of outside projects.

Must run check my pantry supplies and make sure all is in order for another day tomorrow. Blessings to all!

Monday, August 10, 2009

Busy, Busy week ahead....

The big event here has begun. Tonight a group of 33 people from Kansas arrived to work here this week. Lowell Miller's and Marvin Mast's are the families that came along with the youth. They plan to paint the interior of the home. We are really looking forward to the much needed face lift in here! There are also various outside projects on the agenda. We're excited about working with them and having the fellowship this week! They are needing to camp out in the school house. We have it nearly finished and just put sleeping bags and foam mats out for sleeping quarters.
Tonight I am SO very proud of my daughter! She was responsible for planning, preparing, and serving the supper for tonight and she did such a wonderful job! We had 92 people here for supper!! She, of course, had helpers to prepare the food, but was the coordinator. I was gone all afternoon getting groceries... she had Tania here... she did laundry and ironing, plus fed 92 people and was still of sound mind when she was finished! She's a jewel I say!!
Today was the day when the Mexican trial of waiting seemed to be in effect more than some days. We wanted to quickly run in and get some last minute supplies and be back again before very late so we could finish up things here to get ready. It was not to be! Thankfully, Nevin was also at home going on with tying up some loose ends here and there so it all worked out.
I best catch a few winks and be ready to keep up with the troops tomorrow!

Sunday, August 2, 2009

And the story continues....

Our book of life here is just one chapter after another it seems, and they all tend to run together!
Goodbyes, new children, visitors, sicknesses, local authority situations, and the list goes on....

July 21st Regina Miller left for Texas and has ended her term here. She plans to get married Oct 23. Marcela and our Regina have tickets to fly to Costa Rica for that wedding. Then on July 27th Keren left for home and doesn't plan to return. Goodbyes are not a fun part of the work here!

One fun part though is that sometimes we get these tiny babies that come and are so much fun to hold & have here! On July 24th another 12 yr. old came with a 6 day old baby. He only weighed some over 4 lb.s. Then on Wednesday another little guy came that's only 26 days old. Tiny little munchkins!

Last Sunday and Mon. Dustin seemed a bit draggy and had a little fever. I just figured it was some of the same flu mess that'd been going around so didn't give it much thought. On Mon. he asked me about a spot he had on his cheek and I told him it looked like a mosquito bite. Then on Tues. he told me he has a bunch of spots on his back and arms. "What is this , Mom?" Uh, oh! The light started to come on! 2 weeks before several children here had chicken pox! I took a look and there was no question, Dustin had chicken pox! The next 2 days he felt even worse and kept breaking out more. By Friday he was on the go again and you can hardly tell he was sick now. Brent never had them either so I guess we'll see what another 2 weeks brings us.

This week we've had more visitors again. James and Deb Brubaker and Jeren Imhoff are here right now. The men are welding the fence inserts for our front fence. It is looking awesome out front! Today, Isaac Martins, Marvin Putt, & Benson & Abigail were here for church and the afternoon. For those of you who might know them, that would be Abigail Overholt that used to be from Sarasota. What a surprise to see her! I really enjoyed visiting and hearing a bit about her family too. Her Mom was my 4th grade teacher in school, so it goes way back there!

Continue to pray for the safety of the home and all of us here. About 3-4 weeks ago there were 3 men killed down the road from us. They had robbed some men and the men took things into their own hands and killed them. Then a week ago a border patrol was killed out behind us a ways. The area did seem to be more heavily patrolled after those shootings but at times we weren't sure who was patrolling and who was involved in the trouble. We see traffic and activity that we don't know what it's about. So, like I said, keep praying that the Lord's protection would be upon us. Nothing can happen to us without God allowing it!

We are all really looking forward to our little bit of time in Indiana! The children keep us informed of how many days yet and were threatening to start packing things. What Mom knows is that one thing at a time, and before we leave we have a group of 30 workers coming to help with some odd and end projects around here, so as of now it's focus on preparing for that!
It's almost time for supper and we have an English singing planned for after supper so I don't want to miss it!!
We wish you all a blessed week full of God's blessings!!