Odds and Ends

What have we been up to lately?  Good question!  I'm so far behind on my blog posting and reading...sorry...so here you go...odds and ends about our lives these days...

1)  Homeschooling - I could safely say that homeschooling is one of our biggest challenges these days!  Not a bad challenge, in any way, just that it's a huge change in our family and one that's taken a lot of adjustment for all of us.  We are having fun with it, though, and getting more used to the pace and the schedule.  I've really had to get 'tough' with myself, though, because I'm not good at keeping organized and ahead of the game enough to keep us all on track.  Sigh...at least I'm learning...

2)  Ministry challenges - as we continue to work through ministry decisions, we've had a lot of questions about the direction that God might be leading us.  To a certain degree, we've seen some of those questions answered and it looks like some things are being more defined...unfortunately, it's not really what we expected or how we expected and it's very likely that some major ministry changes are coming our way.  We are going through a pretty rough time right now with some unfair accusations being made against us and we're confronting some issues right now...in the middle of it all, however, we continue to trust God to strengthen and guide us...we're confident that God has our reputation and testimony in his hands.  We'll keep you posted as we go...

3)  Personal Development - if you read my last post all the way through to the end, congratulations!  I know it was long and perhaps 'dry' for some, but I continue to be challenged as I consider whether I work to communicate acceptance in my relationships and especially in my cross-cultural relationships (including my husband)...I am grateful for how God has worked in my own heart to confront my own ethnocentricity (I know, big word) and whether I am willing and able to set aside my preferences and my rights in order to work towards becoming a true cross-cultural servant. 

During this time that we're back in the States, I've also taken the opportunity to attend a ladies' Bible study at our church...it was hard to choose between so many good ones offered, but then a friend invited me to go to a Significant Woman study where we would be 'peer coaches' for each other.  This study has been a refreshing time of fellowship and growth for me and I've enjoyed getting to know my friend better and making new ones along the way.   

4)  Celebrate Recovery (CR) - To quote the Celebrate Recovery page on our church's website..."Celebrate Recovery is a Christ-centered program that helps us deal with life’s “hurts, habits and hang-ups.” The purpose of Celebrate Recovery is to celebrate God’s healing power in our lives through the eight recovery principles found in the Beatitudes and the Christ-centered 12 steps. We open the door to healing by sharing our experiences, strengths and hopes with one another. In addition, we become willing to accept God’s grace in solving our life problems. The result: life-change!!"  For more information about CR click here...both Miguel and I are attending CR at our church here and I'm in what they call a 'step-study', too, a group that works through the 12 steps in a small group setting with weekly meetings.  There are issues that each of us are dealing with and we're excited to see opportunities for growth and healing in our lives.  I'll write more about this later...

5)  Another Birthday - This last week we celebrated Jojo's sixth birthday!  Jkaile was convinced that it was his 'dirthday', too, so we kind of allowed him to get in on the action...he probably won't get away with that next year, though...we had cake and home-made vanilla ice cream and presents and games with Miguel.  I think Jojo enjoyed his day and was pretty happy with his gifts, in particular the Lego set that made him quite popular with the rest of the boys! 

Jojo at his birthday table...he had a Lego cake that he helped

decorate himself...

Opening presents...

Happy with the Legos!

Enjoying a game of Capture the Flag

The 'other' birthday boy...

Odds and Ends

1. I am way, way behind on posting...but of course, you already noticed that since there's been nothin' new to read for a while...sorry, life has a way of whirling and twirling until the days just sort of run right into each other...
2. The kids started school a week ago today and it was a very interesting week...Jojo in his K4 class with 3 other little guys; so cute!!! Gracia moved up to the 1st and 2nd grade classroom where she is now not the only girl in the room! Micah also changed classrooms, moving into the 3rd and 4th grade room...so far he claims it's 'boring', but I have a sneaking suspicion that he's actually having fun! JD is in 10th grade and it seems to have been the right choice of grade for him...he is taking a Bible class, Physical Science, Geometry, English, Computers, and P.E. This week he also began practicing with the basketball team...the change in climates and altitude is affecting his game, so he'll have some adjusting to do there! He's also amazed at the amount of homework he has compared to back in Venezuela...he definitely has very little free time here, not necessarily a bad thing, if you know what I mean... :)
3. There was a mouse in my bedroom this morning...I thought I saw movement in the windowsill and sure enough, this mouse came swarming down the curtain into one of the potted plants on the bookshelf and then disappeared for a few seconds until it made a dash for the bathroom! I really am not a terribly squeamish type of girl, but I do confess to a couple of squeals here and there...brave Miguel shut himself up in the bathroom with the beast where he was able to slap it silly with one of my flip-flops...my hero! And all this at 5:30 this morning! Too early for such excitement, really...
4. I've been kinda sad lately, thinking about three of my sisters and my Mom getting together for a few days in Missouri this week...I'm really quite happy for them to get to spend the time together, but on the other hand would really love to be there and hang out with them! It's one of the hard things about this missionary life, the times we're separated from family...it's hard to be so 'close' and yet so far!
5. Also been thinking about my sister Chrissy in Ecuador...she had some really weird rash break out on her arms a couple of weeks ago that turned into quite a nasty ordeal. She was able to get out to town and see some different doctors, none of which have known exactly what is causing the rash or what to prescribe...she actually ended up hospitalized for a few days when the rash became infected! Sister Kathy and family just left Ecuador on their furlough, but PTL, their other coworkers (who had been on furlough themselves) returned in time to help out with things. They are thinking that perhaps it is a reaction to a plant there since my niece and nephew also had a bit of the same type of rash, too. The Awa people that they work with tell of a plant that gets 'angry' if it is not properly 'greeted'...that one sounds like a prime suspect! But honestly, I'm praying for Chrissy that she will heal quickly and not have to go through this again!
6. And to leave you tonight with a laugh...last week I was down in the basement with about five other people, showing two new single guys to their room...I had just explained to the guys that they needed to be sure to shut the window in their room when they left the house because the rain coming off the roof tends to splatter in and drench the entire room. At that point I turned and looked up in time to see Jojo taking a leak right in front of one of the basement windows!!!! Apparently he has absolutely NO idea that even though you can't see IN the windows, you can see OUT of them perfectly well! One of the guys then said, oh, well, now we know the REAL reason you need to shut the windows...ay, ay, ay!!!!

Odds and Ends

Check out this post for a few pictures of what I did yesterday evening with my friend Carrie! It was fun...in spite of having to drive in some pretty crazy traffic. Apparently I'm adjusting to driving like a local because I did some pretty interesting manouvers...LOL! I haven't been able to get out of the house much lately, so I really did enjoy our time.

This morning Miguel found a half-grown parakeet fluttering around in the yard and saved it from getting eaten by our black lab, Cora! We don't know where it came from because it can barely fly, but we put it in the cage with our other two parakeets where it promptly parked itself in the food container and ate for a looooong time...poor thing. Seems to be adjusting well to his new home, though...

Shilo over at My Place of Peace and her family arrived in Paraguay today after a very long trip including an unplanned overnight layover in Brazil. I am excited for them as they move into their new house and begin their new ministry at the MK school there in Paraguay!

In other news, Miguel is finalizing the plans for his upcoming trip to Venezuela! He is planning to fly to Venezuela on June 24th and return on July 4th...he would have liked to stay longer, but he doesn't want to leave me here with the kids alone for very long, bless him! :D It wasn't possible $-wise for the whole family to go this year, but maybe another time. The plan is to bring his mom and little brother for a visit. Delia (my MIL) will be returning to Venezuela in August, but we're hoping that it will work out for José David (little brother, age 16) to stay and live with us. Now that Miguel is a U.S. citizen, he can apply for JD's U.S. paperwork so that he can truly become part of our family and travel with us wherever we go. We are really looking forward to their visit...none of Miguel's family has met Jkaile yet!

Recently, Micah was moved to make a donation to this ministry in Paraguay so that five year old Rodrigo could get a soccer ball...we were happy to advance Micah this money because we're so proud that he would show this kind of compassion and generosity. He had originally wanted to just give Rodrigo one of our soccer balls, but it's kind of hard to get it from here to there, thus the donation route...anyway, so Micah has been working to earn money to pay us back. This morning he is "babysitting" Jkaile for me...and sure enough, there was even a poopy diaper to change! :o LOL!

Odds and Ends

The pile of presents is growing!

Someone was giving away some Christmas decorations,

including this village. The kids are having so much fun with it

that I decided to let them keep it even though it's breakable...

mostly because we were able to borrow this bookshelf! Having

it set up on the top shelf keeps Jkaile out of it...right now

it's also home to all of my Christmas cards and wrapping paper-also

to keep it out of Jkaile's reach.

This morning I noticed that one of the shepherds was

being attacked by the sheep!

Notice that Samson has also joined the Nativity scene...

Our school's Christmas program was put on this last Friday.

The kids were supposed to wear hats and/or scarfs for part of the program.

Micah was quite a sight in his pointy hat, sports goggles, and ear muff thingy...

On Friday mornings, I usually take care of Haley and Anna for a couple of hours.

Jojo SAYS he doesn't like to play with girls, but he sure has a lot of

fun with them while they are here! :) They

were just too cute out there jumping on the trampoline.

Haley and Anna's family is leaving the field this week...

we sure are going to miss our little friends!

Jojo and Jkaile got out these plastic snowflakes (also in the box

of giveaways) and added them to the tree. Poor little tree

is just a tad bit overwhelmed! It was really cute to see

Jkaile working so hard to get them to stay up there! He did

a pretty good job, though, considering! :)

Odds and Ends

Here are a few odds and ends...

1. Sometimes people ask what are some of the differences between living in the U.S. and living in another country...and it's hard to describe. So one of these days, I would like to write about that. But for now, here's one example...right now the dogs are barking like crazy because there is a horse grazing right outside our front gate. There is an empty lot down the street where several horses are often left during the day. This seems to be pretty common, large animals wandering around. I would take a picture, but Miguel took the camera to the office today.

2. Walking, Day 2: I am sitting at the computer with ice on my thigh. I'm not sure what I did, exactly, but it hurts to walk. Cathy wasn't able to walk this morning, so I got out the ipod and bravely walked the kids to school...I was going to do a few rounds by myself, but wimped out because of the pain and just came straight back home (about 1/2 mile...still not too shabby!). I am forcing myself to rest today so that maybe I can go out tomorrow (rats, I can't do do any laundry today! woohoo!). Apparently walking while pushing the jogging stroller with 2 little ones is harder on me than I thought! Miguel didn't have to be at the office until 9 this morning, so he was able to keep Jojo and Jkaile for me...but he can't always do that.

3. Miguel has decided that it's time to potty-train Jkaile! More power to him. Jkaile is just now turning 15 months old...so far, he's gotten him to poop in the potty twice, which seems to have been somewhat of an accident. I'm not sure that Jkaile really knows what's going on, but he'll sit on the potty as long as he's suitably entertained. :) I'm skeptical, but maybe it will work!

4. I have been trying out a deoderant alternative...I wasn't too sure at first, but it seems to be working quite well! Traditional anti-persperants contain aluminum and clog pores, which I don't think is very healthy. But other deoderants that I'd tried didn't work! My sister had been telling me about a natural deoderant that uses mineral salts that are also antibacterial agents (they eliminate the bacteria that causes body odor), so I decided to try it. I think that the one I'm using has potassium alum. Anyway, IT'S WORKING!!!! Amazing.

5. CoffeeGirl has a good post this week about cross-cultural humor. I remembered a joke that we found kind of morbid, but that Colombians always thought was absolutely hilarious. It goes something like this: There were two little chicks, one was a lucky chick and the other unlucky. Good things always happened to the lucky chick and bad things to the unlucky chick. One day, the lucky chick got very sick, so the Mama Hen killed the unlucky chick to make chicken soup for the lucky chick.





Yeah. Not very funny to us, but apparently the irony of it is what is funny to them? And also, like someone commented on CG's post, death is somewhat of a joke in some countries? Interesting. Culture differences fascinate me, so I find things like this very interesting.


6. I had forgotten to mail in my request for an absentee ballot!!!! Not good. I did that this week and hopefully can receive the ballot by email as allowed by Arkansas so that I can participate in the general election. Both Miguel and I are following the election coverage on a daily basis, but neither of us are exactly thrilled with either choice. There are so many issues to think about during this election, but both of us agree that abortion is one issue where we will not compromise our standards. And that's about all I have to say about politics...