Musical Stuff
A few days ago I dropped the boys off at a friend’s house for a birthday party. They went out to Cashibo which is 15 km outside of town. As I drove home alone it hit me how strange it was that I was driving all alone on a highway in the middle of the jungle in a big red VW bus . . . and it was normal. I live here. It was a surreal moment. I prayed for a while telling God that I would live anywhere and do whatever he wanted and how funny it was that this is my home.
We have had a very busy few weeks with the end of school and the Alpha course. We are also getting ready to change houses in the next few weeks. Fellow missionaries, and friends, the Lucas family, will be heading home to the States for a year. We will be moving into their house here on the base as the Drochner family will be returning from home assignment in Germany and need their house back. While John Lucas is gone Christian will be in charge of the SAM base operations. It is a very big job with lots of maintenance, accounting, and details to manage along with our regular ministry responsibilities. It will be a very full year.
Christian has already been very helpful around the base cleaning out decade’s old rusted and moldy stuff from tool sheds and storage sheds. We began the game of “musical stuff” today, as the Drochner’s stuff is getting moved back into our house so the Lucas’ can move their stuff into storage so we can move over there . . . it is going to be a busy month moving and then there are teams coming and construction at the church site and my in-laws are coming! Yeah!
I am very thankful school is over. I had a great time teaching but it was a lot of work. This is the first time we have finished a school year since 2005. Everyone did very well. There were a lot of adjustments made over the last 7 months and the kids did great. We get to take a break before beginning the next school year August 18th. I will be teaching at the school full time next year: History (all grades) and HS French (one student). I am looking forward to being a part of the kid’s school.
Check out our photos as we have added three new albums.
A few more hours in the day . . please
Life seems to have taken off to warp speed over the last 2 weeks. Since the director left I have been teaching the HS classes she left behind. I LOVE teaching, however it is taking tons of time to prepare and stay (relatively) organized. World History is so fun to teach, as is Bible class. Literature class is not fun. I never read a single book in high school and managed to get good grades in English class – I love to read now, but “teaching” literature is something I am learning as I go (apology to my students). Christian has been working over the last week to prepare for the Alpha Course he is heading up. It begins tonight and there are three people coming so far. It is really amazing because these three guys heard the gospel at the race two weeks ago and are coming back to learn more. We are very excited. Please pray for this every Thursday. I am also leaving on a women’s retreat tomorrow night and will be a little farther out in the jungle with 50 women learning about Queen Esther. And to top of the great week our friends from language school, the Dillons, are coming to visit us! They arrive Saturday morning and stay through Wednesday night!!!!! We are so bless to have them come. -God is so good.
Pulp Fiction (not really but it’s catchy)
Really, I couldn’t make this stuff up . . .beside the fact that our dog has mange and Max’s new favorite food is turtle, here is a synopsis of the last 8 days.
Last Sunday night the bright idea of sending Max and Gavin to Peruvian school a few days a week comes to mind. I call my friend who owns a school in town and we went Monday afternoon to check it out and buy uniforms. Tuesday the boys went to school at 7 a.m. I went to the market, did all my shopping (4 to 5 places all around town.) Olga, with whom I usually go to the market, went later in the morning and all her groceries were stolen out of her car while in the market.
The rest of Tuesday and all day Wednesday were crazy busy form morning to night. Swim lessons started, meetings, meetings, and more meetings. Thursday I dropped the boys off at school and was able to attend women’s breakfast – that was the first time in weeks. We talked about Jesus being the good Shepherd. I commented and wanted to say something about realizing my need for a shepherd because sheep are helpless . . . but instead of referring to myself as a sheep I called myself a bumble bee. It was amusing to all. Trust me I will never mistake abeja for oveja ever again.
During all last week were also trying to plan a birthday party for Gavin and Beth. I found bicycles for them on Thursday and the man actually had them ready for pick-up an hour later like he promised. THAT was a first! There was a family day planned for Friday the 30th and we were going to have that be the beginning of the party . . .but it rained and rained. So no pool and no outdoor games = no party. We had already made the cakes so we ate them with friends and opened presents but didn’t do the piñata so it wasn’t the party. The director of the school resigned that morning and family day lasted all of 10 minutes. Friends from another mission left the field yesterday but had given away their dog that Friday before and dropped off their daughter to hang out because she was sad. We had a house full and it was wet – but it was fun.
Christian ran around like a mad man all week preparing for the national motocross race that took place in Pucallpa over the week-end. It rained again on Saturday , so attendance to the kids races was very low. The sun came out for the Sunday, main event races. Christian helped MxC to manage their responsibilities and we both got to share the gospel for the first time in Spanish. It was great. I believe 49 people prayed to receive Christ over the weekend. Sunday at the track our field director approached me and asked if I would consider teaching some of the high school classes over the next month, until the end of school (the previous director had been teaching them but she leaves tomorrow and the kids still have 4 weeks of classes.) I said, “sure” . . . so I have been teaching high school world history, literature and Bible over the last two days.
Christian and I have had ZERO time to process and talk about the major events of the weekend. The elementary and MS teachers babysat and C and I went out for dinner and coffee. I was very nice and a much needed time to talk about all the changes that were taking place. Tonight, Tuesday, we had a follow-up meeting for the evangelism at the track. We invited every one that we talked to. Only three people came . . . but it went very well. All three took Bibles and signed up to do the Alpha course starting next week. THAT is very exciting. That is why we are here – to see lives changed by the gospel. (Really cool side note: one of the men who came and will continue to come is the one guy Christian shared with. God can use anyone even is his Spanish isn’t perfect.)
So, I just got back from the meeting – kids were in bed. I have to do some research so I can teach tomorrow. Just thought you should know what is going on. Please continue to pray.