4 more days of school is all we lack! You haven´t misread any of our previous posts. We had indeed planned on staying for 2 more weeks, however, we have decided to change our plans a bit. This Friday we will not attend school so that we can attend a conference with other missionaries. Both of us have been taught all of the spanish grammar, and at this point another week of school wouldn´t be that advantageous. By no means does that mean we are speaking great spanish, we speak decently, and using it more will help to better it. Thanks for praying for us as we´ve journied through language school. We´d ask you to pray for our last week of school and for us as we begin living at the children´s home.
Living in a different culture has provided many funny situations for us. The most recent of which was when we took Harvey, Lee´s current teacher and Staci´s former teacher out to lunch as a way of saying thanks for his help with our language skills. The food arrived to the table, and Harvey asked Lee if he´d like to pray. Lee begins the prayer by saying ¨Dios gracias para este dia¨ As soon as Lee said that Harvey interjects and says ¨por¨ meaning Lee should have said ¨Dios gracias por este dia¨ Harvey...always a teacher had to make sure that Lee´s prayer was gramatically perfect. For those of you who don´t know spanish both ¨por¨and ¨para¨translate to ¨for¨. There are specific reasons and situations for using one or the other. I don´t think either of us with misuse ¨por¨ in this situation again.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Becoming home...
This weekend we are spending a 4 day weekend at the children's home working our our apartment so that when we move here (in 3 weeks!) we will be able to move right into our apartment.
On Friday we headed out with Kendon and Wendy who graciously drove us around the city and lent us great wisdom and advice along the way. Before 2pm we had purchased a bed, a couch, loveseat and chair set, and a small dining room table that is now our coffee table. (Right now, Don, a retired high school shop teacher is here, he chopped the legs right off of that table and it now sits in between our living room furniture.) Daniel & Kara met us for a late lunch and then took us to Pricemart (much like a Sam's) where we picked up a few more things.
Saturday morning Lee left with Elmer, an employee here and Pablo a teenager who lives here to retrieve our furniture. A couple hours later they returned with all of the living room furniture in tow. They were also gracias to help Lee get it all up into our 3rd story apartment.
After the furniture was in place, we were able to borrow a vehicle and made our way to Hiper Paiz (much like a Wal-Mart) and found things like shower curtains, silverware, cleaning supplies, and a few kitchen essentials. There are still a few things that we need to get like plates, cups and a microwave - that will happen with time. It is such a good feeling to have accomplished all we did this weekend.
The Lord was really gracious to give us time with people who could haul us around and who knew what they were doing. We believe that we got great deals on the stuff that we purchased, and even have money left within our budget to purchase things that we still need.
Right now we're in the dry season which means a lot of dust, add that to the construction dust (we're the first people to live in our apartment) and you get one dusty place. Thanks to the use of Daniel & Kara's vacuum cleaner and several passes with the mop we're mostly dust free. We had time today to put stuff into cabinets - in short, we're excited to be here in 3 weeks.
This morning at church they celebrated their 29th anniversary. Upwards of 15,000 people joined together to celebrate such an event. They invited Marcos Witt, a big name in Latin countries to lead worship and preach. Afterwards we went to celebrate Esdras' birthday and enjoyed a yummy meal from Taco Bell.
So, tomorrow we leave to go back to Antigua and will finish out our last 3 weeks of school.
On Friday we headed out with Kendon and Wendy who graciously drove us around the city and lent us great wisdom and advice along the way. Before 2pm we had purchased a bed, a couch, loveseat and chair set, and a small dining room table that is now our coffee table. (Right now, Don, a retired high school shop teacher is here, he chopped the legs right off of that table and it now sits in between our living room furniture.) Daniel & Kara met us for a late lunch and then took us to Pricemart (much like a Sam's) where we picked up a few more things.
Saturday morning Lee left with Elmer, an employee here and Pablo a teenager who lives here to retrieve our furniture. A couple hours later they returned with all of the living room furniture in tow. They were also gracias to help Lee get it all up into our 3rd story apartment.
After the furniture was in place, we were able to borrow a vehicle and made our way to Hiper Paiz (much like a Wal-Mart) and found things like shower curtains, silverware, cleaning supplies, and a few kitchen essentials. There are still a few things that we need to get like plates, cups and a microwave - that will happen with time. It is such a good feeling to have accomplished all we did this weekend.
The Lord was really gracious to give us time with people who could haul us around and who knew what they were doing. We believe that we got great deals on the stuff that we purchased, and even have money left within our budget to purchase things that we still need.
Right now we're in the dry season which means a lot of dust, add that to the construction dust (we're the first people to live in our apartment) and you get one dusty place. Thanks to the use of Daniel & Kara's vacuum cleaner and several passes with the mop we're mostly dust free. We had time today to put stuff into cabinets - in short, we're excited to be here in 3 weeks.
This morning at church they celebrated their 29th anniversary. Upwards of 15,000 people joined together to celebrate such an event. They invited Marcos Witt, a big name in Latin countries to lead worship and preach. Afterwards we went to celebrate Esdras' birthday and enjoyed a yummy meal from Taco Bell.
So, tomorrow we leave to go back to Antigua and will finish out our last 3 weeks of school.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Sunday evening...
Thanks for the comment, Mital, we did have a fun little excursion this weekend!
This morning we met up with our friends Pat & Bill who are serving with an organization called Youth With a Mission (YWAM) for a couple of years. They live just a bit outside of Antigua and attend a small church about 2 kilometers from Antigua.
Now before you all laugh at the less than a mile a way adventure, let me just say that people around here consider 2 kilometers quite a distance. We've had several conversations with our host family about this topic - there kids attend a school that is between 1 and 2 kilometers away. When the new school year started a few weeks ago there was much discussion in the house about the bus routes and how one of the kids had to get up an extra 30 minutes early to catch the bus to take him 1 kilometer. We've tried to explain how we west Texans would drive 4 hours for a drink of water. We realize that is stretching it a bit as well, but our concept of distance and time is much different than ours. One night I told them that on several occasions my sister and I would each drive about an hour so that we could meet for dinner. They couldn't imagine doing that - both my sister and I just considered it a treat.
Ok, back to the days activities - we met up with Pat & Bill and had planned on taking a 5 minute bus ride to the church. There is a lot of construction going on right now, so we ended up walking to the church. It was a great walk, and nice to see new things. The church was small, and we'd describe the service as typical Guatemalan. Pat & Bill took us to see the YWAM base that we had heard about for sometime and then we came back and ate some delicious italian food for lunch.
We are looking forward to our last 4 weeks of school - it's hard to believe that we only have 4 weeks left! This Thursday we are planning on going back to the home and making a few purchases this weekend that will begin to make the apartment that we will live in our home. We'd ask you to pray for wisdom about our purchases, and that we could simply attain the things that we need.
This morning we met up with our friends Pat & Bill who are serving with an organization called Youth With a Mission (YWAM) for a couple of years. They live just a bit outside of Antigua and attend a small church about 2 kilometers from Antigua.
Now before you all laugh at the less than a mile a way adventure, let me just say that people around here consider 2 kilometers quite a distance. We've had several conversations with our host family about this topic - there kids attend a school that is between 1 and 2 kilometers away. When the new school year started a few weeks ago there was much discussion in the house about the bus routes and how one of the kids had to get up an extra 30 minutes early to catch the bus to take him 1 kilometer. We've tried to explain how we west Texans would drive 4 hours for a drink of water. We realize that is stretching it a bit as well, but our concept of distance and time is much different than ours. One night I told them that on several occasions my sister and I would each drive about an hour so that we could meet for dinner. They couldn't imagine doing that - both my sister and I just considered it a treat.
Ok, back to the days activities - we met up with Pat & Bill and had planned on taking a 5 minute bus ride to the church. There is a lot of construction going on right now, so we ended up walking to the church. It was a great walk, and nice to see new things. The church was small, and we'd describe the service as typical Guatemalan. Pat & Bill took us to see the YWAM base that we had heard about for sometime and then we came back and ate some delicious italian food for lunch.
We are looking forward to our last 4 weeks of school - it's hard to believe that we only have 4 weeks left! This Thursday we are planning on going back to the home and making a few purchases this weekend that will begin to make the apartment that we will live in our home. We'd ask you to pray for wisdom about our purchases, and that we could simply attain the things that we need.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Sorry in the delay of post in recent days, however, after many weeks of language school there just aren't too many new things to report on.
A week and a half ago we spent the weekend in Panajachel on Lake Atitlan. It was a nice break from Antigua. We had heard weather reports that said we should have had a cold and dreary weekend - instead, we got sunburns! There isn't too much to do in Panajachel. We enjoyed walking around the small town and along the shoreline of the lake. It was a great time away from the norm.
For sometime Lee has been wanting to climb Volcano Agua - a volcano that is just south of Antigua. Many travel agencies offer this trip, for a price of course, however, one day the local gym announced they would be taking a trip for about the half the cost so Lee signed up. This past Saturday morning Lee left the house at 6am part of a group of 36 people from various countries. After climbing to the top, the group cooked lunch in the crater, spent a few hours in the crater and then returned. He got back to the house about 7pm. Lee said that there wasn't anything quite like sharing your testimony in the crater of a volcano. He had a great day.
Staci spent the day hanging out with a couple of girls from the language school - and enjoyed a more low key day.
Thank you for continuing to pray with us and for us - we'd ask you to pray for those who we still have a chance to witness to in Antigua during our last few weeks of language school.
A week and a half ago we spent the weekend in Panajachel on Lake Atitlan. It was a nice break from Antigua. We had heard weather reports that said we should have had a cold and dreary weekend - instead, we got sunburns! There isn't too much to do in Panajachel. We enjoyed walking around the small town and along the shoreline of the lake. It was a great time away from the norm.
For sometime Lee has been wanting to climb Volcano Agua - a volcano that is just south of Antigua. Many travel agencies offer this trip, for a price of course, however, one day the local gym announced they would be taking a trip for about the half the cost so Lee signed up. This past Saturday morning Lee left the house at 6am part of a group of 36 people from various countries. After climbing to the top, the group cooked lunch in the crater, spent a few hours in the crater and then returned. He got back to the house about 7pm. Lee said that there wasn't anything quite like sharing your testimony in the crater of a volcano. He had a great day.
Staci spent the day hanging out with a couple of girls from the language school - and enjoyed a more low key day.
Thank you for continuing to pray with us and for us - we'd ask you to pray for those who we still have a chance to witness to in Antigua during our last few weeks of language school.
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