Patience is a virtue

The difference between travel in the states and travel in Central America:

US . . . . in 18 hours you can drive from Kansas City to Syracuse, New York. I think we might have even done it a couple of times when Jon was in school there.

Central America . . . . leave El Salvador at 4:15 a.m. and arrive safely in Managua, Nicaragua at 9:30 p.m. Twelve hours of driving and 6 hours at the borders (2 in El Salvador, 1 in Honduras and 3 in Nicaragua where we had to completely unload the bus and open all our suitcases for inspection. ) By the way, it's only 314 miles from San Salvador to Managua!

Easter Projects

This was our last teaching day before Easter--New Life Christian School is on "spring break" next week. So, what better to do than create Easter art.

First and second grade colored a 3-dimensional egg which accompanied an Easter Egg Poem. Third graders made an Easter card and the fourth graders made an Easter lily accompanied by an poem about the significance of the lily.

Here are some pictures of their work.

Serving up a Mexican feast

My busy day started with my first Hilo, Aguja y Biblia of 2012. We had so many things going on in January and February, including Judgment House, that we decided to postpone the new "semester" until March. Today, our project today was an oven mitt. They loved picking out their own material from my tub of donated fabrics. For some reason, I always forget to take my camera with me so I don't have any pictures. Twelve ladies came to sew, fellowship and study the Bible.

Next stop the grocery store for some last minute items. We're serving up a Mexican feast tonight for our good friends, the Flores family: William, Gilma, Jerry and Amy. As I have mentioned before, William is the worship leader at Vida Nueva. Gilma, his wife, is responsible for the beautiful flowers in my garden. Their daughter, Amy, is one of our 4th graders. You really wouldn't believe how much help they are to us--from trips to the airport, to taking care of our house/yard while we're out of the country, to helping us with our residency papers, to finding a place for us to buy a new spare tire after ours was stolen. They help us navigate everything "Salvadoran." We so thankful for their friendship and support.

Having a meal together one of the ways we can say thanks. Tonight's dinner is: chicken fajitas, black beans, Mexican rice, guacamole, tortillas, chips and all the trimmings. I had to depart from the Mexican theme for dessert--it's a coconut pie.

We usually watch a movie after dinner, but tonight we're thinking about teaching them to play one of the card games we like. We'll see--either way it will be fun.

It's back

City water is back this morning . . . with all the air in the line every faucet turned on sounds like a mini-explosion. The two repair guys our landlord sent arrived at 7:30 . . . . yep, the pump died. They're off to buy a new one and then will come back to replace it later this morning. Hurray, we're back in business.

Footnote: we had a really strong tremor just a few minutes ago--didn't last long, but it was definitely the strongest one we've felt.

No Water

From upstairs I heard Stephen say, "We don't have any water." I'm thinking, "Of course, we do. There are three 5-gallon bottles sitting in our dining room." Unfortunately, that wasn't that water he was talking about!

Water from the city is sporadic at best, so our houses have cisterns which provide a backup for the house. If the city water is off, then the water pump in the cistern "pumps" water into our house.

Fast forward to the present. There's no city water and evidently our water pump has died. Bottom line . . . . no water to the house until we call our landlord and he has someone come over to repair/replace it. Thankfully, our landlord speaks English so we can communicate the problem to him without too much difficulty, if we can reach him. He is the El Salvadoran air force and isn't always in the country.

Jeff and Paula live less than 2 blocks away from us and right now they are in Texas at a mission's conference. Guess showering at their house is the back-up plan to the back up plan. In the meantime, we have plenty of water to drink!

Three Extra Days

We've spent 3 extra days in Costa Rica visiting with Jose, Flor, David, Fernanda, Marie Jose, Ruth and Esther--our Tico family. What fun!

Over the course of the three days, we watched two movies, Hugo and Lady Hawk--the first was just released on DVD and the second is from the 1980's! I've cooked and cooked: No Bake Cookies, Snickerdoodles, popped sweet popcorn and regular, fettucini alfredo casserole and an apple crisp. We've also gotten to enjoy the wonderful fruit here--the fresh pineapple, watermelon, mangoes, strawberries are all awesome!

We played games with the family, including cribbage (thanks to Stephen's patient teaching) and Settlers of Catan--a first for us. Jose is still going strong with 11 victories in a row in Settlers!

Sunday morning we attended the 10:30 service with Flor and Esther. Fernanda and Marie Jose taught Sunday School. David went to the early service and Jose had to work.

Stephen and I managed to walk to Otero's, our favorite pizza place, on Monday for lunch. Flor and I ran errands on Saturday so we had some one-on-one time. Stephen and David spent their Saturday afternoon comparing/sharing music.

We love coming to Costa Rica for many reasons--we have dear friends at Iglesia Bautista Vida Nueva, San Jose, we love sharing the gospel in the schools and parks and we can spend time with our true Tico family. Unfortunately for us, the next campaign in Costa Rica (for us) is not until March 2013. I'm thinking a vacation to Costa Rica in September sounds pretty good.

Great week in San Jose

We had an awesome campaign this week in San Jose, Costa Rica, with the team from Valley Baptist Church in Bakersfield, CA. Steve and Pam Kern's daughter, Kristen, son-in-law, Alex, and grandson, Kyle, also joined us.

We taught the purity lesson in school on three different days and the students listened well and many prayed to receive Christ. Over the course of the three days, we presented the lesson 30 times, reaching more than 1000 students.

Vida Nueva San Jose now has an inflatable! It just arrived in Costa Rica by boat from Los Angeles and the kids loved it. On Thursday night we counted more than 80 students "patiently" waiting in line. It was great to have this new tool with which to draw in kids and their parents.

Steve Kern told us on Friday morning that Pastor Rodolfo received more than 900 names throughout the week. Please pray for the follow-up--it takes a long time to contact every person!

Costa Rica for 12 days!

First, I just want to thank all of you for praying for us and, specifically for our safety. Every day of driving here brings one near-miss after another, and I am constantly reminded that your prayers are making a difference in our lives.

This afternoon we are flying to Costa Rica to meet up with two teams--one from Houston and one from California. It's always a joy to go back to Costa Rica where we have so many great friends. We will worship at Iglesia Bautista Vida Nueva, San Jose, tomorrow morning and have the pleasure of hearing Rodolfo preach. I wish you all knew him . . . . he's a great man of God with a great sense of humor! We love his whole family--wife, Rocio, daughter, Natalia and son-in-law, Roger!

We will be sharing in schools during the day and in neighborhoods during the evening. We had a great campaign with much fruit when we were there in November. We're praying that hearts will be open to receive the gospel this week, as well.

The teams will leave on Saturday, but we are staying over several days to visit with the Chinchilla's, the family we stayed with when we were in language school. We're excited to have the opportunity to worship at their church on Sunday, March 11.

We fly back to El Salvador on Tuesday, March 13. Please pray that the students at New Life will work hard for their substitute while we are gone. They weren't very happy that we were going to miss 6 days of school.

Again, thanks for your prayers . . . . keep lifting us up!