July 24-30, 2011

OK, while I thought the week with the LB men was way busy, this week just ending has also been quite full tambien. But 1st I want to share some staff changes: Maria, the ninera, and Claudia, the nurse who had only been with Rosa for about 2 months, have both left. Thankfully, Rosa had just hired a young, happy, smiling teacher, Dorcas, and she had several other interviews scheduled, so early this week, we met Alba, the new ninera, and Dora, who works almost exclusively with Pablo.

Sunday, we had a team visit from Texas; they were brought by Mark Richard of Hope Haven. They brought 3 colours of soccer shorts for the kids, so a game ensued imediatamente.

But the best part for me was how they prayed with the kids and over them. The oh so delightful kids are often so loving,fun,and good,as in obedient,that it's easy to forget their "come from". And anyway, who doesn't need prayer?
So ever since Brett y Pete were here, we hadn't had ANY rain. This is what is lovingly called a canicula, and here in Guate, we have a week's worth of drytime in the middle of the rainy season, and conversely, a week's worth of rain in the middle of the dry season. So interesting climate patterns, si? So we've been able to dry all the clothes on the clothesline, and the grama(grass) slowed a bit so that it only took G 4 hours to cut AND edge all the lawns. This is what he did on Monday; I got in the middle of a drama with the 4 girls taking sewing. I want to help them be ready for each class, so on Monday, we planned to meet to go over their reading homework. Patsy was so very nice to make copies of the machine manual for each girl, even putting them in a nice notebook, but apparently there was some payback going on, and alas, one book couldn't be found. Along comes Elsa,, who says innocently that Ana Gabriela had had 2 notebooks in their room earlier in the day, so Ana quickly got the rap. Turns out 2 girls were trying to pin the notebook disappearance on another girl because she had been "mean" earlier, so they were gonna show her. So funny, although Rosa didn't think so, and of course, she's right. The little buggers...but here's a prayer request while I'm thinking of it: 2 of the girls in the sewing class, as well as Elsa, are learning to read for the 1st time. They could realy use a spiritual foot-up.Something I took for granted for a lotta years, being able to read; what would it be like to NOT be able to? Gracias!



OK, Tuesday we followed the "regular" schedule, taking Elsa to visit her wee Luis while Patsy came up to the Lily for class. Looks like some of the kinks have been eliminated in getting class started on time, so that's fabu. Yolanda, Marta, Ana Gabriela, and Sarita all got to try out the machine, and really had fun.
Late Tuesday afternoon, we got to meet a team from Michigan, visiting our friend Kathy Robbert. Knowing they would return on Thursday to really visit with the kids, they "used" our place to have their sack dinner in between visits to Hospicio San Jose, an AIDS/HIV hogar near here. And since Kathy is a special friend of ours, we asked if there was a way to add an extra blessing for her team, so I got to make apple crisp for 40 peeps! This the team enjoyed after their sack meal, sitting and getting to know the kids who got to have their dessert BEFORE their dinner!
Oh, and as rain returned this night too....yea!
On to Thursday: another sewing lesson ensued with the young ladies learning how to sew straight lines on notebook paper; each one had 2 or more sheets all filled out.
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The Michigan team returned in the afternoon, bringing lots of great stuff to share. They sang several motion songs in espanol and even had a pretty cute puppet show on the Buen Samaritano in spanish too. But then the fun really began! They had flipflops for each kid, even the bebes, to be decorated with paint, sparkley thingys, flowers, etc. Carmen and Aura took this assignment very seriously and were rewarded by beautimus designs.


Then a few of the teens on the team broke out the face paints, and you can see by the results, they were really good at it. (p.s. the puppy at the bottom of the doggie foto doesn't have any facepaint on...she is THAT beautimus naturally!)

Friday, Ana Gabriela went to get her cast off, but alas, she "gets" to wear it for 2 more weeks...at least. Pray for her por favor: as you can imagine, she's quite limited in movement and activity, and it's causing some challenges especially with her bebe Rosita and with her chores. Also on Friday, I finally was able to spend a wee bit o' time with my sewing machine, a gift from Laura Hunter. It was fun to set it up and give it a whirl. My 1st project
will be to hem our new curtains, which will have to wait
til I can get down to the Antigua mercado to buy the
right colour thread...bother. I'm not at all familiar...
todavia...with the tiendas of San Lucas, and since the
rain has indeed returned, the thread will have to wait...
God once again teaching me patience :)