Sunday Iglesia and Futbol

Well, Abigail had her first real bit of culture shock on Sunday. Church here is very different than in the states. We arrived at 9:30, when church started, and Becky declared that we were early. Even though the service starts at 9:30, people filter in till well after 10:15. The whole thing was in Spanish of course, and there was so much background noise that we got nothing out of the service. The pastor spoke for 45 minutes before we sang a song, and all the kids were still in the service. The good thing is that here that is normal and they are not expected to sit and behave like angels without talking. (Although the noise of the kids added to the already loud background noise of the town.) I figured that when it was finally time for the children to leave and go to Sunday School Abigail would be so excited - she loves it in the states. Well.....a few minutes after she left she was brought back to us bawling her eyes out. I think it all just finally hit her that she couldn't really understand what was happening and she was in a new place. Seeing her so upset about something she normally loves then made me start crying. It did get better though, I convinced her to go back to the room with me and then I stayed and helped translate the lesson for her. I probably got more out of that then I would have in the church. Emma did pretty well, and looked awfully cute in her "traje tipico" but even she got restless enough that Daddy took her out. No small wonder when church starts at 9:30 and gets out at 11:45ish.

After church we went to McDonalds for some good run around time. The McD's here has a good size play area with lots of tables for parents to sit at (not like that one in Portsmouth with 4 tables.) We enjoyed some caramel sundaes which you can't get in NH anymore. (Sorry.)

Then it was off to Joco-Fut a local futbol (soccer) and basketball place. That was a lot of fun. They had a playground with a sandbox, which mostly came home on Abigail. She was so dirty we carried her straight into the bathroom. I have never seen that child's feet so filthy.
Abigail and Joy played soccer on the girls team. Joy scored 6 goals and Abigail stopped 2 (mostly because one of the teenage boys had no mercy and kicked it right at her as she "helped" in the goal.) Boy, we were both proud of ourselves. The girls ended up winning the game - but we weren't playing the high school boys - no way, never, they are brutal and really good. The only downside to the afternoon was when Abigail sat to get dirt out of her shoes and ended up on an ant hill. They were biting ants, but praise God she didn't get any bites. That is extra good because all of her other bites are finally healing.

After the kids were all in bed Becky, Kenneth and I (Andrew is out of the country right now,) played a game that is new to us - Settlers of Catan. If any of you like that too we will have to set up a game night! We love it! We ended up having to play by the light of a lantern as we lost power last night, but hey - this is Guatemala. I missed the end of Extreme Home Makeover, but that's OK. The power eventually came back on enough that we had partial lighting, but not quite enough to run the refrigerator.

Things are going well here. I will probably not be teaching music, and if I do it will be very little. We are still very much in the huge process of taking pictures and translating stories for this years prayer cards. The hardest part now is figuring out which kid goes to which picture - they got out of order when being taken off the camera. We are down to about 150 pictures with no name. (Maybe more.) I have been naming them since 9 am today. they are cute, but now it is starting to get old - thus why I took a break and wrote this extra long blog.

God Bless and thanks for praying - we continue to enjoy getting your comments!