Feliz Navidad! Happy Birthday Jesus!

Merry Christmas to all from Guatemala! As we type this it is 2am, and there are still fireworks sounding in the distance. Tradition here is a bit different, they celebrate at midnight, much like on New Year's Eve. It was amazing! The fireworks started at least an hour before this video, and lasted constantly until 12:15. Now we understand why Joy's student who went on furlough just before Christmas was so upset about not being here for this. Who needs snow???

Hope you have a blessed day!

Now it is 7am, and the girls are already up. How is this possible? They were up to 1 am. It's going to be a long day. But our favorite quote of the day so far is by Abigail: (During stocking opening) "Oh, yes, I've always wanted one of these....what is it?

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Blessings!

Thank you so much to everyone who supports us regularly, and those who have given special gifts. It is because of you that we were able to bless two very special families today. We have been very blessed to have a wonderful security guard, and a wonderful nanny/cleaning lady. Today we were able to return some of that blessing to them. We had Francisco, Maribel and their families over for a full Christmas Dinner (with turkey in place of ham, which is $6 a pound.) Most of it was food they had never had, and certainly can't afford. We were also able to bless them with Christmas gifts. Really, none of this would have been possible without some of the special gifts we have received recently as we ourselves are on a tight budget. We are so happy and were so excited to have this opportunity. Thank you!


The food we were able to give each family cost almost a week of their salary (which is about $25)


Maynor loves his new hoop, as does Joy as she had been pretending to be the basket lately.



Emma asked to give that car to Daniela, Maribel's daughter, which shocked us all because she loves it. I sure hope that is a sign of a generous spirit to come.



The whole group, from L to R - Francisco (our gatekeeper), Maynor, Alba (his wife), Maribel (our nanny), Edi and Daniela (her family,) Joy, Rachel, Ken and the girls.

Thanks Rachel for the wonderful pictures!

Stay tuned for more updates from our week with Rachel.
Miss you all!

Santa, Satan, which is it?

Driving through the grocery store parking lot the other day we saw rows and rows of these pinatas being sold. My first thought was, "Why does Santa have a black beard?" Then I went on to thinking, "Why does Santa have a number on his chest?" Then I noticed the horns on his head and decided I better ask someone why Santa looked so Satanic here in Guatemala. I'm glad I didn't get around to asking any of our Guatemalan friends as they would have had themselves quite a little laugh.
It seems there is a holiday here called Day of the Devil. Today in fact. The pinata was not supposed to represent Santa at all, go figure with the red suit and black belt - what was I really supposed to think. The tradition of this holiday is as a cleansing of sins. It began as a Mayan holiday and now has Catholic influence mixed in. Families get together and burn their trash, and often one of these pinatas, as a way to cleanse their life of sin and get ready for Christmas. They sometimes fill the pinatas with fireworks as well (because down here we will take any excuse we can get to light off bombas.) Now to me that seems a little dangerous as the fireworks could just go willy nilly and hurt someone. I prefer the method that most of our neighbors used and that was to just light the bombas separately after the trash burning had begun.
Our whole neighborhood smells like a mixture of wood, trash, and firecracker smoke...not real pleasant.
It makes me sad to realize that there are many people here who actually believe that this helps to cleanse them of their sins and evil spirits. There may be a lot of missionaries here, but holiday's like this are evidence to the fact that there is still much Kingdom work to be done here. Please pray tonight for the many people here who still need to learn that Jesus, the reason for the season, is the only way to be cleansed.

On a side note - it was quite loud for a bit there with all the neighbors setting off their bombas. We are a bit frightened of how it will be on Christmas Eve which from what we have heard is way bigger and louder. It has been described by some others as sounding like being in a war zone. So, I guess we don't sing Silent Night down here.

Christmas is coming...

This past week has been the busiest for us since our arrival.

Joy's choir classes performed their Christmas pieces at the High School Christmas concert friday night. They were amazing as was the Band!

Ken has been hauled up in his office for the last two weeks working on two projects. There were some computer problems which he believes stemmed from an electrical problem on 23 November. Also, CAG encountered its 90 day implementation deadline for its new school information management system. The implementation is not yet done but they are very close.

Since we've not blogged since our Thanksgiving get-away here is a brief rundown: calm, lagoon, food, hiking, food, relaxing, fun, horses, and food. We headed about six hours north with three other families from CAG to a rustic camping area. The food was amazing. The hiking was tough but all the kids did a great job. The horses were good... a bit tough at a trot and gallup but we all survived.

Coming up: Abigail, and the other Elementary students, have their Christmas program Friday night (12/11). The CAG faculty Christmas party is next Saturday. Our near-adopted-sister, Rachel, is also arriving next Saturday. Oh, and the annual Pollo Campero fireworks display is next Saturday night.

-knme

Happy Thanksgiving!

It is 4:39am and I'm writing a blog about thanksgiving... say what?

Our family is heading north with a couple other families from CAG to spend thanksgiving. All I (Ken) really know about it is that it take something like six hours to get there.... there is only one road north, oh and meet at the Texaco no later than six in the morning -- doable? Sure, I'll just put Joy in the car the night before ;o)

In seriousness we are very thankful for the way God has been providing for our family during this transition time. With the exception of canned pumpkin (in reasonable sizes) we have all the things we need. The kids at CAG have been a blessing to both Joy and me. Whether Emma wants to accept it or not she has many friends in all grades from K through 6th (she doesn't get to visit the other grades as much). Abigail continues to develop new friends too and is excelling in school.

Spiritually we've found a local home church...ok, two. Both have wonderful worship and sound biblical teaching.

So much to be thankful for.

We ask that you keep us in your prayers as we travel this thanksgiving weekend.

We wish you all a happy and safe thanksgiving.

-knme

Tres Idiomas

Many little things to write about thus far today. Church was, interesting, we think. There was someone visiting from (we think we figured out Brazil) who was preaching. Of course, he was preaching in Portugese. Would have been great for our friends that grew up or worked in Brazil. Church is really already hard enough for us to understand. Ken says he gets about 10% of it, I think I might get like 40-50%, depending on the preacher. Today we had the Portugese, immediately translated into Spanish, and then attempted to understand. I'm still not sure how the title of the sermon worked into what they preacher, and translator, actually said. It was pretty funny though because many of the words are the EXACT same, but the translator would say them anyway, and sometimes he would actually use a synonym instead. I was far more intrigued, as a language person, by trying to understand the Portugese and decipher it phonetically than the actual sermon. I think that's bad.

As we were leaving church they were selling avocadoes. Now, I'm pretty sure I remember them on sale at Hannaford being just under a dollar each. I bought 4, ready to use, for 10Q total, which is the equivalent of $1.21 American. HeHeHe. There are definitely some things that are cheaper here!

On a sad note, as we were heading to the store to buy a lemon (our trees are finally fruitless) our security guard Francisco began telling me a story. I am going to recount it, but it may not be 100% accurate - all the important details are right though. Francisco grew up with his grandparents on the coast, because his mom was down here (hours away) working to make money so they could eat. His brother and cousin were also raised by them. They lived with their grandparents until they got married (as is the custom here) and were very close.
This past week Francisco's cousin got shot at 15 times. At least 8 of the bullets went in to him. Somehow he lived (in the hospital) for three days, but passed away Friday. It is my understanding that he worked in security for something or someone. I don't know his cousin's name, but I do know that he lives behind three children - with no provider.
Francisco was unable to make the funeral, as was his brother, because it just cost too much to take the bus there. I wish Francisco would have told us, we would have willingly given him the money to go. I don't know if he didn't want to "be a bother" as he says it, or what, or if he feared getting in trouble with the condo owners. We consider his family a big part of our ministry here, and are always aggravated by how they are treated. Guatemala is sometimes related to a Hindu society because of the deep classist feelings and divisions here. Francisco is very poor, he is not Mayan that I know of, which means he isn't the "lowest" caste, but he sure isn't much higher.
Francisco is of course worried about what will now happen to those children. Please join us in praying for them. We stopped and prayed with Francisco, for God to support them and provide for their needs, and comfort them. We may not get much more future information, but we do ask that you stop now and pray for that family. Thank you.

Website Not Going to be Renewed

Last November we created "eisnersinguatemal.com", and tried to use it for our blog and keeping you all updated. But we quickly found that it was not nearly as convenient as the blogspot tool here. We've not updated it in a couple months now.

Well, we've decided not to renew our main website (eisnersinguatemala.com), in favor of saving the money and continuing to use the (free) blogspot site.

What does that mean for you? Well, if you read our blogs here then there should be no change for you -- unless you get to the blog (IE you bookmarked it) through the eisnersinguatemala.com website.

You want to make sure your bookmark for our blog is as follows: http://eisnersinguatemala.blogspot.com That's it, it is that simple.

Joy is off scrap-booking with other CAG mom's this morning. I (Ken) am home with the girls... they're begging me for some wrestling time. I guess I should go throw them around for a bit.

-knme

Babies - Savin' and Scarin'

We arrived home yesterday to the joyous news that Abigail and Maynor had found and rescued a baby bird. It was in the driveway when they found it. So, with Maribel's help, they made it a nest and got it a dish of water. Abigail was determined to keep it for a pet, but we managed to convince her that the Mommy would come back for it. She took care of that thing like it was her own baby though!

I still haven't quite gotten used to being stared at here, curse that red hair and blue eyes! (Well, not really - but it does put me in the minority big time.) Last night I was way too tired to cook, so we decided to treat ourselves to the new McDonalds. As I was walking up to get a really yummy Chips Ahoy McFlurry, the little girl in front of me turned around. She couldn't take her eyes off me, in fact she was on her way to walking into a table. (Mom was paying no attention.) So I tried to warn her, but she just kept walking and staring - completely transfixed. There was nothing else I could do, so I steered her away from the table. Thankfully Mom had turned around at that point and could tell I was trying to help, and not kidnap. The child however, freaked out. She started screaming this awful scream. I wonder, maybe she thought I was a ghost or demon or something - and then, hhhh, I touched her. Argh!!!! And it wasn't even Halloween!

At long last...

At long last our van has reappeared! They found the last part sometime yesterday and had it to us by 3p. Drives much better. Thanks to all who've been praying for its return.

Blessed be the name!

Wow, I knew from the start of the year that our choir would be good, but I had no idea how good. They really pulled together and sang their hearts out in chapel yesterday. For me, though, the best part was how well received they were by their peers. Especially with music, peers can be a difficult audience, but not so yesterday. As the choir sang its last note, some of the students jumped to their feet clapping and there were many screaming members of the audience. It brought tears to my eyes! I am really proud of this group, and I think we have a wonderful year ahead of us!
This is a video, though incomplete, of their performance yesterday - hope you enjoy!

What a weekend!

After Bambi and Elaine arrived... and slept... just a bit... we packed up our borrowed van and headed off to Panajachel. The drive up was pleasant as most of the construction we "endured" in our August trip was complete. The drive up to about 2.5 hours.

We ate a the Sunset Cafe the first night and then played games to relax. The next day we headed out on the boat over to Santiago where we visited the local church. Very odd... it was my first trip there and I can now understand a lot of the comments I heard from previous trip members. After returning from Santiago we ate supper at the hotel and again turned in for a relaxing game night.

The next day we got off to a slow start but still managed a visit to the Butterfly farm and did the hike up the mountain to see the spider monkeys. The return trip took longer because we were coming down the mountain and hit Chimaltenango at dusk.

A good time was had by all. Joy might add more to this tonight.

-knme

Safe Arrival

This is just a quick note to let everyone know that Bambi and Elaine have arrived safely with all bags and things with them.

They said they had not problems on their trip.

-knme

To see or not to see

After a long day of working on school stuff, we arrived at church tonight ready and rearing to go for Kids Bible Club. We had a really cool craft planned...Joseph's coat (markers, water, coffee filters, hair dryers.) As I was going over the lesson with my helpers, the power went out. Normally it comes back on in about 5 minutes or so, well tonight it stayed out.
It was pretty neat, we had church by candlelight (without fear of fire ordinances,) put the girls to bed by candlelight, got ourselves ready by candlelight, and then the power came back on.
We did have one thought on the way home from church. Our guard gate is going all high tech later this month, with face recognition stuff and all. As we pulled up tonight to the gate, all was dark. They have NO generator. How do they expect to keep that all high tech stuff running during an outage, huh? We'll see what happens.
Or, we won't see, guess that sort of depends on how dark it is...


And in case anyone is interested, we are in the process of updating the film and global pages of our website, and we will try to keep up with them better.

The Magic Seed

There are so many reasons we would like to stay in this neighborhood, one of the biggest is our gate guard and his family. He is SO good with our girls, in the small ways. Today Abigail planted a seed in a cup, hoping to grow a mispero tree. (They have really yummy fruits which I don't know the English name of.) Well, fancy that - the tree is already two inches high. Apparently Francisco found a sapling and came over after dark and put it in the cup for her. She is going to freak out in the morning.
On the same line of liking their family, please pray for them. They don't make very much money here, even though they work all day, and their son Maynor needs to start school soon. If they can't find a school in the area that they can afford (which they don't think they can) Alba (wife) and Maynor will have to move back to their home town 3 hours away or so while Francisco stays here to work. We are going to be helping them do some research when we have time, and are praying that they are able to stay together. Please join us in that prayer.
Well, off to bed (even though it's only 8 - how lame is that!)

Emma is f.i.n.e.

Incase anyone was curious... Emma is doing just fine.

She had a good day yesterday (save for three potty accidents). She woke up talking and went to bed the same.

We played international Mario Kart last night. Joy's brother Jon seriously trounced us. Humble pie. Actually, some might call it a slaughter. Either way is fine with us.

All for now!

-knme

Overdue update

Greetings and salutations everyone,

This update is long overdue. That is not to say that a lot has happened since 10 September but you know.

Saturday, 12 September we went to watch the school basketball game and then went over to the Woodby's house. They were having some computer issues so they asked me (Ken) to have a look at them. We turned it into dinner. They have two awesome boys who seemed to enjoy keeping the reigns on our two girls. We returned home late so we slept in Sunday morning and skipped morning church (shhhh!)

We went to "The Gathering" in the evening. It was the start of "Kids Bible Club" (KBC), a ministry Joy and Abigail thought up for the kids aged 3 to 6 at "The Gathering".

Tuesday, 15 September, was Guatemalan Independence day and thusly we had the day off. The Woodby's hosted a party. Again, much fun was had by all. I (Ken) had the opportunity to test my grilling skills over a charcol grill. Nothing was burned too badly except for one hamburger. The chicken was a bit hit -- thanks and credit be to Sherry Woodby for the family recipe.

Thursday night we had Elementary Open House. Joy and Abigail made some national styled flags for the cookie contest. They were delicious! Friday night we had Robert and Jonathan Loveall for a sleep-over. The kids seemed to have a lot of fun.

Saturday was pretty laid back. Joy worked with Deana and her girls on planning this weeks KBC. Sunday was a different story -- somewhat. Poor Emma woke up at 6:30a complaining that her stomach hurt. When I asked her and Abigail to go in and gently wake up Mommy... well... she threw up on our bedroom floor (good morning Mommy). She then threw up three more times before 9a. Emma and I (Ken) stayed home from morning church while Abigail and Joy got a ride with the Larimers.

Emma and I watched the ending of three different movies Sunday morning. We caught the last 45 minutes of "Surfs Up", then the last 30 minutes of "Garfield", and finally (she slept through) the last 30 minutes of "The Thunderbirds". Then we watched the Pats lose to the Jets.

Joy and Emma stayed home from "The Gathering" while Abigail and I (Ken) went. It was a good night all around.

Well... that about catches everyone up. Nothing too exciting but yet exciting enough.

Blessings to everyone.

-knme

What a Day!

It all started out so well, and looked to be a relaxing - do nothing sort of day. Then, I sat down at the breakfast table and looked out at the backyard. So many bushes, and tree branches, and not enough light. We had been saying for a while that we wanted to fix it up, but it just hadn't happened. So, at 8:05 I left Emma at the table, walked down to Francisco's house (gate guard/gardener/car washer/etc...) and asked to borrow some tools. Thankfully he agreed to come help me. I say thankfully because they don't use pruners here, they use machetes.

When he arrived and I asked what I could do, he declared he didn't think I could use a machete. Bad idea, challenging the redhead. I may not have used it nearly as well as he, but I wielded that machete pretty well, and didn't even lose any fingers. The backyard looks awesome now! We can actually see the sky and the girls can go outside to play, and the hammock doesn't run into the huge bee attracting bush.

So that was an eventful morning, but it kept going - for worse.

I got Emma buckled into the car on our way to the library, realized I didn't have the library bag - so I hopped out to go get it. Car is in the garage, Emma is in her seat, keys are in the ignition, doors are unlocked. As I'm looking for the bag (which it turns out Ken had already brought to school) I hear a beep from the car. Not a horn beep, an arming the alarm beep. Turns out our car locks itself. Unfortunately it locked itself with Emma in it, the radio running, and all the windows up. I was freaking out!!!! I immediately tried Ken's cell, to no avail as he was in chapel. He silenced it, and then forgot I had tried to call and went to his homeroom class. I think it was 10 minutes later when someone from the school finally found him and got him on the phone. So, at this point Emma has been locked in the warm car for 13 minutes or so, with no open windows, and I'm contemplating throwing a cinder block through the front window. We (Francisco and I) are trying to get Emma to unlock the car - but the poor child can't reach, and can't unstrap her legs from the seatbelt. She can reach the window button, but the child lock is on. I tried to call Carrie to keep me sane while I waited for Kenneth, with no idea if someone was coming to unlock or break into the car, and the Vonage phone was out - and my cell was locked in the car. (Oh, btw, we have no spare key for the car apparently - that will be remedied soon!) Finally Ken arrived (almost 15 minutes later) with Maynor (from the school) carrying a jimmy. Praise God that after 1/2 hour in the car Emma was fine! It was a scary parenting moment though that is for sure!

Trauma over, we went and got the kids and Mrs. Perez (Ab's teacher) and her daughter Natalia, and went to McDonalds. Now Natalia and Abigail are playing nicely together, and quietly, doing watercolor paintings. The door to the backyard is wide open and there is a nice breeze coming in, and no bees. The day turned out well after all, so far....

Next Encounter with Law Enforcement

Picture it: San Cristobal, 2009. Joy and Ken are on their way back to school after lunch when they happen upon a random traffic stop on the San Cristobal Boulevard. "License and registration", they ask for. I (Ken) hand it to him and he heads off to discuss with some of the other officers on the scene.

He comes back and explains to us that he is going to have to give us a ticket because our AAA IDP (International Drivers Permit) was not a real license. I'm guessing he has never seen an AAA IDP before... not sure how common they are down here.

We ask to speak with his supervisor and he says we'll have to head down to the office to talk with them but we insist that we need to speak with the supervisor now. This is something that was covered in our New Teacher Orientation. When the supervisor comes over we explain what the IDP and explain that the copy of my passport is a certified copy (certified by a lawyer).

She goes on to explain that the copy is fine but they need to see the immigration stamp in the passport to know when we entered the country because, although the IDP is good for one year, our VISA stamp in the passport is only good for 90 days -- which we knew. We got in touch with the school who explained to her the dates in the passport and ... in the end... everything was fine. We did not get a ticket!

CAG takes special effort to hold new teacher orientation (awesome) every year to go over do's and do nots associated with living in Guatemala. They also gave us a list of names to contact if we run into trouble. It certainly paid off.

I think in the end the police did a good job of explaining everything and in being understanding of our situation.

-knme

6th Grade, Leather hat, and Mac Badness

Greetings from Guatemala! I've not said much lately... mainly because by the time I get home and we get the kids in bed I've been pooped.

Joy volunteered me to the principal to be a home room advisor. The principal asked me if I really was interested and I said, "Sure!" So, I'm one of three advisors for the 6th grade. There are fourteen kids (10 boys and 4 girls). They're awesome. They all have a lot of energy. I cannot remember what it was like to be in the sixth grade. I remember my teachers (Mr. Varner & Mrs. Peterson) but beyond that, nada.

Today I led our home room devotions on "bordom". They didn't seem too bored during it, so I guess that was a good sign.

One thing I've always wanted, yet never actually bought, was a nice hat. Not a baseball hat. Well, my waiting is over. I picked up a nice leather hat at the Guatemala City market this past weekend. At Q100 (about $12.50) how could I go wrong, eh? I look forward to breaking it in.

Anyone whose known me the last two years knows I've converted to Mac for pretty much everything. Well, when Joy and I arrived on campus the number of Macs on campus doubled. Then add in Jordan's Mac and we've jumped from two to five.

My bosses Mac recently had issues with the video card. The technicians diagnosed it as a a faulty motherboard. Well, thanks to his Time Machine and external hard drive we were able to save all his data. Sadly it wasn't all roses but I think in the end we'll end up alright.

As I was leaving today I was reprimaded by my bosses wife. She said, "Ken, you have to be more punctual at leaving on time." Yeah, you read that right... CAG truly is family first.

Well, that about does it.

-knme

Yeah Applington Parkersburg!

When your ministry is working with TCKs, you need to know what makes them tick. With the case of a few of our students (new to Guatemala) that would be football. They come from a very small town of 1,900 (now less 19 to us) in Iowa. Some of you may even have heard their story - but many I'm sure have not - so I will try to retell it.

As with most of Iowa, football reigns. This very small town had the same football coach for 30 some years - and boasts 4 current NFL players. No small feat for any town. A year ago a tornado hit, wiping out the High School, the football field, 200 houses and more. This high school coach, Ed Thomas, soon stepped out as a leader to help bring the town back together. It turns out he not only was a great coach, but a strong Christian man as well. In fact, the motto held was "Faith, Family, Football." May I add that he was a coach at a public high school - probably the only one in the USA with that motto.

Two of our new students here at CAG were members of the Falcons football team, one of whom is missing his senior year there. We can't even imagine how difficult it must be for him to move to a country where that type of football just doesn't exist. On top of all the adjustments they, and the two families making a total of 19, have had to make recently - they are mourning as well. See, this past June Coach Thomas was shot and killed in the weight room with students present. (For the whole story you can look it up in the New York Times online - it's really moving, especially when you know how close these kids were to the situation, which I don't feel open to share.)

Tonight was the season opener for Falcons football, and it was televised on ESPN. We were blessed enough to be able to go to this family's house and watch the game, and half hour memorial special, with them (thanks to a satellite dish.) We are so thankful that ESPN televised it, it was a gift from God to these kids. It was so neat, and sad, to watch their expressions as they recognized people, and cried over what they were missing. All in all it was a great night, and Abigail had more fun with their younger kids (who weren't watching the game) than she has had since we moved here.

To continue the blessing, the Falcons won (against their long time rival) 30-14! WooHoo!

And seriously, if you have time, read the story...

My Parent's Time

First off, let's set this straight - this is Joy writing - thus the title....if it were Ken that wouldn't work because his parents are so much younger than mine. Sorry, but it's the truth.

So - I think it would have been good before moving to get a crash course on life in my parent's day. Things like ice boxes, which our gate guard still uses. I now always have ice on hand for him to "borrow," since how are you supposed to make ice without a freezer.
Then there was this cleaning the carpet thing. I was outside washing down our new stroller, thanks to friends, and the guard comes over to help. In addition to helping he was determined to clean the carpet that we just had laying around in the garage. (A bit hard to clean without a good vacuum.) So we cleaned it by hand, a new experience for me - but I imagine maybe something my parent's may have seen. We laid it out on the driveway, soaked it down, swept it off with a broom, soaked it down, poured soap on it, worked it in with a broom, soaked it down, swept the soap out of the fibers, soaked it down, repeat ad nauseum. I finally decided it was clean enough and came in to get a drink (it is darn hot out there today!) As I was sitting down I heard the hose going again (an addition from my parent's time) - apparently I hadn't cleaned it up to Francisco's standards. Oh well.....Now I know the fine art of washing a carpet with a broom. (Hmmm...now that I think of it brooms are very versatile, they also use them as mops here by just wrapping a towel around the base. In fact, we bought a real mop and it has never been used.)

Loops

We have been awfully busy these past few days, so sorry we haven't written anything. Friday we started Orientation, which was great. We didn't learn a ton of new stuff, but enough to be a little overwhelming. Today we started Teacher In-Service, so vacation is officially over - all 2 weeks of it. It is going to be a busy couple of weeks that's for sure!

I did learn some very interesting thing at a "class" on Connectivism. Basically various ways to use the internet better to help us in our classrooms. Some cool sites I had never heard of - and google things I had that I didn't know about. My two new favorite things today were glogster and ning. Check 'em out my teacher friends. (Of course half you North American's probably already know about them.) So - I now feel like I'm a little more in the loop.

I feel way out of the loop with NH news though. While looking on facebook I saw a bunch of sympathy messages on a friend's page, and had to go look it up. Praise God for the internet. So,
if you think of it - please pray for Mike and Autumn Allen and their family. A few years ago Mike's mom was killed while walking in Dover, and now his little brother has been tragically killed in a drowning accident. Mike and Autumn were friends of Joy's from High School, and we also took a baby class together when Joy was pregnant with Abigail. Thanks!

We hope to update you soon, but may not be too creative - w

The Eagles have landed - Details

As promised here are more details of Ken and Cindy's journey. I can barely do it justice as it truly is an incredible story... They definitely tell it better-- because it is their story.

So, Ken and Cindy arrived at the ticket counter at Logan Airport to checkin and found out that even though they had a confirmation number they were not confirmed on the flight. In fact, they were not even on the flight at all.

Apparently when they called in book their flight when the agent said, "you're all set", it did not mean "all set" as we would obviously infer. They, the airline, never charged the credit card which Cindy gave them and therefore the tickets were never paid for.

The ticket agent in Boston was awesome, however, and worked very hard to get them on the flight to Houston. The cost: an extra $300 per ticket over the price when they booked (July 11th). As good as the agent in Boston was she could only get them on stand-by for Houston to Guatemala City.

The plane from Houston to Guatemala was another story. It was over sold (typical) and had a stand-by list that was six or seven people long. When they arrived they found out that they actually were not on the stand-by list. God prevailed and they got on the flight! However, they were told that their luggage would not accompany them until the evening flight-eight hours later.

On the flight from Houston to Guatemala City there was a medical emergency with a child sitting behind them (details of which I'll leave for them to share). Upon landing at Guatemala City they were pleased to find out that all but one of their luggage bags did make it on the flight (the other is supposed to be delivered to the house when it arrives).

We took them on brief tours of CAG, the local vegetable market, and the Panaderia (bread store) before coming home for rest and supper. Today (Thursday) we're going to head to Antigua to visit Andrew and Escuela Integrada and the market.

Thanks for all who prayed on short notice for Ken and City and their flight woes. The power of God was definitely visible in how the day came out.

-knme

The Eagles have landed

After a rather tumultuous journey Ken and Cindy Monahan arrived safely. The details of their story will have to come later but I just wanted to let everyone know that they're here safe and sound.

Check back later for the rest of the story.

-knme

My Canon Kills Your Horse and Pistol Anyday

Sept.24 2006 - The last time we played Monopoly. We can never find time to finish a whole game, so we keep a running tally. When we opened up the game this evening Ken had: $2,688, 1 monopoly, 6 other properties and 3 hotels. Joy had 4 monopolies (including those dark blue ones, 3 hotels, 3 houses, and a get out of jail free card. Out of pity she decided to sell one property to Ken, giving him another monopoly. Now, as we start the new game she has learned a lesson - Never, Ever, Ever sell anything to Kenneth without loads of conditions. Even better never sell him anything. He ended up winning the game by over 5,000. Oh, and Joy decided that the dog piece she used tonight was too wussy, so she switched to the canon. Because, the canon can kill the horse and rider anyday. So, now we start again - with lessons learned. Hopefully this one won't take 3 years to finish.

The good cards

Sunday morning we went to a "new" church called El Camino. It was AWESOME!!! Joy was quite sad to leave DBC and the awesome worship, and her favorite songs. In fact on her last day playing some of her favorites were played before service, as sort of a last time thing. Well, this church had some of those exact songs in the service Sunday, just in Spanish. They actually may sound even better in Spanish.
At the beginning of the service we heard from a Guatemalan missionary to India. He was talking about his church planting and how many new churches they have started in the last 8 years. It was a lot, like 1000 churches. If they are anything like this church India will certainly benefit.
The pastor of the church is a TCK who grew up in Colombia, and gave a wonderful sermon on Matthew 5:31 and other passages related to divorce. We were shocked to learn that Guatemala has the third highest divorce rate in the world. Kenneth didn't get much out of the sermon, and that is a drawback. We are discussing the option of going to El Camino in the morning and, when it starts again in August, an English service in the evenings. It was so exciting to find a church where we felt comfortable, and welcome. Pray that Kenneth will quickly begin to understand more.
After church was a hard day, as we normally spend time with family and friends, and well...they kind of weren't here. Joy cried herself to sleep while Kenneth made lunch for the girls. Praise God some new friends of ours called and came over for a game night that night. That was fun!

Monday we were due to receive our new bed, but it never came. Joy still slept fine last night though, as she made the bad decision to read a whole book Sunday night, and didn't turn the light off until 4am. Too bad those girls didn't sleep in, whose genes are those? The bed finally came today, and we really are looking forward to a comfortable nights rest.
We were invited to dinner last night, at a fellow CAG staffer's house. It was a lot of fun. The wife is Guatemalan, so it was nice for Joy to be able to speak Spanish outside of school (and stressful telephone conversations.) We were there until after 9, so went just about straight to bed when we got home. Sad, huh - we're so tired all the time, it's annoying.

Abigail was really excited to get a package of pictures from her friends in children's church (or maybe Sunday School) at DBC. She immediately came home and hung them on her wall. Thanks to whoever set that up..Wendy and Camden..it really meant a lot to her to know that people still are thinking about her and care! Feel free to keep pictures coming from her friends.

We learned today that we really can't receive much in the way of packages without having to spend a ton of money. For example, one of the teachers was sent a DVD, and had to pay $10 just to get it out of customs. Books apparently aren't much of a problem, since we are a school, but they also aren't as desired as some other things (like Bath and Body Works lotion.) We were told the best way to get stuff was to have people bring it down when they come. Too bad we already packed suitcases for the people we knew were coming.

This is our last week of language school, and boy are we happy. Speaking of language school. Today, Abigail came down from her table at the end of the day, all excited that she had just beat her teacher at Uno. She then turns to Joy all proud and says "Mommy, guess what? When Soraya was in the bathroom I looked at the cards and changed them so that I had all the good cards like draw two." AARGH! That was darn smart of her, but we did have a long discussion on how winning by cheating is never acceptable. Some days...(And it's ok to laugh, we did.)

Teeming, Inundant, Copious....Torrential

Yup, torrential - there are many synonyms, but torrential is still the perfect word. It is a word that takes on new meaning when you are in a big field, surrounded by towering metal water slides, gazing at the far away storm, and the wind changes direction.

Joy and Emma were the first ones to get out of the water, as Joy is rather not find of lightning. Our new friends, the Larimers, were close behind, but many others were still swimming. Our friend Andrew was sitting there, wondering why everyone was getting out of the water when it wasn't even raining yet. (A slightly moot point when you are already wet anyway.) Not five minutes later we felt the first drops and realized that the storm was coming our way. We were already packing up our things, but Joy had to grab Emma and run. By the time she had run the less than 1/4 mile to the food shack type thing, it was raining so hard it sounded like hail. Of course, everything sounds that way when you are under a corrugated plastic or metal roof - but this was REALLY hard. We ended up having to stay in the "building" and wait out the storm, with no power of course. Oh, now I wish we had brought the video camera to the water park today. It was loco!

Ahhh...fresas!

Ok all our grocery shopping friends, get your math brain on. What would this cost in America?

2 pounds of fresh strawberries, 3 avocados, 2 pounds potatoes, 1 pound fresh green beans, 2 heads of garlic, 2 onions, 9 bananas, a watermelon, and a pineapple.

Now, I remember that pineapples alone cost about $3, and strawberries were up around $3 as well. Can you even get watermelons in New England right now? All that fresh fruit and veggies...less than $10 this morning. It was AWESOME!

A friend that just returned from the states told us about this little store run by some Mayan women. I walked in the door and they just started streaming out "do you need, do you want to buy, etc..." I told the first woman that got to me what I needed and she did all the rest. I was even able to say "I want it ready in three days," and she picked out the best ones. We will definitely be going back there!

Oh, and we got the van back today. The mechanic said something about a sensor, a butterfly, and the accelerator all in the same sentence. So, when we find out what was really wrong we will let you all know. We drove the van to school today and it seemed fine, much better in fact.

Home again!

Ahhh..we may not be really settled in yet, but after spending only 1 night all sleeping in the same room, which was a bit smelly, we are very happy to be back in our own house. We still don't have a van, but a friend of ours from CAG is going to let us borrow her car while she is in the states. We could have stayed another night in Antigua, but as Joy got the lovely ghiardia bug today, we just wanted to be home. Hopefully soon, maybe even tomorrow, we will be able to go looking for a new bed. Only 15 days until our first visitors arrive, which means 15 days to paint and find a new bed for the spare room.

Rough Start

As our van has rough starts to its day, apparently so do I (Joy.) Today the realization that I can't just call up my parents and get some help really set in. Ken and I both had a lot of homework to do, which we were too tired to do last night. Mine was an annoying page long translation about life in the fashion world - like I really care! Hello, this is me we're talking about - fashion designer I am not. It was a lot of time looking up words, and we share one dictionary. Anyway...The girls also really needed some mama time this morning. There were ants to be killed as they were climbing all over the clean dishes. The internet guy sounded like he was talking through a bad drive through speaker. I really needed to get an email sent and our newsletter started, since it's late by our standards. I just about lost it when I realized I didn't have time to make the girls the macaroni and cheese they wanted. So...today I told my teacher that I'm not doing any more homework. It will be harder for me to remember things, but I'm just reviewing anyway.
The day got much better after I had a little caffeine, okay so it was half a bottle of Pepsi. I figure it doesn't really count though, because in Guatemala they use the same word for water and soda, and agua sure doesn't have any caffeine. Some caffeine, some prayer, some scary drivers, and some time with my friend Becky and all was good again. (Though we still do miss our parents and friends!)
The van is still acting up, but only when the check engine soon light is on. A friend recommended to us tonight that maybe we should just put some black tape over the light - maybe that would trick the van. The van still drives, so we are going to wait until next week to send it in. The mechanic is going to come over tomorrow morning at 8 so that he can experience the problem first hand though. We just didn't want to be stranded at home all weekend again and be unable to go to church. Home church was fun, once, but we need that fellowship - especially now as we are leaving such a great church family behind.
Please pray that we will start to get some more sleep, and be able to find a more comfy bed. We sure have been pampered with our sleep number bed, and sheets that actually fit it. On the bright side, the new book series I got into is fully stocked at the CAG library. Woohoo!!!

Pulling out the big guns

Literally. Abigail and I went for a quick walk to the tienda (corner market) for some avocado and tortillas. When we stepped out of our garage, their were two VERY armed guards in front of the neighbors. Apparently they have a very important visitor this afternoon. These were military police, fully decked out in camo and packing some serious heat. Sorry to those who care, I don't know exactly what kind of gun it is, and taking a picture probably isn't my best idea. That was a shocker, though it didn't seem to phase Abs one bit.

How about you come up with a catchy title?

I just can't be creative tonight, I'm exhausted. My plan was to be in bed at 8, but thought I would give a quick update first.
We got the van back today, we are not 100% sure it is fixed as I had a couple of problems with it on the way from school to Becky's, but maybe it was just me. When we drove Jose back to the school we met up with another family. They live in our neighborhood and have a daughter just a little older than Abigail. We hope to get to know them better real soon, especially for Abigail's benefit. They were also excited to hear that I teach piano, and since they are homeschooled I could fit their lessons in during the morning. WooHoo - a perspective student (or 3?)
Our house helper, for whom I have not come up with a better term, started this morning. It was very strange to have someone cleaning around me while I was doing my Bible Study. That could be hard to get used to. I don't think it will be hard for me to get used to someone else ironing the clothes though. (No getting jealous my girlfriends - this life has its downs too.) Seriously, I may never iron again. I'll have to find someone to do it for me when we are back in the states on furlough - any takers???
We think that Maribel is going to work out well, even though it has only been one day. The girls like her a lot - though they did play her today and manage to open some gifts we were saving (and they knew it.) The only thing that we will have to work on is taking the valves out of Emma's sippy. The ants really like it when after sitting for a while the juice comes pouring out onto the dish drainer. Then they attack like, well, hungry ants on a sugar pile. Nothing a little Raid won't help.
Well, I guess it's time to sleep, this altitude and having to speak in Spanish so much is darn tiring. I can't believe that me, the night owl of the family, is heading to bed before 8:30 - loco!

Internet -- it lives!

We finally have Internet at our house! (and there was much rejoicing)

We are going to increase our speed this week as we have discovered 128k just is not really "fast enough". We have Skyped with some family and friends.

Our van is in the shop. With my vast knowledge of cars and what/not I conclude there is a problem in the transmission. We'll find out when we hear back from the school's mechanic. Andrew (Loveall) said since the van sat for nearly a month between the Klanderman's leaving and our arrival this is not all together unexpected. The hills in and around our area are notoriously hard on automatic transmissions.

Spanish lessons are going pretty well. We discovered four hours of lessons each day is too much for Abigail so we have decided to reduce her to two hours a day. We originally had Joy slated to do one week but with Abigail's changes Joy will be able to continue a second week (at two hours too).

We also discovered that the morning time slot (8am - noon) is not as good for us as we had thought it would be. CSA (Spanish school) is being awesome and is allowing us to attend at a non-standard hour (1-5pm).

Changing gears: rain. From what I hear it is still raining in New Hampshire...Previously I had heard a lot of stories about Guatemalan rain and how it rains very hard then stops. Having now experienced it in person I can say it is absolutely incredible. It goes from sunny to torrential downpour in a matter of minutes. And then back to sunny.

Well, that is about it for now.

Thanks for everyone's continued prayers.

-knme

Packing Up

No, we are not quitting and coming home already! We are, however, having some maintenance done on the van. PLEASE pray that the transmission isn't totally shot - we don't have to money for that. So, since we have school 45 minutes away or so - we are heading to Andrew and Becky's for the night. Seems like we will miss the internet guy again!

It's all Relative

High speed - I think they may call our internet that because here we are up high; definitely a term that relates to how most drivers get from one place to the next, or one speed bump to the next. My family laughed tonight when I told them the speed of our "high speed" internet. Hey, at least we have internet and it's not dial up! Of course, getting internet at home was quite the experience. I'm ok with computers, but by no means do I know the words for "static IP address" in Spanish. Who knows things like that?? I just had to translate individual words, while the poor man (who was on the phone - hard enough in person I say) waited for me to figure out what on earth he needed. That's OK, this is Guatemala - you get used to waiting. Like for example, we are still waiting for the technical internet guy (not my husband) to come figure out our wireless issues. He was supposed to come after 2pm today, but apparently came around 11:30 - and I know I translated that part correctly. Then, I called back, and they said he would come over this afternoon around 4, that was 5 hours ago and hmmmm...no internet guy. Maybe 4 is a relative term too, or maybe he was driving at a high speed in this high place (maybe even high) and, well.........

Safe And Sound

We're here... safe and sound!

I'm (Ken) at an Internet cafe with Becky. Joy is at school and the girls (Snickers too) are back at the Loveall's with Maricela and Reina.

Joy changed our schooling so all three of us will be in school at the same time this week (after today) and then it will be just Abigail and I next week.

Driving has been every bit challenging as I expected but we're doing ok thus far.

We hope to have Internet at the condo sometime this week but we'll see.

Miss you all.

-knme

The Trip Before Us

Ten hours to go and the emotions are hitting hard.

Snickers is already airborne and we miss her quite a bit.

By this time tomorrow we will be in country.

We continue to ask for prayer during our travels as there are a lot of "until next summer"'s to say and bags to move around.

Thanks to all who've helped to make this happen. God is working, this we know.

-knme

Who'd a thunk it?

Who would have thought, after three weeks of crying in church that I (Joy) would have made it all the way through the service today without crying? My day started out thinking about things that were never thought about. As I was heading to the church to practice my offertory I started thinking about the piano. It may not be the best piano on the planet, sure the action is stiff, but it was purchased in memory of my Grampa Wilson.
I never met Grampa Wilson (or Wentworth for that matter) - so there was no way for the family to know how much that piano would influence my life. It was from listening to that piano in church every Sunday that I developed a desire to learn myself.
As I have gotten older, watching my own children with their Grandfathers, I realize how much I missed not knowing my Grampas. I feel sort of like playing that piano is the closest I will get to him, in this world. So, I'm glad that I got the chance to play today, and that I even managed to play without crying.

Tonight is our farewell party at the church, and I doubt I'll make it through that without crying. We'll see...

Post Closing & Moving Sale Update

So we've been a bit relaxed in getting out this update.

The closing of our house happened Thursday morning/noon and went off without a problem. It was kind of funny because the loan officer who was there used to play hockey with me (Ken) a couple years ago. I recognized the face but would have recalled the name had he shown up in his hockey attire.

Beyond that we had our final moving sale today. We're pretty sure that between the two sales we moved about 75% of our stuff. It was sad to see some of it go (good memories and all) but now we don't need to worry about it.

Last night we picked up Snickers' new kennel. Ours was too small for her. Airline regs require there to be three inches above her head (standing). Her new travel house will seem like a mansion to her.

Our Dover Baptist Church family is throwing a good-bye party for our family on Sunday night (June 26th) at 6pm. All are welcome. We'd love to see as many people as possible.

I think that is all for now.

-knme

All Required Papers in hand

While doing our yard sale the postal person came with our papers from the Consulate of Guatemala (10:58am). As far as we know this gives us everything we need for our two year Guatemalan VISAs.

As of this writing the weather is holding well and our yard sale (moving sale) has been very productive.

-knme

Mostly Out

After a "fun fill" day of moving in the rain Mt Auburn is looking pretty barren.

Many thanks to Ed, Ken, Rachel, Luis, John and Nate for all the help. Without you the day would have been miserable.

Well, time to start the day...

Papers at the Consulate

I checked our tracking info tonight.... (suspense)... the papers arrived at the consulate this morning at 11:37 am.

The waiting game continues...

-knme

Back from the USDA!

We received our package back from the USDA at 9:20am today!

I'll be off to the post office with the letter and our police reports.

Please be praying for a quick turn around!

-knme

USDA Here it Comes!

The process for exporting/importing Snickers is quite involved. We have to have everything done before we travel.

Stage one was to get the Vet to complete the APHIS-7001 (international health certificate). Done.
Stage two is to send said certificate and the Rabies certificate to the USDA for endorsement. Done.

When that comes back we have stage three, to send all that off to the Guatemalan Consulate in Rhode Island for their approval. I hope to have the stuff back from the USDA by Tuesday or Wednesday of next week.

Fun, fun, fun.

-knme

Appraisal Today

As Joy mentioned earlier the last hurdle for our house-sell is the appraisal. Well, that happens today at 11am.

Joy is off to the Women of Faith conference so myself, Abigail, Emma and Snickers will put the finishing polish on the house and then "get out of Dodge". I think we'll head to DBC to hang out... I have just a few things to drop in the mail.

Not too sure what we'll do from there... as it is raining cats and dogs I'm sure something inside will be in order.

I spent an hour and a quarter on the phone with Greg (CAG teacher) last night catching up on all the happenings at the school before he and his wife left for the States. There'll be just a few things for me to work on when we arrive in country. After getting off the phone with Greg (11pm) I worked on a draft plan for some of the changes and upgrades I'm proposing for the school. Finally hit the sack at 1:15am. Joy's alarm (5am) was all too unwelcome.

Very good... time to clean.

-knme

It's Official

After more than a year of waiting for this day, we spent all afternoon on the phone (not the part we were waiting for) and ended the evening with 5 one way tickets to Guatemala City. YAY!!!!!
The human part of our family will be flying out early in the morning on July 3. Snickers, our beloved dog (most of the time) will be flying out the night before. That means two trips into Boston, but that is the only way that she could be on our flight from Houston to Guatemala City. She gets to stay in a state of the art kennel, where she will no doubt get more attention and running time than she does here at home in the run of a night.

Our dear friends Andrew and Becky, and their boys, will be picking us up at the airport and bringing us to our condo. We are also planning to spend the next day with them at a waterpark, celebrating Independence Day. (Aside - I mentioned earlier to someone that we would be celebrating July 4 with them, and got the response - "Well, it won't be July 4 down there...")

For all of you that will be seeing Emma, a warning - she is convinced that her eyes are brown now. She has been saying so for days, but today she asked Aunt Susie to give her some. Susie rubbed her own brown eyes and then touched Emma's, so now she is thoroughly convinced that her eyes have changed to brown - "just like Susie's." Please, don't burst her bubble. She'll figure it out when she's old enough, or change her mind tomorrow.

Appraisal Sopray(sal)

Corny title - I just had to do it. We heard today that our next big potential issue with the house is the appraisal. Please begin praying that our house will appraise for what it was listed at (or heck, even more.) If it does not that could change our contract.

We spoke to the airline tonight and, thanks to Snickers, have to modify our plans slightly. I keep telling myself she is like one of our kids - though we wouldn't put them in a crate and stuff them under the plane. We would, however, pay to fly them and even go through a hassle if necessary. So, here we are - paying and hassling.

We will probably have to take a night/early morning flight - as in 2 flights with an overnight layover. Thankfully on the flight we are looking at the layover is long enough that we can go to a hotel and actually sleep. It means we won't get to Guate until July 3, but we will be there early in the morning which will be nice. That will give us time to find a grocery store and get some food.

Please pray for us as this is a difficult time of transition. I (Joy) have been very emotional lately about leaving my friends and family behind. I am certainly excited to finally be moving, but that is slightly tainted with sadness. Pray especially for Abigail as she goes through the process of leaving old friends and making new ones. I honestly don't know if she will ever find another friend as sweet and true and loyal as Hannah. (Hmmm...maybe if they move too she won't have to.)

Earliest leave date change

So, Snickers had her visit with the Vet today. Everything is good -- overall. However, the Guatemalan government requires her rabies be boosted within 12 months and longer than 30 days. So, instead of leaving June 29th the earliest we can leave is the 2nd of July.

We continue to ask you to pray our support team will be realized in full so we can hit this date.

Nine Days and Under Contract!

As I am the first one out of bed I actually get to beat Joy to the punch!

The title says it all. We listed our house on May 20th and had an offer on the night of May 29th. We finalized the offer over the weekend and signed the papers last night. What a huge relief!

What does this mean? Well, for anyone who spoke to us early in May you likely heard us refer to the house as an "anvil hanging over our head". Originally we were planning on renting the house while we were in Guatemala. However, there was some doubt as to if we would be able to rent it for what we would need to cover the mortgage. Should we have been able to rent it we'd then be waiting for the anvil to drop...maybe the renters got laid off or perhaps they had to move out for other reasons. We'd be left holding the bag (so to speak). Bottom line is we're just not able to handle these sorts of contingencies.

So, with the house (potentially) sold that anvil will go away. This will also change our monthly support requirements -- more on that in another post.

As things progress we'll keep you updated. This is a major step for us. One (major) step closer to use being able to leave this summer!

-knme

On the Market

Our house is officially for sale! We have listed it with a friend from church, and are asking everyone to pray that it would sell quickly. Please pray, also, that God would put just the perfect people in here for our neighborhood. It was a lot of work to get it ready, but now we are basically maintaining it. We do feel a little like slaves to the house, always wanting it to be ready for a sudden showing with kids is a little tricky.

Selling the house will help to reduce our monthly budget. In fact, it brings us to the point of needing $1,000 a month to be at 100%. If we could also sell our van, and vacation club, and make a little money on our yard sale then - hmmm...we could potentially head out for a year at least.

We are, as you know, planning on staying longer than a year though, and thus this would not be our ideal plan. So, please continue praying that God would bring in the monies that we need, that plane ticket prices would stay the same, and that we would be able to leave early in the summer.

Thanks!!!!!!!

So close

We made a big decision this week. We are going to sell our house. We met with the realtor on Thursday, received our list of things to do (only 2 pages,) and are hoping to list it on Tuesday. Please pray that our house will sell quickly. If we can get out from under the house, and having to put money away in case of emergency with said house, we will be less than $550 monthly away from being able to leave. That's 55 people at $10 a month - I can even do that math!

Talk about ignorant...

First off, we must say (and this has nothing to do with the title) that our trip to Canada was wonderful. We had some great times visiting churches, and are hopeful that we will gain even more members on our prayer and financial teams. It was especially exciting to have the pastor's wife in one church realize that she was a Third Culture Kid. We are not positive, but it seemed that this may have been the first that she realized it.

Our trip home was rather uneventful, though it was EXTREMELY rainy. There were times when it was raining so hard we couldn't see the road signs. We saw one overturned mac truck, but still not a single police officer. Hmmmm.....

Now - for the ignorance. Last night we were talking to a missionary from Spain who is also taking the Perspectives class with us. (2 more homework assignments and we're done!!!) She knew of our work with Third Culture Kids, and even participated in our interviews and DVD curriculum. The evening's class had been about using what we had learned in the class, and of course financial support came up. This missionary told us a story which has got Joy all worked up.

She received correspondence from an MK teacher in Spain that was on home assignment. The teacher was hoping to get letters from parents about how important MK schools have been to them. (We have offered to send the teacher a copy of our video too.) The reason she needs it - one of her supporting churches has decided that all of their missionaries must home school their children. YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!!

How can a church be so arrogant as to assume they can dictate how their missionaries will provide education for their children? This church obviously does not understand the needs of Third Culture Kids. So many of them need schools, not livingrooms, in order to gain that sense of belonging that is so crucial to children. They obviously don't understand that all children, and parents, are different. Homeschooling (especially on the foreign field) can be extremely difficult and is not for everyone. These children are already isolated in so many ways - why would you force them to be isolated further.

What will happen? Will the missionaries agree to this or will they be forced to lose some ery important support? Please pray that this church will realize that it shouldn't be so dictatorial - and please pray for those children!

OK - enough ranting....

Go Holland!

I read an amazing story about a teenager from Holland today. I encourage you all to read it. Visit www.thedennetts.org and read the blog titled "Make-a-Wish Foundation."

Please be in prayer as we finish up our stay here in Canada. This swine flu thing has people concerned, and we are going to be speaking in a town where there is a confirmed case. Ken's mom is plotting a longer stay here due to the flu. We're planning a little kitchenette for downstairs knowing that we would not get along well if we had to share the same kitchen (with the husband's and kids) for an extended period. I think she is just kidding...

Please pray also for all those affected by this flu.

Bikes and Bags

We just saw a great commercial by Cadbury. It shows one bike (and rider), which gradually transforms from a normal bike to an ambulance. The ambulance is just the bike, pulling a man on some sort of cot like thing. It then transforms into a water truck, by hanging jugs all over it. Later comes a school bus, by putting children on the bar, the handle bars, the back fender, etc...
Cool ad, but even cooler is that Cadbury is using your UPCs to send 5,000 bikes to Africa. Africa, where a bicycle really is all those things. How very perceptive of them, and I must say a brilliant idea.
Another brilliant idea we discovered this evening - the grocery store was charging 5 cents for every plastic bag you use for your groceries. What an encouragement that is to use cloth bags...too bad we didn't have any. I wonder, if they started to do that in NH would more people start using the cloth bags? I would certainly remember them more often.

We had a very good presentation at Bridgewater Baptist Church this evening. We were able to share about TCKs and also our need for prayer and financial support. One of the women on the missions committee is a former missionary to Bolivia. It was nice to be able to make the connection to her children being TCKs. The committee had a lot of good questions, and though we were nervous going in we feel that the presentation went very well.
Friday night we have a bigger scale presentation at Ken's home church. Please pray that we will be able to increase our support through this and the other two presentations we have before we head home.

Remember those cloth bags!

Kudos to Guatemala roads...

Kudos to Guatemala roads - how is that possible? I (Joy) must say - the roads in Guatemala are far better than the TransCanada in New Brunswick. First there was the hour stretch of road which alternated between old and new pavement. Being a musical geek I tried to count the number of beats between to see if it was even. If so, than maybe there was a good explanation for the patchwork quilt of asphalt. Not so much even. After we passed that stretch there was a part that bore resemblance to a Wavy Lays potato chip. Too bad you're not supposed to drive in the left lane unless passing, and there were no cars to pass. Though, it wouldn't have mattered much. We only saw 1 police officer on our whole trip, and that was in Northern Maine. 1 officer and we were on the road for 13 hours. I can't even go from my house to the church 10 minutes away without seeing an officer. Guess that explains why people in New Brunswick drive so fast!

We are having a great time here, mainly relaxing and spending time with Ken's parents. It is nice to have the extra sets of eyes around when we do need to do actual work, like studying or newsletters. We have a few speaking engagements while we are here, and we would really appreciate your prayers for those. As you can see we still need quite a bit of monthly support before we can leave, and we are desparately hoping to be on a plane June 29. (Especially now that Ken's only job is in Guatemala, and we don't get health care here after May.)

Cliff Jumping 101

A perfect picture to describe our day!  ---photo by bzo, wikimedia

There are times when we are prompted to take a leap of faith.  That prompting may come through counsel, Bible study, any variety of means.  Long ago that started for us.  Our CTEN family advised us that about 2 months before leaving for the field, jobs should be left and full time support raising taken up.  That was only one area of prompting that I can recall...it is something that has been on our minds for a while.  That’s a scary thing though, leaving your job and not knowing how you can provide if enough monthly support isn’t coming in.    So we did nothing.  (Well, we did lots of things, it’s just that Ken didn’t leave his full time job.)

We learned today, that sometimes when you are standing at the edge of that cliff, wondering what to do - God pushes you over the edge and forces you to take the leap.  (Which I suppose is not really leaping ourselves...hmmm)  That happened for us today.  We no longer have to be concerned about when Kenneth will give his notice, or how we will get the time off to visit Canada.  God took care of that for us, and Ken’s company laid him off today.  Now we will be able to work on finishing this part of our race together - how much better that will be!

We feel a little strange, being thankful that he has “no job.”  It seems weird in this economy to be happy to be out of work.  But we are.  We know that God’s hand is in this, and that He will provide for our every need.  We know that He is able to bring in the rest of our monthly support, and we thank him for that.

Please be in prayer for our housing situation.  We now have no choice but to find renters, or sell the house by June 1.  Please pray that God’s hand will be present in this task as well.

Here and there...

The market on the steps of the church in Chichicastenango, Guatemala.  The majority of these people would be considered self-employed, and thus counted in the employment numbers cited for the rest of the world to see.

So, I pulled up to my parents house this morning, and there was not a soul in sight.  There were some cars parked in driveways, but no people visible.  I didn’t think about it at that precise moment, but I am now.  That is a sight, or lack of, that just doesn’t happen in Guatemala.  In Guatemala there are ALWAYS people around.  I think it has something to do with the unemployment rate, or the type of employment.  We are complaining about unemployment here, worried, anxious - but there it is a way of life. 

The website CIA World FactBook, lists Guatemala as only having an unemployment rate of 3.2%, quite suspicious numbers to anyone who has ever been there.  Being suspicious I started to do some research this morning (when, of course, I should have been doing other things.)  I learned that:

Guatemala is ranked 3rd worst, globally, when it come to distribution of wealth.  On a scale of 0 - 100% (with 100% meaning one person holds all the wealth in the country) Guatemala scored a 59.6%.  Now, I’m no statistician, but that shows me that all the wealth of Guatemala is owned by about 40% of the country.  Most of that wealth is centered in the department of Guatemala, which includes Guatemala City - thus the big shopping malls, universities and the like.  Guatemala City is compared to an “Asian tiger” city, while the rest of the country is compared to “equatorial Africa.” (Guatemala Hardship Considerations, Andrew Reding, 2000.)

The 97.8% of the country that is considered employed, includes a large number of people who are underemployed.  Basically, they are making some money, at a job of some sort - but I have heard that the government includes begging on the street as a form of employment.  Now, I haven’t actually seen that in print - but I certainly believe it.  The income distribution rate is so off, that the per capita average of around $4,000 is very misleading.  UNICEF found (Reding) that about 53% of the population earns less than $1 a day.  Their yearly income is $365, when most of us spend more than that per month in groceries alone.

So, back to my morning car park experience.  I pulled up on the side of the road, left the children in the car while I brought the dog into the house, let the kids out, left the van wide open (with my computer in it) while I took the various loads of “stuff” into the house.  During that whole time, I never saw a person.  I would NEVER do any of those things in Guatemala, anywhere.  There are always people around, busy being underemployed, and most of them are perfectly willing to help you take care of all that stuff you have - you just may never see it again.  Not very shocking when you figure how many years they could live off of one computer.

Praise God for Saint Patrick

Abigail at her favorite Guatemalan restaurant, Pollo Campero, on her first trip back in 2005.  It is hard to believe that she will be 5 years old in just a few short days!  Wow - she really liked that ranch dressing...
Abigail has recently been struggling with our decision to leave for Guatemala.  She has the 4 year old anxiety of leaving her friends, heck, I have the 29+ year old anxiety about that.  She also has somewhat of an understanding of what it means to be a missionary.  Well, today in her class they were reading about Saint Patrick.  (If you don’t know his real story - not just about corned beef and leprechauns - check it out!)  Saint Patrick is a wonderful example, I think, of leaving those you love to go out and spread the Good News of the Gospel.  In the car on the way home, when questions about Guatemala came from nowhere, we were able to talk about Saint Patrick and how that relates to us.  We at least fended off the tears, and the topic was quickly switched to something completely random and unconnected, in one breath.  Welcome to little girls.  (They make me understand why women are so hard to understand - well, to men at least.)

In the Eisner world, we have been working hard to raise the rest of our support, and to complete our video series.  The latter is done, yeah - Joy can have a life again!  We hope to post the videos on the web site soon for any who are interested.

Thanks to all who have been praying for us.  Please continue!  Here are a few specific requests:

• There is still much to be done, and it really is a balancing act.  Pray that our daily life, and parenting won’t suffer. 
  
• We are at 50% of our needed support.  Please pray boldly that the rest will come in quickly. Pray especially that those who are planning on support, but haven’t mailed in their cards yet, will remember.
  
• We need true Godly wisdom in dealing with Abigail’s emotions about leaving, and ours as well.
  
• We are still trying to take our Perspectives Class for credit, so there is a lot of reading and homework involved with that as well.  Pray that we will be able to fit that in and prioritize well.
  

Yo no soy corrupto...

A small portion of the mall where we ate lunch today.  It is a little ways away in Guatemala City.  It even has a movie theater.

The police officer that pulled us over was wearing a pin “I’m not corrupt, are you?”  Interesting, and often irrelevant to the actual corruptness of said officer.  Now I know, some of you are still stuck on the we got pulled over part, but don’t worry we were just passengers.  It was while we were out searching for a car with a Guatemalan staffer from the school.  I had overheard him say something on the phone about police, but was not really listening (cause that would be eavesdropping - even though he was talking right in front of us in a very small truck that my hips could barely fit into...)  I later figured out what he must have been talking about when we got randomly selected to pull over at a police check point.  His license had expired.

He should have gotten a huge fine, and had his license taken away - and we could have been stuck on the streets of Guatemala City (not on my bucket list!)  However, since our police officer was not corrupt (yeah, sure) they worked out a deal.  He got a 100Q (about $15) ticket for driving while talking on his cell phone and we were allowed to drive away.  Thing is, he wasn’t talking on his phone.  So apparently being corrupt means that you will accept a bribe to be able to drive away, and has very little to do with actually following the law.

We also find it quite amusing that people can get randomly pulled over for not wearing their seat belts, because the law is that if your vehicle HAS seat belts you have to wear them.  So, you can cram 15 people into the back of a pick up (and that number is on the low side I think) and drive around with no problem, but if you are trying to be safer and ride inside the car - then you can get a ticket.  Go figure!

We have been very busy for the last few days.  We knew that we were going to have a lot of work to do, but we hadn’t planned on all the extras.  Friday we spent 3 hours looking for 2 things, a keyboard and a car.  Most of that time we waited, or sat in traffic, or twiddled our thumbs at the police checkpoint.  It really does take a lot longer to get anything done here.  We did find some cars, well actually a van, which we think can work for our family.  Vehix (that car check thing on line) is going to become a quick client of ours though as most of the cars sold here were previously totaled in the states.  Hey, at least they are safer and better than the chicken busses with no brakes and holes in the floor.

Today we went to church at an International Church in the city, and then had lunch in a huge mall (at Chili’s.)  I mean huge, this mall had 3 stories and a carousel, and most importantly a Cinnabon.  We also found a store similar to BJ’s that sells Cranberry Juice - something we thought we were going to have to give up in order to move here.  Still haven’t found any Moxie - big shocker.

This afternoon we are going to look at a property that will be available this summer and is fully furnished.  We will see similar properties tomorrow as well.  This evening we are going to a contemporary English service and then having dinner at Pizza Hut with the principal and his family.  It really is so different here than in the rest of Guatemala - it must be something to do with that 2 million person city right around the corner.

Blackout in the sky

Our future home.  Some of you have heard us talk about the smog in Guatemala City - well, now you can see it!  Those are high rises in the distance. not very far from the school - almost obscured by smog.

So, we can’t do anything without a little drama - apparently even when Abigail and Emma are not around.  Our first flight was relatively uneventful, we had a tight connection due to deicing, but we made it without having to sprint through the Houston airport.  All was well.  An hour or so into our second flight Kenneth began to feel ill.  We were close to the front of the plane, so the flight attendant told him he could use the first class restroom.  I let him out, and was getting ready to sit back down when I saw a lot of movement in first class.  I look up to see what is going on, and there is Kenneth face down in the aisle with a bunch of people hovering over him.  Face down!

Praise God there was a physician sitting in first class who quickly took charge of the situation.  It appears that he passed out, they aren’t sure why - it could have been a combination of things.  But he is FINE now.  We got a brief upgrade to first class while Kenneth got an oxygen treatment, but were soon back in our normal seats and good to go.

We now understand why they call this town “Little America” as the house we are staying in is much more American than Guatemalan - we can even flush our toilet paper!  They are not all like that though, and we will be seeing a variety of houses in the next few days.  Each night we are having dinner with a different staff family, and then on Monday we are actually going to see some properties that may be available for us to rent when me move.

Today Ken is getting acquainted with the computer system, while Joy is interviewing some students.  We have also been able to sit down with the staff and really define our roles and jobs here at the school.  Tomorrow we are going to go look at cars and Ken will be working hard on computer stuff - Joy might go shopping???  We are trying to be flexible and work with the staff doing what they need and when they need it.

The weather is of course beautiful, and this blog was actually written sitting outside, listening to the chirping birds, and absorbing the warmth.

Perspectives

Playing with this boy is one of my favorite memories of Guatemala.  It has nothing to do with this blog entry - unless you consider that this picture (with all the flowers and green) was taken in January.  Aah, for a land without snow and icicles.

We all see life from a different perspective don’t we.  I can’t stand snow, it’s cold and wet and messes up my clean floors.  Abigail on the other hand thinks that snow is wonderful and could play in it all day.  We look at Guatemala and see beauty, while others see the pollution and trash.  Different perspectives, and that’s OK.

We are finding that there are many different perspectives on missions as well.  Some look at the work that we will be doing and consider it secondary, while we see the “prototype citizens of the future” as greatly needing missionaries.  Some argue that we need to keep all of our missionaries state side to work here, while others feel that more need to go overseas.

We recently started taking a course called “Perspectives” put on by the US Center For World Mission.  We have a whole (big) textbook full of many different perspectives on missions.  We are going to be teaching a Sunday School class at church that is designed to give people a more global perspective.  What is your perspective?  Is it in line with God’s perspective?

Wrinkle Remover, apples, and travels - Oh my!

To all you parents who have ever wondered what the other side of the bathroom door looks like while you are “escaping” for a few moments of “peace and quiet,” well Ken took this picture for you.

Well, now our life seems to be back on track.  The family chore chart has reappeared, which seriously helps me focus, and our evening study schedule is actually written down.  I haven’t ever been this structured.  I think it’s because back in high school and college I could actually remember things.  I’m waiting for those little ads that pop up on face book to start showing memory aids (instead of wrinkle removers - what are they thinking!)

Our year end newsletters have gone out, and should be in mailboxes shortly.  We start our new Perspectives Course on Sunday night.  This time we are taking it for a grade, so we will actually have to do the work.  Thankfully a lot of it should be review for us.  Our good friends Bambi and Loren are taking the class with us, so it will be quite different than the last one.  Of course, it will be different anyway as we are not expecting to skew the age range quite so much.  (Maybe that is where the wrinkle remover ads started...)

Emma and Abigail are up to their usual mischief.  In fact I just broke up a silly argument over a ball, and put Abigail in a time out for totally over reacting.  I hear this will end when they are about 30.  Oh Happy Day!  I know, most of you are thinking “Apple doesn’t...” you know the rest.

Our recent trip home to Canada was wonderful.  It was great to spend lots of time with Ken’s parents.  We also had an opportunity to speak at the church Ken went to as a child.  We are so fired up to share about Third Culture Kids, and it was nice to hear many positive responses.  We left with the connections to return and hopefully speak at more churches as well.  Please pray that we will find all the opportunities God has for us in Canada as well as the USA.

The most recent news - We have purchased tickets for our short trip to Guatemala.  Thank you to those who have been faithfully sending in your monthly support - you have helped make this possible.  Please pray that we will be successful in all that we need to get done, and that the girls will be OK here at home.

Today’s Temperatures:  Home = 12, Guatemala = 68.  That is so depressing!