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