Praise, but keep praying...

Leah made it through surgery all right late Friday night. Now we are praying that she will have a speedy recovery without any setbacks. Thanks for praying!

Prayer Needed Now!

Please pray for one of our students, and daughter of our friends. She is being taken in for emergency neuro surgery in 30 minutes (10 p.m our time - 2 hours behind NH.) I know many of you will read this later, but those of you who might still be awake, please start praying. Her name is Leah and she is having the shunt in her brain (or coming from it, wherever shunts go) replaced. We knew after school when she was led out of the building incoherent that something was wrong, but had no idea it was this bad. Please pray for Leah (4th grade) and the whole Soderling family. We will post more as we know it. Joy

Residency Update

Sorry for the delay in issuing an update.

Last Friday we had our residency appointment at the Guatemalan immigration office. All went well... for the most part. We left the school at 8:05 and arrived at the office at 8:30. Rock on!

At 8:50 we hit a hiccup. Jose, the school's messenger who accompanied us, was doing the final-final check. At this time we discovered we did not have our pictures. Now-- we had our pictures but did not have them with us. The day before I had given them a friend at school who had handled these types of things in the past -- to be sure the pictures were satisfactory. He had put them on his desk, right next to the passports which he was going to copy. Jose did not know our pictures were there so when he went into grab the passports he missed them -- honest mistake. We neglected to check before leaving -- our bad.

In the end Jose rushed back to school to get them. By the time he returned we were just getting through the preliminary interview. The process was pretty painless but since there were four of us (Joy, me, Abigail, Emma) they had to do four separate applications.

Now we're back to a waiting game -- they say eight days to the next step (not entirely sure what that is).

On a side note: I (Ken) "taught" my first official class last week. Don't get too excited -- I merely subbed for the 6th grade science teacher, who was away at an ACSI conference. We did review for a chapter test so it wasn't too stressful. The kids were awesome... can't complain, really.

Well, that is all for now...

-knme

Passport, Check! Permanent Residency, Check!

So, we have two good pieces of information: we have a passport for Sara in hand! w00t!

Secondly, we received a late night call (typically not good things) from the director of CAG who was happy to tell us that he had just received an e-mail from the new school lawyer saying that our permanent residency had been approved -- w00t!

We are apparently missing some paper work but tentatively have a residency appointment setup for Friday, 11 March. More details to come, I'm sure.

-knme

Hello and Goodbye Intermissions

We're home!

Last week was a short week. We had Monday off (Mid-Winter Break) and then 1/2 day on Friday due to Intermissions. "What is Intermissions?" you ask. Well, Intermissions is a conference for any and all missionaries in Guatemala. It is a time of spiritual recharging. There is a worship band and a guest speaker.

Also, servant teams fly in from the States to pamper us missionaries for a two day period. These pamperings take the form of manicure, pedicure, massage (body or cranial), hair cutting 101, and child care. They have ministries for couples and singles. They have various short seminars on a wide range of topics. They have child care (can't say this too many times). And the food... food, food and more food.

Well, we had a wonderful time. This year, like last year, Intermissions was held in Panajachel - AKA "The Lake". The drive up (with Richard, Jean, Jordan and Rachel) took a little over three hours with a stop at Charlie and Pats for "cleanup, isle 'E'" as poor Emma threw up in Chimaltenango. The ride back was slightly less exciting as, thankfully, no one threw up but Sara screamed for a good portion of Mud-slide-ville.

This Intermissions marked the one year anniversary of our family hooking up with the Logan family. This family-relationship-dynamic has been wonderful for Joy and I and (of course) Abigail and Emma. The kids play so very well together and us Adults... well, we just enjoy getting into trouble. Enough said...

-knme

January Down...

Looking back on January is what we're doing now. One down, eleven to go (in 2011). Where did it go? Well, let me tell you.

The transition from one to two was a challenge. The transition from two to three has not been horrible -- except when one of them is cranky. When more than one is cranky -- look out.

Sara has settled into a few new routines... eating at 3, 6, 9, 12... and pooping every four or five days. The latter has been much more difficult to adjust to due to her discomfort on days four and five. We've been to two different pediatricians and both have prescribed different "baby laxatives". Neither have worked...

Sara is generally happiest between the hours of 7 and 8 in the morning, much to her mother's delight. Lately Sara has taken to eating at 8pm, 2/3am, and then again at 6/7am.

Abigail has settled back into school with ease. She has taken to reading small chapter books. Over the Christmas break she read the "young reader version" of Alice in Wonderland -- in five days. She continues to devour her collection of Magic Tree House and Box Car Children.

Emma continues to talk. Talk, talk, talk. Just recently Joy was discussing with her that one of her gifts from God was to make people laugh. This has helped Emma understand it is ok when people laugh at some of the things she says and does. Even more recently Emma declared to Joy that God had given her the gift of "stop talking" -- which she uses sparingly.

Joy has been suffering lately with some sort of stomach discomfort. She is considering a trip to the doctor this week.

Ken has been continuing his efforts to complete a computer systems change-over he started in August. This continues to progress.

This month we did have a scare of sorts when Maribel, our "nanny" and maid since August 2009, told us on a Friday that she and her daughter were moving back to Chimaltenango to live with her family because her husband had been drinking and had become violent. Sadly, here this is all too common. What is different is that Maribel was determined to not fit the mold of wife who just took this in stride (as part of her life). She is a very intelligent person. She did not want that for her life or the life of her daughter.

We sat and explained the situation to Abigail and Emma and then prayed with them. The next day Maribel came to work and told us that her and Edy, her husband, had talked and he has made a commitment to change. Evidently he did not realize just how close he had come to losing his family. We continue to pray for them as relapse is easy.

As we begin to look forward to the summer we have had early discouragement at the anticipated cost of airline fares. We ask you join us in praying for direction as we make summer plans.

-knme

First Day Back

Well, today is our first day back at school. An alumni asked as Joy and the younger girls were getting ready to leave - "Are you ready to be back in school?" The answer - "Ready, yes...prepared, no." Somehow the vacation got away with us, well actually Joy actually treated it as a vacation and didn't do any work after finals were all graded. That, of course, leaves her with a lot of planning to do - and quickly.

Sara went to her first class this morning and did quite well. Thankfully Joy can play some things on the piano one handed while holding her. The students either are all from big families, or already know our girls, and aren't really distracted by her presence. Thankfully there is a nursery at school when we are ready to put her in, and it is free of charge.

Emma hung out in Daddy's office, scratching his head. It's a real hardship to have to take your own head scratcher to work with you. She did have a good fall on the way to the van though and had to quickly be taken to the nurse to mend up some scratched knees.

Abigail is very excited to have a new friend in her class - from New Hampshire! Until today she was the ONLY student from NH on campus. Praise God the Wilson family, who have been raising support since before us, have finally arrived here in Guatemala. When Joy was out at recess Abigail and Claire were playing together on the see-saw. We are hoping that they will be able to build a great friendship, since that is one that can travel home with us in the summers too.

Please pray for us as we adjust back to our busy ministry schedule. Pray especially that we won't lose our focus on God - the whole reason we are ministering anyway.

We would like to ask special prayer for some former youth groupers of ours, who are now raising their own TCKs. We don't have all the details (in fact some of you know far more than we do,) but wish to bring this to your attention. Our youthgroupers, and friends, Ainsley and Ben are a military family - which means their children are TCKs because of all the moving around they do - even if they never actually leave the USA they will develop some of those qualities. Anyway, late last fall they were transferred to Hawaii. They received their shipment on December 3 and no doubt went into heavy unpacking mode just before the holiday season. Well, right around Christmas doctors found a mass in Ben's chest. The family has been transferred back to NH so that Ben can receive treatment in Boston. Praise God their children are young, but still all the moving has got to be hard on them, and the whole family. Stability is one thing that TCKs crave the most, and the constant moving many of them experience can really mess with that. So - all that to say - please join us in praying for Ainsley and Ben, Ariel and Gideon that they will be able to find peace and stability even in this rough time. Thank you! (And while you're at it you can remember to pray for all the TCKs that we minister to here in Guatemala as well.)

God's blessings to you this day!