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.