Feels like home to me

It’s hard to believe that we’ve been here for more than two months!! Living here has become normal to us. We have jobs, friends and a purpose. Every week I have 5 English classes that meet two times a week and Morgan teaches English classes in the university three times a week. So we spend most of our days separate doing our own thing. I sometimes get to eat lunch with people at the company I teach English and Morgan will meet with various students. During the night we are generally together hanging out with whoever wants to hang out. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights, Morgan has volleyball and on Tuesdays and Thursday nights we have Spanish class (of course its early enough to do something with someone after class). On Saturdays we do various things, which sometimes involve sleeping in and sometimes not. Then on Sundays we go to church then have a bible study for anyone interested in the afternoon (in the photo on the right). After the bible study we hang out with our friends from the study and then go home and start it all over again. So, we stay pretty busy; there truly is never a dull moment around here. We love it!!!

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter, the people here take the week before Easter to celebrate Semana Santa (Holy week). Students have the whole week off and most businesses are closed Wednesday- Friday. So, we went to the beach and participated once again in the lighthouse ministry we talked about before. The first day of Lighthouse was really weird. When we go out to the beach the beach was covered in water, the waves were coming into the restaurants that are set significantly off shore. So we did as many hair wraps and temporary tattoos as we could. The government ended up closing the beach and many people said that the waves were only going to get bigger the next day. Needless to say, at the end of the day we were pretty discouraged and we even considered going home. The next day, however, was a great day! The waves were not nearly as bad. We spent the whole day making hair wraps and tattoos and then we showed the Passion of Christ at night on the beach. The response was incredible; God was definitely faithful!

When living in a new country sometimes things happen that seem very weird to you but pretty much normal to everyone else. The other day I was driving through a round about and there was more traffic than normal. As a I got closer to the round about I noticed there were a lot of high school aged students mobbed around the round about. I thought it was probably a riot but I didn’t understand why they were so young. When I got right next to the students they began writing on my car with window markers despite my protests. They didn’t have a chance to write much before I was able to move my car out of the way. When I arrived to work and told my boss about it he barely reacted and simply asked; “well they used paint that comes off right?” and then the story was over. (sometimes in protests they use paint that doesn’t come off) This round about is where everyone goes when they want to protest something. As it turns out these students were protesting the fact that their schools were closed because the government was giving the teachers training for a new curriculum. So how about that for ironic twist? Students were protesting not going to school!

Hello everyone! I hope you are doing well! Thanks for visiting our website…Debbie did a great job catching you all up on what’s happening in our lives. We definitely stay super busy! God has brought so many amazing people in to our lives. It has been so cool to watch many of these students grow in their curiosity for Christ. He has also blessed us with Christian friends to encourage us and help us in the ministry. It is really beginning to feel like home here in our city; Debbie and I can go to the movies, school, or mall and usually run into at least one person we know. It is also nice to have our “team family” here. There are 5 of us on the University/Professional team and we meet together once a week. Every Monday morning we got to the Busching’s house for training, and Kim Busching fixes us an incredible American breakfast. It’s an exciting surprise every time and I think I get a little too excited about it, but I miss our food sometimes.

We had a wonderful Easter together. We decided to have our own “gringo” service with our team so we could have a worship experience that was in our own language and a little more familiar. It was very special.

Ok, this is a really long entry, so I won’t give any additional stories. Ohh, but I will mention that Debbie and I have a new addition to our family! His name is Flaco and he is the cutest little, orange kitty ever. He came to our house about three weeks ago; we fed him once because he was starving and now he will never leave. We love him though…he is adorable! So now Debbie and I are bonded for life because we share a child. haha.

Thanks so much for your prayers, love and support. We love you all and we are so thankful for you! We will be in touch.