New Things

It has begun. The dodging.
The peering around corners. The avoidance of certain streets.
The carrying of ammunition.
The paranoia.

With Carnaval only weeks away the water balloons have begun to fly....
The Target: any female walking the streets.
Needless to say, this has made the typically easy walk to the store quite the feat if you want to get there dry!

But that's not the end of the excitement around here.

New Weather: rain, rain, rain, rain.....after months and months of hot sunny weather we have entered the rainy season! Chilly mornings and umbrellas.

New People: Six! Yes, six new teachers arrived the beginning if January to help out at the school. I get one of them each morning to help out with reading groups; Yay! Mr. Donald has been a great addition to our class - giving me ideas, being a much-needed male role-model to some of the kids, and an indispensable extra set of eyes and ears and hands. What a blessing!
( the picture is of some of the teachers)



New Semester: Speaking of school, I can't believe that we are already over three weeks into the second semester!
After a marvelous trip to Peru / Machu Picchu / La Paz (which is an entire story in itself) we are back into the swing of school.
In science, we've been studying different animal groups. We've been busy doing experiments with ants and worms (they haven't all worked, but that's how science goes sometimes!), and amidst the little shrieks while holding insects, and gasps of discovery (who would have thought that worms move in a straight line and not a wiggly line?!?) I trust that their hearts and lives are being changed into kids who live to love and forgive - that has been one of my biggest prayers for them this year.
Amidst the struggles of teaching this class, those little glimpses of change that I see in each life is the most encouraging to me, and keeps me hopeful.











<-- A little hiking trip up the mountain


New Thoughts: Well, maybe not new, but refined.
Hope, Joy, Compassion. These are not characteristics that I implant in my own heart. And yet, there they are, often when I least expect my reaction to be joyful, or compassionate.
How can I not marvel at the goodness and faithfulness of God through it all.
He is the master orchestrator, the changer of hearts, the giver of joy....and what am I but a broken tool in his hand?
I remember I feared failure at first--failure in the eyes of man, of God--and still do at times. Quite the pressure to live under! I don't recommend it. But what a grace-filled God to remind me: I am not served by human hands, as if I needed anything, because I myself give all men life and breath and everything else (Acts 17:25).

We life for One who we may, with unspeakable joy, receive from.