December 15, 2010 (day 931) 5:22pm
Did you hear that? No, not that! Did you hear it about 1:20pm this afternoon? Yep, it was me. I am not a big shopper, in fact, I will just admit it. I do not really like shopping. Think of it…here we have to buy for nearly 100 people. That is a lot. In the states, I did most of my Christmas shopping by clicking on the “purchase now” link and having whatever sent to the house. No crowds, no traffic and no walking aimlessly through a store trying to find what I wanted, but I cannot do all my shopping online here because there is no door side delivery. However, we did buy presents for over 40 of the children while we were in the States in November, but that still left a lot of presents to buy. Well, today we are finished! Today, I went to a local bicycle shop and bought 14 bikes. We are done. Oh, we still have plenty of things to get done before Christmas (cleaning and decorating the team house, finishing the baking of goodies for each house, decorating the chapel for the Christmas eve service, wrapping the remaining presents), but we can marking shopping off that list. Okay, before you say it. Yes, it is Teresa and Amy doing the baking and wrapping and now that I think of it the cleaning and decorating of the team house. They still have plenty of things to get done! Oh, yeah, what you heard about 1:30pm this afternoon while driving back to FH was me shouting, “Hallelujah, no more shopping for this year! Gracias a Dios!” Merry Christmas all! Rodney
Just one more thing, it was sunny and in the low 80’s today. I am not sure how that compares to where you are from?
Unloading the bicycles.
December 11, 2010 (day 927) 4:04pm
Last week, Jorge, this week it was Brayan. Brayan is the first from FH to graduate from traditional Colegio. He has worked tremendously hard to get here. All week long he was back and forth to school getting everything done. Today finally arrived and he was out the gate early. He left about 6:30am because graduation was scheduled to begin at 8:30am. Did you notice that I said it was scheduled to begin at 8:30am? It of course did not start at 8:30am. It was just a little before 9:30. Two and half hours later, Brayan was a colegio graduate! He was mostly all smiles, except at one point, he told me that he was a little sad. I am a long time removed from my high school years (stop that…stop agreeing with me so quickly. I have feelings), but I do remember the mixture of emotions and thoughts that graduation brings. After graduation, we headed to … go ahead guess…right…Pizza Hut. Brayan, Mina, Wilfredo, Andy, Amy, Teresa and I had a great time with a lot of laughter.
Brayan will of course be alright. He is a sensitive young man; he works hard; he cares and he has a bright future. Pray for him. He graduated today, and he moves outside the fence next Friday into the house with Joel and Jose Ricardo. Pray that he will follow God’s plan for his life! Rodney
July 23, 2010 (day 786) 11:18am
Twenty three days into our thirty one day furlough…our much needed furlough. I have not had a headache for nearly three weeks now and the tightness in my shoulders has disappeared. I was beginning to think my blood pressure was going back up, but the doc said that it was in good shape. Stress can do a lot to a body.
Though this is a bit of a confession, it will lack great details. The last 4 months took it’s toll on us. I know I did not blog much the last several months, but honestly, I did not know how too. It wasn’t just one thing or incident. It was a series of things. I cannot tell you how many sleepless nights we spent. Yes, God delivered, and yes, God gave us grace, and yes, I should have leaned more on God, and yes, there were so good and great moments in those months as well.
We soon return to FH, and yes, we are ready to see the children. I know that challenges await us, difficult decisions will have to quickly be made about several issues and as I thought and prayed about things last night, this verse of scripture came to me again. It is an old faithful scripture that I have leaned upon many times over the years. It’s truth always relevant and powerful. In 2 Chronicles 20, the story unfolds and things look bleak and difficult, so the king prayed and part of his prayer were these words, “O our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you” (2 Chronicles 20:12). They kept their eyes on God; they prayed; they worshiped; and they found that the problem that was too great for them, was no problem for God. I like that! I believe that is still true! Our eyes are on you God! Rodney
