Almost there!!!

Thanks so much for your prayers, we are so close to having paved roads around our house that we are actually getting excited. It sure is a mess, though, and I am getting tired of my whole house shaking from the packing machines. But it will be so worth it. Already the dust is less around here partly cause few are driving by cause of the road work. Yes, I can go more than a day without dusting or mopping.

Here are a few pictures of the road, and a couple pics of Jonathan with his buddies - Jonathan took the pictures of the road work. what a guy!

What a week

Yes, School started this week, and it has been fun, busy, challenging, and sad.
First, it has been really fun getting to see old friends/students; seeing them excited about this year. We have been officially asked to be the Senior class sponsors. This is great, though not as great as I thought. When I first heard about being Senior sponsors I thought we just went with them on their senior sneak. But of course it is more complicated than that!!! We have to help them plan it, plan lots of fundraisers so they can afford sneak and plan graduation!!! But it will be nice to spend time with these kids before they leave. There are three boys from the other school that have joined our group (Wycliffe missionary kids) but they seem nice. So it went from 2 girls and 1 boy, to 4 boys and 2 girls. I wonder where we will gofor sneak??
It has also been fun to get to know all the new kids - like 18 of them!!! We weren't planning for that many but had a couple more come in the last day so now I am short a grammar book which has made life a bit more challenging ( and the copier isn't running yet!!!) but we are getting a good start. Covered capitalization rules and on to punctuation. ( It is fun trying to teach kids to capitalize words they have never heard of cause they don't live in the US!!!). Girls PE started well, I loved the reaction when they saw it was ME and NOT Uncle Andy teaching them!!! Precious!!! And choir starts today - I wonder how many I will have in my group this year????

It has been busy as Scott is teaching 3 classes and helping out in other areas. Busy because two of our teachers have become unexpectedly unavailable. One because their baby was born and developed pneumonia and is in ICU, the another was sick and passed out. She fell and broke her face in 4 places. Both are on the mend, but it has been sad and challenging to cover their jobs. The lady who fell will have to have her jaw wired shut so she won't be able to teach Portuguese for over a month. She is the one who has been leading our Bible Study, I guess she can type her notes and someone else can read them :O) Emma is adjusting to our schedules pretty well. Aunt Gina helps with her 3 days a week, and then Scott watches her the other 2 (8-10am when I am teaching English).

Tomorrow we celebrate 16 years of marriage. Isn't that amazing. And we still love each other, love doing things together, and love our family life!!! God is good!!! We had hoped to get away for the day, but as usual the $'s are not there when you think they will be so we will wait and save it for another day. I will make a nice steak and salad and we will snuggle up and watch a favorite movie ( it still sounds like a nice way to spend the day ) oh, yea, we will make our kids go to bed at like 8 so we can enjoy our evening - no naps for Emma!!! What should I make for dessert??? Hmmmm. any suggestions???

Well, I am off, if you remember pray for baby Colton he is 5 days old today. Pray he can leave ICU soon so his mom can hold him!!! Pray for Coleen, she is having surgery today on her jaw. Pray for no infections, and for a quick recovery. Thanks so much for your part in our lives here.

more projects accomplished!

Here are just a few of the things we have been busy doing.

I made jam again, so good to have enough to make it through the year with, by the time we run out we will be tired of Strawberry Jam for sure!!!

Scott built a bookcase, actually 2, a smaller one and this one. He found the pine planks, very rough, and sanded them down and put these together. He truly loves being creative with his hands. It was fun just sitting out watching him go to town on it. I held a board once in a while when he needed me.

I finished another quilt, this material was in my bedroom in Anapolis, but when we moved into the house, I made my room blue to hold all the nice pictures I had from our guest room, so then I knew I had to do something nice with the other material, and i made seat cusions for the dining room table chairs

This is my sister's finance, Jerry, I am getting very excited to meet him and see her with him. It looks like Laney and I will go, which will be very special!!! I found good tickets into Boston, and now just need to find a better price for our tickets to anchorage. Because her wedding is the 20th, it seems that all the specials are blacked out for her wedding week. GRRRRRR

Missions

I was so blessed today but the show I watched on Life Today (via the internet). It was Beth Moore talking about her book Voice of the Faithful a daily devotional written by missionaries around the world.
As she and James Robinson talked I was hit again by how precious you all are to me. How your part in my life is vital. How your prayers and support are a big part of why we can stay here.
Beth said " They're just ordinary people, just courageous" ( of course, I don't think of myself as courageous, but I know my man, Scott, is!!! He amazes me the way he tackles each project. and along that note please pray for him. As my trip is getting planned and my family is coming together to see if there is enough money to fly all of us five back to the states, Scott is hurting because why is there enough to spend on tickets but not for our support we need to stay in Brazil and provide for the things he needs to do his job - i.e. laptop, etc...)
James also said " That the missionaries wouldn't have been enabled without the enablers". That is what you are as you pray for us. How important prayer is!!! How important it is that you keep connected with us, and share with us your lives. It keeps us here. Yes, giving is important, but first and foremost is prayer.
James Robinson also said missionaries are "effective because someone else not only prayed but they connected with them" Yes, again that connection is vital for us missionaries. How much your love and support gives us the strength to go on. Thank you!!!!!
Beth continued "They count on a relationship with us as much as we count on one with them. They've got to know that we are there!"
This is so true. What is amazing to me is that you can send money and that is great. But what fills up our hearts without a doubt is when you write and when you pray. These are the things that give us the strength to continue.
So along that note. I just want to say thanks!!! Thanks for your friendship and your caring. It truly does touch our hearts. Please keep us in your prayers. Especially as Scott starts a new ministry here with the students - our future missionaries. For our trip home this Christmas, wisdom of who should go and how we should best spend our time. Yes, for our financial needs they are great, but more for Scott, that he would feel the support of our pastors and churches, friends and co-workers. Remember whether you go or whether you stay, we are all missionaries, and each one of us has a calling on your life, they are different callings but they all have the same goal, just like here on the foreign mission field we all have different jobs but we are all here for the same purpose to reach the lost for Christ!!!
Thanks again for all you do!!!

Zoo, movies and Asphalt!!!

Hey, why don't you sit and relax for a moment?? Take a lesson from this Tiger.

So where do I start?? Well first of all, we have heard that the pavers are in town, and there are strange sticks,rocks, etc. marking where to pave. So this alone is amazing. I haven't seen anything yet, but it is good news. Hopefully they won't run out of asphalt before they get to our street...

We took the kids to Brasilia yesterday, it was going to be our special day for the summer. The zoo was our first stop and we all enjoyed it. Who wouldn't on a perfect cool, but sunny day? It cost about $2 to get us all in and we spent more than that on popcorn, but who can resist fresh buttery popcorn?? Anyway, what fun! Emma really enjoyed walking around and seeing everything and never complained of being tired. She was just getting into it when we left a couple hours later.

Our next stop was a mall that is near all the embassies and they cater to kids that speak
English. We went there to see Kung Fu Panda ( we have never seen a cartoon in English in Brazil!). I wish you could have seen Jonathan's face when a boy there in our same room asked Jonathan where he lived. The look on his face was priceless!!! You can tell it had been a long time since we had gone somewhere and someone had spoke to them. Jonathan's response?? Can he sit with us? In other words..."if you speak English you are my friend"!!!
The movie was great! Yes, you could dissect it and find things wrong with it, but the truth in the movie was that we are all different, yet special, a message that never gets old. Packed along with lots of very funny and exciting scenes, it was a truly enjoyable experience for all, parents included. My favorite part... when the wise turtle tells the kung fu master " The past is history, the future is a mystery, but today is a gift that is why it is called - present" So true to remember!!

After all the fun we stopped at Walmart to get our usual cheaper groceries and packed the trunk full of milk, bread, sugar, toilet paper - you get the gist... Then we ended the day at McDonalds, the kids playing in the only playland I have ever seen in Brazil for about an hour, just great free fun!!! What more can you ask for in a day? We were tired but content after a long 2 hour drive home.

videos of Emma

Emma is growing so fast these days sometimes it is hard to believe how big she is. She does love to play and sing, a lot like her sister in that way, but a lot like Jonathan in her love to line up things and run.

Wow, july already

So here it is one more month and school will be starting, and I still have a list of projects I want to get to. I haven't even started the scrapbook projects I have been dreaming of, and I have a quilt and pillowcovers I want to make for the living room with some favorite material I used years ago for curtains. It is still nice material and it has been sitting in my sewing box since we moved out of our house in Anapolis.

I finished my first quilt. I was going to sell it but I can't, it is just too pretty, I think this will be Emma's (not that I will let her have it yet, but something she can take with her someday) This quilt has strawberry shortcake and holly hobby material in it. My friend Norma gave me a bunch of scraps on furlough and I have finally had time to do something with them!!

So today I will start my next project. I have a crick in my neck, but really it will feel better if I keep moving.

Yesterday was our Bible Study day, we studied the Approaching and Approachable God from the second part of Genesis chapter 18. I can still hear my Dad preaching a message from that passage like it was yesterday. ( I miss hearing him ) Anyway, it was a good study reminding me how much God wants to have a relationship with me, how He wants to teach us. And it also devels into the whole concept of the righteous and the wicked, and how he does care about the righteous. Even in verse 25 you see Abraham asking God "will you do what is right??" Can we question God? Yes, he wants us to go to him with our Whys?? !!

Summer break is nice just for this reason, to have time for a Bible Study. Beth Moore'r are quite involved you do a lot of homework, but it is rich and good. It has given me something to really dig into while I am free from the dailys of school.

Emma has been changing so much these days. Some fun changes and some that need some discipline. She just came in with her underwear for me to put on her, but then she did it herself when Dad said to put her skivies on. She said " They're not skivies, there jamies" In which I told her they are not jamies but undies. She said " they are not undies they are skivies." Yes, she is really growing up fast. She went and got her pants ( another thing we are working on, that she will keep herself dressed) and she got Laney's pants and put them on. Here she is ready for the day, and wearing her usual expression when you want a picture ( no smiles!!!)