God's Many Blessings!

We have been enjoying our time with a team from Calgary - the Calgary Vietnamese Mennonite Church young adults group. They have been wonderful to work with. We have had the privilege of doing children's ministry in a remote mountain village - Bem Peq (sp?). It is just over the hill 30 minutes from one of our schools and they speak a completely different language there.

The first day we went up, there were about 50 children and a few adults. The team did crafts, played games, sang songs and I told a story. The pastor of the church we were working in said, before we began working with the kids, that it was his desire that these children had some fun. He said life was not fun for them and he really wanted them to enjoy themselves. Well, after the first 30 minutes, there wasn't a person there who didn't have a grin on their face. The team did a great job loving the kids and playing with them. Just as we were packing up that first day, the sky opened up and we had a torrential downpour. We had taken the 2 vans and the Toyota Land Cruiser (4x4) with a winch, as the road was a little sketchy. We made it down, but it was pretty crazy.

The rain continued through the evening and didn't let up until well into the night. The river beside where we live almost overflowed the bridge and our yard and house flooded once again! We knew the road up to Bem Peq would be a mess, so we hired a 4x4 truck and used the Toyota Land Cruiser. It was quite a journey! In places there were crevaces at least 2 feet deep where the rain had washed away the gravel and dirt. Other places were a foot deep of soft mud.

When we arrived at the church on day 2, there were about 80 kids and some parents there. Our numbers were growing. We again enjoyed our time with the people of this small village. On our last day, there were well over 120 children plus probably 40 adults! The team had taken up a love offering for the pastor and his family and presented it to him. He was touched by the team's generosity. The amazing thing is, this team really didn't do anything super extraordinary - they just shared the love of Christ! It is so simple! And by doing this, not only were the people of Bem Peq blessed, but the team was blessed as well.

The church prepared a huge meal for us to say thank you. We ate with mixed emotions knowing how big a sacrifice this was for them, as they probably don't eat meat very often and to buy enough food to feed us all cost them a great deal.

I am so blessed to be able to participate in these kinds of activities. I don't know why the Lord chose our family for this work, but I am so thankful. I cannot think of anything I'd rather be doing.

Thank you, Lord!

Karren

All dug up and no where to go!

Our yard is all dug up! Ever since we had that big storm back in April, we have had trouble with our drainage system - the sewer drainage! It kept wanting to back up into the drain in our carport and finally things were just not going down any more. Rocky and some of the guys here did some investigating and discovered that the problem was not with our house, but with the municipality. Sick...everyone knows it takes forever for the municipality to do what you need them to do! Our guys began digging in the lot behind our house. Our sewer drains underground across that lot and dumps into the stream. They had been bringing in a lot of fill into the lot over the past three weeks to level it out for development and I guess in the process they crushed our drainage line. The municipality was simply going to dig up the old line and put a new one in, even though they are continuing to bring in fill with big dump trucks; our line would just crush again. That is when Flore stepped in. She is such an amazing person. She knows everyone and everyone likes her. She called the "big boss of the entire municipality" and he started to get things moving. They agreed it was better to run a new line out the front of the house and tap into the city system, than replace the line in the back lot. We thought this was going to be a really lengthy process - weeks - but thanks to Flore's influence, the city guys started working within the hour and came this morning as well (Saturday!) to cut the concrete in the street to open up to where we can tap in. Rocky had 8 guys digging in the backyard to make the trench for the pipes and we are halfway there! Tomorrow is Sunday, so we won't make any progress, but by the end of Monday, we should be good to go! Thank you, Flore, and thank you, God!

3 months!

Well, we have been here three months. It feels like we just arrived and like we've been here forever, all at the same time. I don't know how that is possible, but it is. This weekend we renewed our visas, and decided to take 2 days and go to the beach at Puerto San Jose on the Pacific coast. We used the Toyota Land Cruiser that Lee Gardner and company brough down. It is always fun to get stopped by the police in this jeep because of the right hand drive. They laugh so hard when they see it, they forget why they pulled you over in the first place - sometimes a good thing! Although the weather was stormy, we enjoyed our adventure. The beaches were black volcanic sand. It was really different. It was also a good opportunity for me to practice my Spanish in San Jose, as no one spoke any English. Whenever we are in a place where I am forced to communicate, I find my abilities increase. I think I need to be forced more often if I am ever going to get a real handle on Spanish. I keep praying that the Lord will enlighten me in my sleep and I'll wake up fluent! I think, however, I probably just need to work harder at learning and practicing!

While in San Jose, we found a juice box with our name on it. In Spanish, Chupa is a conjugated form of the verb chupar which means to suck or lick. We get a lot of funny looks when we say our last name, so for the most part, we don't! We are known around here as Hermano Rocky y Hermana Karren. That is the safe way to be introduced. We have officially started the rainy season here and it rains almost every day. It is still warm during the day, but most nights end with a rainfall. It is actually a really beautiful time of year because everything is lush and green and grows like crazy. It does make laundry very tricky, although. You have to get it done first thing in the morning and then get it out on the line right away. Then, in mid afternoon, you have to remember to take it all in, or it gets soaked in the rain and you are back to square one. Tonight, I missed it and all 5 of my lines are full of clothes out in the rain! Oh well, tomorrow is another day.