Sights, Sounds, and Customs Volume 5

Everyone here LOVES to wear tee-shirts, especially ones with English writing on them. We see tee-shirts with all kinds of American logos, and sayings on them, from Nike all the way to local college slogan shirts. Most people don't know the significance of the slogans or beer adds that they're wearing, all they care about is that it's in English. But today's English shirt took the cake!

A man and his wife were walking hand in hand as they passed by me while I sat with Michelle Dwyer in a mall food court. (Our families met at language school and we live only 25 minutes from each other here in Chile!) I don't know why I noticed this particular tee-shirt, but it was pretty neat looking. Maybe the word "Mom" or maybe even the word "cheerlead..." caught my eye. The shirt was kind of cool pink or mauve type color and the words were written in a bold blue. It said something to the effect of "Proud to be a cheerleader's MOM!" So this really GREAT tee-shirt was worn by the MAN!

Sights, Sounds, and Customs Series Volume 4

Driving along it's interesting to see people sweeping their front lawn. Yup sweeping. Here though because most people have small yards they have no need for a rake, so they just use what they had already. Plus a broom gets not only those leaves on the lawn, but the dust on the driveway and sidewalk too. I've notice in Latin America, but especially in Chile that the front of ones house needs to be neat and "clean." The watering of lawns is frequent here and the driveway and outside of ones home is usually immaculate.

Sadly, I don't fit into those standards. My kids play with their toys in the driveway and although we do ask them to put them away when they are done, sometimes it just doesn't happen. We don't water our front entrance because there is no grass and we're just going to drive over it anyway to park our car during the day. However inside, I try to keep our house neat and clean for when we have people over. I guess the question for me is about our witness. What do our neighbors think about this "gringo" couple who doesn't go to the same extremes (normal for them) that they do?

School Board Meeting in my PJ's

Yup! You read it correctly. I attended a school board meeting in my pj's! It happens to be school spirit week at Santiago Christian Academy where I am currently teaching a class of juniors and seniors, environmental science. Yesterday was Pajama day, so OF COURSE I went in my pj's, slippers, and robe with my hair up and a bit messy. Since I don't teach until the end of the day, I had to head to my meeting in my pj's. It was rather comical, when a teacher was asked to join us to answer a question we all had. After seeing Kelly walk by the room where we were having our meeting, I stepped out to ask her to come in for a moment. She responded, "I'm not exactly dressed for a meeting." To which I responded by stepping further out where she could see me and asking, "and I am??" Needless to say, her sweatpants and sweatshirt with slippers, was dressed up compared to my cotton pajama set.

Puppy

I've written about the WEIRD looking dogs that walk the streets here in Santiago, but last Saturday, I saw a puppy. I was walking back to the school campus where I had left our car to take the metro downtown. I had gone with one of my Chilean friends from church. Sandra and I were almost back to the school, about 1 block away, when I saw this little girl "loving on" a puppy. As we got closer, I asked the little girl if the puppy was hers. She told me no and then after closer inspection of the puppy, I realized that this poor puppy had been thrown out on the street to die or fend for itself. Well at less than 3 months old, this puppy was on its deathbed. SOOOO I called Doug and asked if we could bring her home. His answer was a hesitant yes, so off we went to the vet. Sandra was such a help in this new realm of Spanish conversation. The puppy didn't do well for the first day, but now she is doing GREAT! Except she, just like a 3 month old baby, loves to cry and fuss. Oh well, this too shall pass. Meet "Rosita Kiwi." We call her Kiwi.

Kiwi on Saturday after she had been here for 1 day. Check out those ribs! She's finally beginning to fill in. Now she's REALLY SPUNKY!!!

Hannah loving on our new puppy!

I bought Kiwi a collar today. I wish that they had a pink one available, but I just couldn't buy her a blue one. Afterall she is a female!

For now, we have to keep the dog, Chloe that we are "fostering" away from Kiwi, in case Kiwi has some kind of communicable disease. Chloe, who has been a mother to a litter of puppies before, hears Kiwi's fussing and SOOO wants to love on her. I can't wait to see them together. They'll be SOOO cute!!! The vet says that Kiwi should be about the same size as Chloe, but is a mix of German Shepherd and Terrior. I love it! I've always loved German Shepherds and labs, but never liked their size. We don't have a big enough yard to be fair to a big dog, so we had been looking into adopting a small or medium size dog. Chloe is a medium size dog, and hopefully Kiwi will be too!

Chloe our "foster" dog.

PRAY FOR TEACHERS!!!

Here in Santiago, we have an international school. It is run by ABWE and therefore finding teachers to serve falls to us. Currently there is a real need for teachers beginning this August. Without teachers to teach our young people, we are then asked to step in and teach. As ABWE missionaries, not having teachers for our school directly affects our ability to minister to nationals, not in the school sense, but in the church and evangelism setting. Since Heather is a certified teacher she has been elected to serve on the school board and it is truly difficult to see our kids go without a proper education due to lack of teachers. Therefore, although Heather is homeschooling our children, she has begun teaching an environmental science class at SCA. Doug also has been facilitating a class of economics for one of our high school seniors. Would you as a mature, Christian individual consider serving on the mission field as one of our short term teachers? If you as an individual can’t come, would you consider supporting a teacher who is willing to come?Regardless of what you can or cannot do, would you please pray that God would provide teachers for our young people? If you have any questions, please contact me!