Clean Bill of Health

Well, I met with the doctor today and after many blood tests and analysis, I am at the right level of medication. I simply have to change when I take one of my pills, so as to spread out the hormon level throughout the day. Praise the Lord all is well!

I also have received clearance to visit Chile in November with the purpose of meeting with doctors and seeing the hospital where I would be taken care of to ensure and reasure me that I will have the care that I might need in the event of an emergency with Addison's disease. While there I will bring some things down to Chile so we don't have to transport them all over the states before finally getting them to Chile. This thankfully includes our beloved pet rabbit, Galatea. God is GOOD!!

Opportunities

God is SO good! We now have new neighbors! They are Costa Rican and they are WONDERFUL! They are actually catholic missionaries. They help couples in crisis with counseling care and run various marriage seminars. SOOOO when the opportunity to take them to a Christian couples seminar for them to hear the gospel and to gain new ideas and resources, I shared it with them. We are hoping and praying to take them with us to this weekend retreat which will be ENTIRELY in Spanish of course. We are SO excited!

Locks of Love

That was Th'hair!

This is NOW!

For the second time, Hannah has donated her hair to locks of love. August of 2006 she donated her hair while we were in the states and again just yesterday we cut her hair so that we can send her braids back to locks of love.

Saying Goodbye

We've said goodbye to various friends this week as another trimester ends and many of our friends have completed their Spanish language training. They are moving on to their mission country and we move on to homeschooling and tutoring for me. Of course Doug will contine to take classes at ILE. Here are some pictures of the closing ceremony of Caleb and Hannah's summer camp. I have short videos too, but they seem to be too large to get up.




Me and my friend J. She has been a GREAT friend here! I will miss her dearly, but I pray for God's blessings upon them and their 4 kids and hopefully more in the future, as they go to Peru.

My language class from this trimester. Annabelle, our maestra, Amy and my friend Tasha! Amy is heading back to the states and Tasha has one more trimester before their family leaves in December for Uruguay.

Eyes Anyone

A new fruit we found here that is actually a transplant from Asia. Kind of cool huh? You peel off the outer "skin" and eat the inside, but not the seed.

I GET A DIPLOMA!!

I am SOOOO excited. Because I came in with some Spanish, and the kids really need to have the stability of home life right now, we are going to homeschool this "fall/spring" (depending on the part of the world that you are in). I was a bit nervous because I was required to take the formal end of schooling tests, even though I will have a tutor and continue to progress this next trimester. But for the school administration, I was leaving, so they needed to evaluate me. Well, if you get in the advanced category of speaking and you pass their COMPREHENSIVE grammar exam, you recieve a diploma. I am officially an Advanced Low AND to my surprise I passed the grammar exam with an 81%. You have to have at least a 70% to pass AND I haven't even finished but 66% of what they tested us on. A MIRACLE FOR SURE from God!!! This will help with my graduate degree as well as I can transfer credit from here, to cover 2 of the "teachable" subjects courses that I need. YEAH! Also now that I will have an official diploma combined with my teaching degree that I already have, I can teach Spanish anywhere in the world! How cool is that!!!

You're Costa Rican right?

With Addison's Disease I have to take trips to the doctor and labratory rather frenquently until they have the correct balance of cortisol in my body. Well, because I had to get to the hospital and back twice yesterday, I had the opportunity to speak with 4 different taxi drivers. The first one really encouraged me, as he too is a Christian. We spoke of God's love and his need to be a missionary here to his in-laws and others that he comes into contact with.

The last taxi driver was very talkative as well. I got into the car and proceeded to strike up a conversation. I felt weird though. He kept looking back at me. Most taxi drivers here will talk to you "through" the mirror, but this guy kept looking directly back at me. Well, about 1/3 of the way home, he looks at me and asked if I was "Tica" or Costa Rican. I responded "No, I'm from the states." (So that's why he kept looking at me. He was trying to figure our my nationality.) At this response he was genuinely surprised and said, "but you speak SOO well! You've been here a long time then?" That's when I explained why we are here and that we've only been here for 7 months. What a complement to be mistaken for a national!!!

It's always a wonderful opportunity to share why we are here and that we are missionaries. Doug and I both have had the opportunity to share about Christ in our lives simply by taking a taxi and being open to where God leads the conversation.