Day 9

Today was by far the hottest day we have had to "endure" so far. Of course we have said that every day, but we did not get the big, beautiful, fluffy, rain clouds that pour down relief. Leslie's family treated us to one of our favorite eating spots called Emery's. They serve the best lobster, shrimp and stew beans. They have a hint of cocount in the beans, sounds gross, but it is yummy. After we ate, all of the shops were closed and we need to purchase a few things so we took a walking tour of downtown Punta Gorda until the shops opened. We ran into some friends and made plans for Wednesday.

Thanks for your prayers and good wishes for my back. I do have some relief, but not near as much as I would like. I still cannot ride in a car or sit down for long periods of time. That is really inconvenient since moving around in this heat is cumbersome. I am trying to be creative in how I arrange my duties of taking care of things at the Lodge and hanging out with friends. But, I am really hoping it will progressively get much better.

This afternoon I went to visit Noel, (Marta's mom). Our conversations are no longer superficial and I am learning so much about her when she was a young woman. The coolest thing that happened while I was visiting today was when we looked through her old photos. I noticed on one of the pictures, dated perhaps in the 1920's, there was a stamp from a Dubuque Iowa at the bottom. My eyes about fell out of my head, and I asked her if she was from Dubuque. She looked at me and said, "Dear my mother's entire family is from Dubuque!"

Some of you may not know this, but Kevin's hometown is Dubuque Iowa. From that point, she gave me a history of her mother's family and their roots in the same town my husband is from. Let me ask you, what are the odds of that? I am in one of the most remotest parts of Central America, visiting a woman who has traveled to many places in her life, now in the twilight of her life finds herself living in a bungalow, feeling so small in a difficult place to live. She is definitely pondering her life. Most days, she says that she is lonely and ready to die.

I do not think our meeting is a coincidence, I believe it is one more sign post in her life in which God is communicating to her that He knows her, and He knows where she is at both physically and spiritually. I am certain that our time together is to encourage her to know that her circumstances right now are not random, or an unfortunate end to a very exciting life. Rather, this time is a planned out, providential meeting, to reach out to her heart one more time. That is how much God loves her. That is how far God will go to reach us.

The next page is a group of pictures. A photo of Julianna and her new son, Juan. Our family and Leslie's family. They are leaving tomorrow and we begin our projects at TCA.