Machaca Road

Yesterday....Thursday, we were invited to have lunch with a family on Machaca Road. The mother's name is Santa, I was her son's kindergarten teacher. As the Maya do, she prepared a wonderful soup called "caldo." It is a thin broth, with hot peppers and spices with chicken. It is eaten with rice and a fresh corn tortilla spoon. We visited for several hours as Adam and Leslie talked to her daughters about their schooling and what they wanted to do when they graduated from high school. Not many girls actually finish high school here, so it was good for Florita, to process this with our kids. She brought out her school folder and showed her summer school work. She is doing very well.

Next week we will go back again to have lunch at her mother's Natividad's home.

After we said good-bye, we walked down the village road so that I could find one of my other students named Rafael. His mother Manuella, is a very beautiful Mayan woman with many children. They are called "pikni" here. Manuella was coming up from washing their clothes in the stream and she is great with child again. We chuckled as I reminded her that when I left she was with baby. We had a short visit as all of the pikni ran and hid behind the thatch. Grace could hear someone say in a very quiet voice..."Hi Gracie!" She looked around to see who was calling her name, and the giggles would start. They remembered her but are so shy to come and say hello. As we started back down the road, we heard another voice call out "ADAM!" Once again we stopped and Adam joined a group of men who were working on putting a new thatch on a neighbors home. The young man remembered Adam and asked where Andrew was.

We came home and I went for my nightly visit with Noel. I was there for two hours! The time flew by as we talked deeper and deeper about eternity, CS Lewis and The Lord of the Rings. Noel is a horticulturist by education and a naturalist by identification. Our views on eternity were vastly different, yet as I talked to her about what eternity means from a biblical perspective rather than a cultural perspective, she grew very quiet and pondered out loud if these things could really be true. I explained our time now as living in the "Shadowlands" upon which she offered her perspective of CS Lewis! One of her favorite books of his is the Screwtape Letters! Can you imagine that~

I reminded her that I would be leaving in six days and she told me how very sad that made her feel. She asked me for a hug, as I hugged her, I found the courage to tell her that I believed God specifically brought me here for her. I was cautious about saying this, as I did not want to sound arrogant or condescending. She received what I said and was very serious as she asked me why I thought that. I told her that God is so loving and is always reaching out to us. I expressed to her that He loved her, wanted her to know that she is not forgotten, nor is she alone. Pray for Noel! What a precious lady.

I came back to the Lodge to find the current was off and my family at the local cafe. I searched around for a flashlight and called the cafe to tell them to GET HOME! Kevin was able to get the generator to start and the lights came back on. All of the sudden each one of us let out a collective AHHHHHHH!!! The things that crawl out in the dark is something that we really did not want to contemplate. We had to call the grounds keeper to come to the Lodge and try to get the monkey spider off the wall. It was so hilarious, six people vs one very large spider and yet we were paralyzed with fear. Chris did not kill it, he shewed it away...we all went to bed a bit more weary and hoping that our cabanas were supernaturally protected from these creatures.

Julianna's Birthday Party

Today was a lazy day. Leslie's family left to fly home, but Leslie will be staying on with us. After we said our goodbyes we had a birthday party for Julianna. Their family came over to swim and hang out. She was telling us that Juan opened up his suitcase and looked at her and said, "happy birthday mom!" She told us that he is the best present she could have ever imagined. He had so much fun in the pool playing with Aaron and Grace.

One of the photos is of Aaron crawling out from under the lodge bushes. He, unfortunately dropped the van key in between the wood slats and had to crawl under, in the mud, with the bugs and whatnot. We think he is very brave!

pictures

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.

Oh My Aching Back!

Greetings! Well the good thing about being flat on my back here is I really have a good reason to just be quiet, listen to the rain, pray and read. Just read a GREAT book called "Same Kind of Different as Me!" I forgot the names of the authors who the story is about, their first names are Ron and Denver. Get it, you will be blown away by the true story of redemptive love.

OK, so any thoughts on how to nurse a potential bulging disc? I am being an armchair doctor, but from the web sites I have looked at, this seems to be my trouble. I am a tad better today because I was in bed all day yesterday, but as I get moving around, I am in so much discomfort that I have to retreat again with an ice pack and some ex-strength Tylenol. Our friends are getting to see so much though. Right now everyone is caving. I know the actual name for this is spelunking, but I am hoping that they are just looking at the cave and not actually venturing in too far.

Yesterday, our friends Julianna and Emerson came by with wonderful news about the little boy who has "adopted" them. They now have the green light to actually adopt Juan. He is an amazingly, happy, little precious Mayan boy. His mom dropped him for the day at the local orphanage and never came back. He woke up from a nap with strange people, a new language and a new home. He ended up going to TCA where Julianna became his pre-school teacher and of course, Juan fell in love with Mrs. Mangar! We are so, so very happy for them as they have wanted children for many years. They will have to jump a financial hurdle to get Juan legally. We are praying with them knowing that God has brought this little boy to them, and He will provide the money to have the adoption go through. I will get some more photos of them downloaded later. Since I can only sit for a short period of time, I have to measure the amount of time I am on the computer. It takes a looooonnnngggg time to down load anything because of the weather.

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Pictures?

I am not sure why but I am having a hard time getting any photos to download. Yesterday Kevin ran upon a 5 foot black and yellow snake sunning itself on the path. He yelled to Adam, his voice sounded peculiar, so of course we all took off running find him. By the time we got to the path the beautiful creature had crawled back in the bush!

Grace had a scare in the shower. There was a six inch, fat as can be, gecko on the ceiling. I told her that it was no big deal, geckos prefer the ceiling to the shower, ignore the thing and it will not bother us. Just then, the thing jumped off the ceiling and into the water at her feet. I have never heard a scream like that, blood chilling. Her brave face is now gone. I tried to get my camera but thought it was more important to get the gecko out of the shower. Hopefully I can figure out how to get the photos to download for you!