New Things Every Day

So, it's been a week since I last posted. Plenty has happened since that time, and God has been blessing me every step of the way.

First of all, in honor of missing River of Life over that last few days, I decided to build a fence. I was able to finish most of the construction over a few days, along with some other smaller building projects, and it will help keep the kids at the daycare center out of some pretty nasty stuff. It really makes the play area look a lot nicer, and I must say it feels pretty strong. Just maybe it has something to do with some of that work I have to do every summer at ROL. Anyway, I'm happy that so much was able to get done, and now I just have to finish building a sandbox, which is going to be really big. It's definitely nice to have tangible results.

Another recent development has been Anna coming back home from Thailand. Right now she should be flying back from Tokyo. I know it was hard for her to leave, and traveling such a long way is always difficult, so please keep her in your prayers.

This past weekend was really busy, but it was nice because I got to spend a lot of time with more local people. Sunday was an amazing day. We met up really early to go to a Christian village that is about an hour away, in order to attend a service and meet a girl's family that we know in town. A Christian village is not something you will normally find here. We drove motorbikes through the mountains to get there. The ride was amazing because we rode through the mountains in nearly perfect weather. It was a lot more fun than traveling by bus. The service we attended was really great, and it was such an encouragement to see the church in such a new context. They actually had us come to the front to sing some songs, but I have to admit that I preferred there songs a lot more.

After the service, we went back to our friends' family's house, but so did pretty much the whole congregation. They swarmed around us almost the entire time. They filled baskets with flowers and arranged the girls' hair with them, they made a special gift of blessing for us out of bamboo leaves, which was really cool, they prayed over us, and they made a ton of food for us. I think it was the best meal I've had since I arrived. It was a great time of fellowship with local believers, which is something that you can definitely miss in this part of the world. Last weekend there was just the one family, but this weekend there was a whole village, and it was definitely a great time of rejoicing!

After we left, there was still plenty more to enjoy because we had another beautiful ride on the motorcycles left ahead of us. But, all that riding has its price, so when I got back, I pretty much passed out of exhaustion from the day...it was enjoyable but tiring.

Now, I am going to be spending the rest of this week finishing up some construction projects, working on a video for the team, and preparing for a short-term team that consists of two koreans and two malaysians, who will be here for about a week. I have part of the responsibility of leading their trip while they are here, so there is plenty to do, and I am excited about a lot of it. I'll try to keep more posted as it comes. God bless