Remember how I heard Francesca Battistelli's song while I was typing my last blog entry, and it was perfect? Today the song Yesterday, Today, Forever by Ryan Stevenson came on. The line repeated throughout it is:

"Yesterday, today, forever,

all may change but You will never.

Glory to Your name!"

I thought this was perfect for all the changes going on in our house with two new sisters! Changes for me, sure. For example: My brain is beginning to hurt from an even deeper level of Spanish immersion. I am now positive that I will be returning to the States completely fluent in my Spanish, just because of Roxana and Noemi. Also, I'm loving being able to just hang out and talk with my sisters. (I'm loving being able to say "hanging out with my sisters" almost as much as actually doing it!! ;] )

Thing is, though, the changes for them are a lot more than they are for me. They've never had electricity, never had running water, and tend to live on tortillas, beans, corn, rice, etc. My family, on the other hand, has always had electricity, always had running water, and almost never have meals of just tortillas, beans, corn, and rice. Because of stuff like that, their first day was very interesting.
Last Thursday they came over for the first time, with their mom. We were planning on going out to eat with them for lunch before school. Knowing that they never have choices, and not wanting to overwhelm them with too many choices at once, we decided we could go to Eric's for pizza.
Noemi, Roxana, and their mother had never even heard of pizza.
They seemed to really like it, though. After lunch, the girls went to school. Since they'd been getting over the flu, they went back home that night afterwards. We had the same arrangement Friday, too.

When their mom picked them up that afternoon, though, she was in tears. Her husband, Orlando, is very sick. The situation is pretty grave. We don't fully understand everything that's going on with him; some kind of palsy in his face, maybe? Possible even some problems with his mind? Regardless, we got them transportation to the clinic and hospital. I'd like to ask all of you to please keep him in your prayers. Things aren't any worse, but they aren't really better, either.

The girls' first full day here was Monday. The running water was so intriguing to them both. Roxana asked me how it was able to come out and shut off so quickly. In the kitchen sink, there's hot water, which was even more interesting to them. And the microwave we used for lunch? They'd never heard of such a thing, were completely entranced at first. To start off with something simple, kind of ease into things, we had what we call Rapiditas for lunch. (Mom has a blog about them here.) During this, we talked some with them about other foods. Neither of them had heard of peanut butter, and one had heard of hamburgers, but neither had tried them. So many simple things to us, Noemi and Roxana had no idea about. Since then, we've tried to go slowly on introducing new foods. Chicken sandwiches, soup, stuff like that. I'm kind of excited at the prospect of them showing me how to cook the typical El Salvador foods!

Another new thing for them is a shower like we're used to. Since most people don't have running water, people use bucket baths or sponge baths, etc. A shower like ours was a little interesting for them to grasp, I think. They caught on to all the changes quickly, though. They're both adapting pretty well, actually. School is going well, too. We found out that my friend, Yoselin, is their cousin! Here's a picture of me with the two of them and Yoselin.

Roxana and Noemi and I ended up watching a couple short episodes of the Penguins of Madagascar last night before we went to bed. I think they had a lot of fun with that. I know I did! :)

I'm really enjoying having them here. Yeah, it's different. Yeah, there are so many changes taking place in everything we do. But, the verse that Ryan Stevenson's song is based on, Hebrews 13:8, says

"Jesus Christ is the same

yesterday and today and forever."

Lots of things change. I definitely know this. In less than a year, a whole bunch of new things have taken place. New country, new language, new friends, new sisters... But one person will never change. :)

More to be posted soon. Love,

Erin

I told you that I'd keep up my blog better this year. So, here's a quick little update. :)
My new sisters, Chana(Roxana Elizabeth) and Mita(Ruth Noemi), have been sick for over a week now and can't make it here today as was originally planned. They will be coming to school tomorrow and Friday, but only for school. They'll start staying nights with us on next Monday. I'm excited to get to know them!
There's been a lot of furniture moving and stuff going on. What was Dad's office is going to be their room, and we've got a set of bunk beds, one of the wardrobes, and some various shelf space and desk-chairs. We also had to purchase some new shelves and clothing storage for Mom and Dad, since what was theirs stayed in the room. We've put up a new shower curtain thing, too. Ought to be interesting since the girls don't even have running water...

Anyway, we had a pretty busy night yesterday with a lot of people visiting and lots of things happening at once; including a leaky pipe, the furniture delivery truck, connection issues with the institute's online classes, visits from a couple families, several important phone calls at once(Seriously, I saw Mom on the cell phone and the home line at the same time. In Spanish? That's some mad skills right there.), you know- just the usual. All in the time span of about 15 minutes.
Isn't it comforting to have a God we can depend on through everything like that?
As I was typing this, Francesca Battistelli's newest song "The Stuff" came on my online radio station. Click Here to listen to it. She starts off mentioning some of those little every day things that really start to get to us; losing keys or phones, speeding tickets, ya know. But I really like her lyrics in the chorus:

"In the middle of my little mess, I forget how big I'm blessed.
This is the stuff that gets under my skin, but I gotta trust You know exactly what You're doing...
So break me of impatience, conquer my frustrations, I've got a new appreciation, it's not the end of the world...
It might not be what I would choose, but this is the stuff You use."

In the middle of my little mess, I forget how big I really am blessed.
More to be posted soon :)
Love,
Erin :)

Random fact of the day? Coconut milk is clear! They actually call it "agua de coco" which would be coconut water... Who knew? Haha, we bought a freshly picked coconut on the way here from San Salvador, and the hotel chopped off the top and brought us a glass of it with breakfast. I don't think any of us actually liked it...

After we finished breakfast, Ruth (no, I am not talking in third person) helped us get the rest of our stuff from the hotel to our new place. She took Mom and I shopping, and we left Dad and Nathan to get some stuff situated at home. Today was my first experience in the market! It's kind of inside, but kind of outside. I'm not sure how to explain it. There are tons of tables inside, piled high with fresh vegetables. Others have meat, cheeses, beans, whatever you want. What I was most excited by, was the huge boquets of flowers, like my personal favorite, calla lilies. These gorgeous bunches of flowers that would be really expensive in the States, are only a dollar! I bought some calla lilies. A boquet of 13 freshly picked calla lilies for one dollar :)Here they are on our kitchen table:
Don't you love the fancy vase they're in? ;)
And we almost made it through our whole shopping trip before the weather came in. Guess what we got more of today? Yep, torrential downpours. I seriously don't think there is a single dry thing in the whole city. It was raining so hard I couldn't see out the window, and I could hardly hear myself think! lol
We had a singing service at the building tonight. It's impressive how many of the people will walk all these hills and stuff in the pounding rain for miles to come to services. And it's amazing to hear them singing out praises so loud, regardless of how they sound. :)
We're finally moved into our house, and I have a bed to call my own, with a new woven blanket we got at a little tienda near the market... I'm heading there soon :)
More to be posted later!
su amiga,
Ruth Erin

Yesterday I said we were planning on moving the beds in and doing grocery shopping. God had other plans! While I was typing, it started pouring rain. Like, seriously pouring. Thunder and lightening like crazy, too. Torrential downpours, as Mom called it, are not good for walking the market or moving furniture in trucks. We instead had a fun night consisting of travel Scrabble over dinner, and a movie on the laptop in the room. :)

Today was not any more dry than yesterday. It started out alright, we went to worship servicce and saw a lot of friends I hadn't seen since... 5th grade? I felt bad that I couldn't speak as much to them as I wanted to. I'm really looking forward to Spanish lessons!
When we got back to the hotel from lunch, the plan was for Romeo and Mauricio to come with a truck to get our luggage and the beds/wardrobes. When we planned this, it was hot and sunny. An hour or so later, before he was supposed to come, guess what started again? More torrential downpour. He showed up anyway, and with help from some plastic tarps we were able to get the luggage there. Dad, Nathan, and the guys went to go get the furniture. The bunk beds came in ok, despite the rain.
The wardrobes started to. Now, these arent' just little wardrobes. They are for the orphanage once it's open, but we are using them till then. Seven feet high, 5 feet wide, and 2 feet back. They made it through the door, but there was just no possible way to fit them into the bedrooms...
They plan on coming back tomorrow afternoon and possibly cutting them down some to fit.
After they left we headed to Reina's house/tienda for pupusas... :D
They were so amazing! The least amazing part of the day was the rainy walk home, though. It actually made it cold. When we got back to the hotel, I wrapped up in a blanket and hung out in the hammock for a while. We went to the hotel restaurant and got to see Isabel, back from her break. I got some vanilla tea stuff, and it was wonderful. It warmed me up, too lol. Nathan and I relearned how to play hearts with the fam during that. We're all back in the room now, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow night when we can sleep in our own place!

By the way, this is the view out one of our windows... and this is on a cloudy day, you should see when it's clear! :)
More to be posted later!
Su amiga,
Ruth Erin

A lot of shops and market stands on the street here sell things that we know are not really Abercrombie, American Eagle, Aeropostale, or whatever the tag may say. Some of my friends may remember my pair of "Chuck Laylors"? ;) But the people here don't really care a whole lot about name brands, so it doesn't matter much. This one shirt in particular just made me laugh, so I wanted to share... One way to tell when you're being ripped off? If it says "Hollister and Fitch"... :)
But after the market place we were able to get all of our furniture ordered. When we got back to the church/school compound we're living in, we realized we didn't have the key to open the big gate to get everything through. The only door that opened to it was a little door to walk through. The first thing to come through was matresses. We figured, correctly, that it would be ok for them to fit. The next thing was the couch... not so simple, we thought. When the truck arrived with them, we realized that God had totally been guiding us to pick the one we did: one with a really low back. Guess what fit just fine? :) Last came a refrigerator, which was probably the most difficult, but since I had fallen asleep on the new matresses I can only go by other people's accounts lol. Apparently, we had chosen correctly on the less wide one, too.
We're at the hotel again right now, we're hoping to get the beds in to our place tonight and be able to move in tomorrow. Mom and dad have "jugo de pina", I have some rasberry tea, and Nathan has an ice cream sandwich... No classes tonight, so we should just be busy getting groceries and moving the beds in.
More to be posted later!
Su amiga,
Ruth Erin

So, yesterday was our first full day in El Salvador as a family- wow!
I'm not sure where to start... I guess I can actually start from Wednesday when we left. Saying all of our goodbyes over the past month has been really tough. Wednesday at the airport was no different. I'm going to miss everyone a lot. The flight itself went well, and all of our stuff made it, too. This picture is to prove to Jenna that I followed through on my promise to take Jo Jo on the flight :). We stayed at a hotel near San Salvador when we got there. It was beautiful; the weather was great, there was a pool and palm trees, and we had all sorts of great fresh food for breakfast. But yesterday was the fun part.
Ruth and Angelino picked us up in a van from the hotel and we headed to the beach! It was pretty, and we saw a lot of neat things on the shore- lots of shells, and I even found a starfish. When we left the beach we went for lunch at a place where the seafood we had could easily have been swimming shortly before... here it is:
When we drove through San Sal after lunch, we saw something really funny. A huge tanker truck thing, like the ones that carry oil, was full of molasses. It had apparently leaked and was spilled all over the streets, several inches thick for about a mile! Cars were sliding in it and sticking, and other cars would spray it back onto the ones behind them.
The prettiest part of the day, I thought, was the ride from San Sal to La Palma. The mountains are gorgeous, and we were in such a high elevation that we drove through the clouds! And now that we're are up in the mountains, it's actually pretty cool. From what I'm seeing on facebook, Missouri is pretty hot and humid right now, so this weather is really nice :).
Today we got to see the place we will be living. What is going to be a children's home/ orphanage thing isn't open yet, and we're living in that until it is. It's actually pretty nice, except for our welcoming visitors today: Several big spiders and a couple lizards... :P
We shopped around for our furniture for a little while, and got to visit this really cute little coffee shop with pastries and stuff. Right now we are back relaxing at the hotel we're staying at until our place is ready. Mom took Nathan down to the pool, and Dad and I are sitting outside listening to all the parrots talk, :)
If you noticed by the title, I am going by my middle name, Erin, while we are here. In Spanish, Ruth is just Rut, and I like the way Erin sounds in Spanish better. It's not uncommon here, though, to randomly switch which name you go by; some people use a couple different ones, even.
More to be posted later!
su amiga,
Ruth Erin