I drowned last Sunday. Nathan did with me, too. I have the pictures to prove it. Confused yet? We acted out the story of Moses in Bible class. :) I was one of the Egyptian slave owners.

Nathan was Pharoh. Little Douglas was Moses. We started with him leading the rest of the class- I mean Israelites. They came to me, outside, to "borrow" the gold and silver and clothes. We had little yellow paper plates to look like gold and glued paper clothes and gold things onto them, along with a Bible verse. After they borrowed the stuff from me, Nathan-I mean Pharoh, decided to let them go. So they started walking through the church yard-I mean desert. But-gasp!-Pharoh changed his mind. So, I, as an Egyptian, began chasing them with the Pharoh. When they got to the hung up blue sheets-I mean sea, it miraculously parted for them! When the Pharoh and I got there, though, it closed up on us! And that's how I drowned last week. Wanna watch? Look:

I'd like to mention just how well our kids are doing in the classes now. We've gone from creation to Moses, and they know all of the stories. They know about Adam & Eve, Noah, Jacob, Joseph, they can say all the plagues, etc. They can repeat them every morning for us, and they're even almost all able to say the books of the New Testament. I'm so proud of how far they've come! :)

Blessings always,

Erin

Guacal is pronounced like "wa-call." It's a little bowl/bucket/dishpan sort of thing.But we'll come back to that later.

So while the group has been here, they've been going on medical campaigns up in the little mountain towns around La Palma. Las Cruces, El Gramal, El Guayavito, Mira Mundo, and Aguacatalito, for those of you who know the area. I didn't get to to go to El Gramal, but I went the rest of the places and helped with translating. We gave everyone vitamins and parasite treatments. They could also get medications if they needed it, and Melvin was making reading glasses for those who needed them; even if they couldn't read and needed them for something like sewing or cooking. A few pictures:

That was just a part of our adventures. And here is where "guacals" come in. While we were riding together in the back of our huge truck, we began talking about all the things we wanted to do during our time in El Salvador before we all moved back. Someone said the phrase "bucket list," and was promptly corrected that it was a "guacal list," because guacals are what are used for everything by everyone in El Salvador. And so, born were our guacal lists. During the course of the day, we were able to cross off many things. We visited the highest point in El Salvador; over 8,000 ft above sea level. (The air was too thin up there...) We mastered the art of making PB&J in the back of an EXTREMELY bouncy truck. With a knife! A couple of us shared a bathroom with a beehive. We sledded on dry ground with cardboard, on a mountain in El Salvador. We pulled a tree out of the ground with a truck. By accident. We tossed candy and toys and clothes out of the truck bed to kids like a parade float. And trust me, I could go on. But sometimes... What happens in the camion, stays in the camion. ;)

Blessings always,

Erin

PS: A few pictures following from the day :)

I'm so blessed to have a laptop with a built in webcam. :)

Skype has to be one of the most amazing things ever. I love being able to actually see and talk to my friends and family! (Have skype? Add me!) And those photo booth programs that make you look funny? Tons of fun. Especially for a couple girls who never would have even imagined a webcam.

Last night, Noemi was watching my facebook interactions over my shoulder, so I randomly pulled up the webcam and took our picture. She was anxious to take more, so I downloaded a free program with special effects. Just look at all the fun we had last night!

^^^ Tell me, how many of you have been in a Bible study with a pet goat? ;)

^^^ This is me with a couple of the Chuntrun kids near the springs.

The Bible study was really good, Jesus did a great job. I'm looking forward to more of this ministry this year. :)

Along with these, we found out today about a super exciting new opportunity we'll be taking part in soon, which I hope to post about tomorrow. Lots of new things this year! So, very late, I'd like to wish all of you a blessed new year.

More to be posted VERY soon, hopefully!

Su amiga,

Erin :)

My Aunt Lana and Uncle Mark came down last Saturday, and stayed here with us for a week! Well, technically they stayed in Teresa's apartment, since, as Jocelyn so sadly puts it, "Teresa se fue. :(" But we had a good time with them!
On Tuesday, we got a chance to go up in the mountains again and run a mini medical clinic in Cumbre de Gramal. The drive up was... It was something else!
We started driving up in the back of a pickup with all the supplies. And then kept going up. And up. And up. And up. And up. Get the idea? No? Okay, here's a picture.

If only a picture could literally capture how steep it was. Speaking of pictures capturing things... Just look at how well this picture captures the fear in my face as we crossed over moving water. Still uphill-ish.



When we got up there (finally!)we were greeted by these adorable little faces:



And several more. We were supposed to have the clinic and stuff at the school, but there were some miscommunications, and that ended up falling through. Thankfully, the sweet, beautiful old lady who lived next door opened her house to us.


So, we ran a clinic next to a huge pile of corn. There's a first time for everything, right?


There was a basic system of sorts. The people all waited in chairs, and when it was their turn they would go to the table and give their information to Mom. Then they were given medicine if needed, vitamins for everyone, and parasite treatments for almost all of them. We had everyone from 2-month-olds to 85-year-olds. The lady whose house we were at didn't even know how old she was, and gave Mom her I.D. to figure it out for her.


Daddy and Uncle Mark handed out bed rolls to each family that came through, too. I can testify that they will be put to good use. Look at this "bed". It is where 3 people sleep.


Every kid who came through was able to pick one stuffed animal, and a lot of the people received clothes.




If only it was possible to put everything from that day into one blog post. Goodness. There was baby cuddling, dirty feet, and hair we desperately wanted to brush all the little tangles out of.







On our way back down the mountain, we stopped by another little town. Don't ask me how, but somehow it seemed higher than Cumbre de Gramal, even though we thought we were going down the mountain. Everyone just gathered around the pick up, and we passed out a lot of the remaining stuff to them. I'd never seen anything like the way they all clustered around us for some vitamins and "peluches."



And after we left that town, Cumbre de San Jose, I saw the most beautiful view I've ever seen. The sun was setting and the view from up so high was breathtaking.
W. L. H.
Have I mentioned that lately?
We. Live. Here.
(If you're a facebook friend of mine you ought to look at the 2 recent edited pictures I posted!)

Everyone should be able to experience something like this sometime in their life.
More to be posted later.
Su amiga,
Erin <3

Bilingual. I'm not there yet. I'm getting there, slowly but surely. I can understand a lot of Spanish. Speaking it is a little harder. But, I'm getting better. Last Sunday, though, I took a pretty big step in my bilingual-ness.
I taught the kids' class by myself! For the first time. Without translation. Mom was there to help, and did when I got stuck, but I taught about Joseph's dreams and coat of many colors. Songs, the lesson, and a craft. Just look at the pictures.








So, there's my first class I've ever taught in Spanish. :)

More to be posted later!
Su amiga,
Ruth Erin <3

Have I ever mentioned how much I love the little kids' class I get to help Mom with on Sunday mornings?
... Oh, I have? Well, it's true. I love it.
I especially love when we get to do an activity at the beginning that they don't know has to do with a story, and then telling them the story and watching their eyes light up when they understand.
Last week was the story of Jacob's dream. One of the little boys, Douglas, was Jacob.



He laid down on a rock to go to sleep, and had a dream about the angel (Nathan) climbing up and down the ladder.



Douglas was a pretty good actor, too! When he had to act scared, he was pretty convincing ;)



This morning, we got to do a bunch of new songs with the kids, which I also love. I still have several stuck in my head, as a matter of fact. We taught them "Peace Like a River" in Spanish. That was a lot of fun because they loved learning the motions, especially pretending to surf for "love like the ocean", or "amor como el mar."

The lesson today was also about Jacob. This time about working for Laban for 7 years to get Rachel, and then being tricked and given Leah and having to work another 7 for Rachel. But, the kids didn't know what the lesson was yet.
We've been learning how to say the books of the New Testament, so it seemed normal to them when we offered them a package of cookies if they could say all the books up to Colossians. It wasn't too much of a challenge, because they were all written on the board, and their friends could help them. In fact, it was adorable to watch the older kids help the younger ones. They would say each individual word, even if it meant saying the "first and second"... wait for the younger one... "Corinthians..." Only in Spanish of course :)
But, when all of them had said their books up to Colossians like they were told to, they weren't given what they were promised. Mom "changed her mind." She said something about how even though she'd said they could have a whole package, she was only going to give them one out of the pack. If they wanted the whole thing, they'd have to say all of the books, all the way to Revelation. So they did. And then they got the cookies. But they didn't know there was actually a point to it.
When we started in on the story, the kids realized how unfair it was that Jacob didn't get what he was promised. That's not fair! And they realized that it was exactly like them this morning with their cookie deal. Faces like this are just priceless:



I. Love. It.

More to be posted soon!
Su amiga,
Erin <3

Happy (late) Thanksgiving! And happy Black Friday!
Being here makes me a little more aware of all the things we really do have to be thankful for.
For real. Electricity? Hot water? Or even running water, period, however sporadic it may seem to be on and off. And that's just the material stuff. But, regardless of how cliche it sounds, family and friends are the most important. Seriously, what would we do without them?? :)

PS: Blogspot has made some changes, so my followers have been changed! :O Now you can follow through Google Friend Connect, over on the side, though! :)