Many of my friends and family members have been getting onto me for not blogging enough lately, and I usually say I'm too busy. While this is usually true to an extent, it's not the only reason that I haven't been keeping my blog up. There are many great things going on in La Palma in the church. We had a successful evangelism campaign in the park last week and the American team is currently here for a medical campaign this week in the mountains. But parts of the work aren't going as well, and it's been overshadowing the good things I would normally blog about. The church, the people, the work, everything and everyone here desperately needs your prayers as we have been under attack. The following is the exact copy of what my dad posted on his blog earlier today, and I'd like to post it here for you all to see his words:

"As you are probably aware, I have not posted to my blog in several months. The explanation for why follows.

On February 18, 2001, I wrote a letter to all of my financial and spiritual supporters informing them of the incredible struggle the church is going through here in La Palma. I am including that letter here and a follow-up note below:

To my friends and family in Christ with concern and love for the work in La Palma:

Last Sunday, February 13, 2011, [NAME WITHHELD FOR LEGAL REASONS] was dis-fellowshipped from the Church of Christ in La Palma. Though his support was discontinued at the end of June 2010, [NAME WITHHELD] decided he wanted to be a preacher in La Palma even without financial support. He continued to preach 2 Sunday's each month and was responsible for the Wednesday night Family Meeting in members' homes.

In September (correction it was August) 2010, it was discovered [NAME WITHHELD] had taken, without permission, more than $500 of the money from the weekly offering, for which he was treasurer (that's over 30% of the annual contribution). At that time he said he used it to buy flour for his family bakery. Over the next several months many meetings and conversations were held with [NAME WITHHELD], the ministers here and the elders in Missouri, all with the goal of bringing [NAME WITHHELD] to repentance, reconciliation with God and the church, and repayment of the remaining money.

In January of this year, [NAME WITHHELD] and his family were told they would no longer be allowed to serve in any leadership capacity or in any worship or class time duties until further notice from the elders in Missouri. The Friday after this news was shared with the congregation here, [NAME WITHHELD] filed a claim with the Department of Labor suing the church for back wages from July 2010 through January 8, 2011 - in the amount of $2,181 and change.

After much prayer, discussion and wrecked emotion, a letter was read to the congregation here informing them of the decision to "Cortar la Comunión" (the Latin American equivalent of dis-fellowship) with [NAME WITHHELD] and his family. We sited the Biblical models of Matthew 1815-17, 1 Timothy 1:18-20 (Hymenaeus & Alexander) and 3 John 1:9-11 (Diotrophes) as well as 1 Corinthians 6:1-8 and gave examples of [NAME WITHHELD]'s behavior.

I am writing this now to let you know of this situation as you are in some way involved in the ministry here. Please pray for José and me as we continue to nurse the wounded and battle the consequences of [NAME WITHHELD]'s sin and as we try to keep a focus on the ongoing evangelistic efforts of the church here. Also, pray for my family and Teresa as we all strive to shine Christ in our service to the families in this area.

That ends the original letter. What follows is an update:

Much more work has gone in to combating the division caused by this man. The average attendance has dropped from the high 70s to mid-to-high 40s in just 3 months. He has continued, in secret, to meet with church members in their homes and in his – though since everyone talks about everyone else, it does not remain secret for more than a few hours. He has continued to spread lies about me, José, and the "Americans", and many believe him. He is a very cunning and charismatic man, and he is loved by most of the members of the church here and in San Ignacio. José and I continue to combat the lies with truth, but we find it difficult to convince the people about the severity of the problem.

The biggest problem is not the theft of the money or even the lawsuit against the church – though these are severe enough for our actions. No, the real issue is a seared conscience (as Paul talks about to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:2). The unmitigated gall of this man and his eldest son is truly astonishing. They exude brazen arrogance, having a total lack of humility (Philippians 2:3). Their passion for self-righteousness has torn down years of work in this community, divided families and nearly severed the fellowship of neighboring congregations. He has also spread lies to other congregation's preachers and even to the preacher school in the country's capitol.

When this man and his family ceased attendance and contact with José and me in January, we hoped he would abandon the struggles here. We discontinued the pursuit of the stolen money, and made plans for the year that included evangelistic campaigns, preaching, teaching and other works of the church. When we were served with the papers for the suit, it came as quite a shock. We sought legal counsel, and made attempts to convey the seriousness of the situation to the elders overseeing the La Palma congregation.

After several failed attempts to have this man drop the suit, our lawyer advised us to file legal proceedings concerning the theft of the offering money. José and I discussed this and prayed about it for a long time. My reading in Matthew 18:23-35 convinced me that this was a valid course of action. A debt had been forgiven and reinstituted when it was discovered that the forgiven could not forgive. Our lawyer advised this may motivate this man to drop his claims against us. This was unfortunately not the case.

Many of our days this year have been spent in anguish and fear (this man is ex-military and we were told he'd been known to display violent tendencies in the past). Whereas we used to look forward to Sunday most of all days, we began to dread it at the thought of this man and his family showing up. We had to make contingency plans for our children and talk with them about "what to do in case of…" as if we were teaching them fire drills. Erin, bless her heart, has handled it with much more maturity than a 14 year-old should be required to have. Nathan, as easy going as he is, takes it mostly in stride. However, both of my children have developed in ways we had not imagined for them during our time here. They have seen Christian behavior at its best and worst. They have taken on more stress than I'm sure I could have at their age. And, at times the bitterness and anger pours out of them. Though we try, Lori and I cannot hide our stress and anguish from them - they are after all intelligent people. With nearly 40 years of church-going experience as a preacher's son, "regular member", deacon, teacher, and now preacher/missionary, this is the worst situation I have seen.

The story is not over, though we have continued to hold out olive branch after olive branch. He and his family showed up this morning in La Palma for church services – late enough to be noticed by everyone as they all came in with a flourish – even though they had been asked not to return until all of the legal actions had been resolved. The work of José to wipe the legal slate clean is proceeding, and with great difficulty and much travel he and the lawyer are finally seeing agreement to end the legal processes against each other. We hope to have this, at least legally, behind us soon. This man expects all to return to normal once the legal proceedings are dropped, but as I said, these are not the disease, only the symptoms.

As you hopefully will understand, that is not all of the details of the situation. I could write a book on the subject, but some things are better left unsaid. Also, some things should not be shared. Perhaps I have shared too much already, but believe me when I say this is only the half of it.

The pain and injury caused to The Lord's Body in La Palma is far from healed. In fact, more injury will come before any healing begins. The struggle continues.

During the time we have been forced to deal with this situation, the rest of life did not cease, nor did we have an office to leave, work in files to resume the next day. This has been an all day every day situation. One from which we have been unable to find respite. At the same time, much else has happened as, for example, talking to a single mother (and church member) who continues to get drunk and get into fights in the street, sometimes leaving her young children home alone all night; and talking to a depressed and bitter mother of 3 out of suicide; a mother of one student assaulted one of the teachers by choking here – this mother is a church member we also had to talk to; we have had deaths; members jailed for gang and extortion activity; and much more that is to be reasonably expected when dealing with the growth of a young congregation.

We have had good, too. These are the things of which I used to blog with regularity, and I offer my apologies for letting my afflicted and perplexed spirit (2 Corinthians 4:8) to cast shadows over them. Let me be very clear, if you have ever doubted that Satan is real and desires to kill the work of Jesus Christ, I will be the first to confirm that he is real, for I have met his son.

All of this having been said, ask me how I am doing and I can still respond, as one of my favorite elders used to say, "Terrific, but I'll get better!" John 14:3."

Now, back to my own words. As you can see, we have all been very stressed out. It's showing physically. It's a tough situation to say the least, and I appreciate the prayers and support from my friends and family who have already been talking with me; more than they know. The facebook and text messages that you're praying for us, the Bible verses you've sent me, skype calls, everything. I love all of you, thank you so much. Please continue to pray for us throughout this whole ordeal; for wisdom to know how to handle things, patience, peace, and unity in the church. Not sure what else there is to say, but that's the excuse for not blogging enough.

Blessings always,

Erin <3

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

Really, it's only Saturday? It kinda felt like a couple weeks have gone by in just the past 3 days. Sigh. This has been one very crazy week. Where do I even start?
I guess it's only been quite this level of crazy since Wednesday, so then I guess.
A shipment arrived in San Salvador a couple weeks ago full of stuff for the church, the school, the orphanage, and whatever. Dad and 12 other guys loaded up into a couple big trucks Wednesday morning and headed to the military base in S.S. to put all the crates onto their trucks and bring them back up the mountain to La Palma. Meanwhile, we lose internet in La Palma. A little while after they leave, we get a phone call, and there's been some mix ups and they have to go somewhere else in that area. The internet comes back sometime that afternoon, and then we run out of water. The filters got clogged with dirt within two weeks, and no water had gotten to our tank. Look at the before and after of these:


So, snaps for Teresa who was willing to hop over the bars on the walk way onto the tank and take the lid off so we could run a hose into it! And thankfully, Anda water came back on Friday morning.

We got a couple calls from the guys like the first one, and they didn't end up getting back until 8 that night. By this time, it was too late to follow through with the original plan of unloading and organizing everything that day, so we just took all the crates off the truck and piled them into the compound and church building to unload Thursday.




Once Thursday morning came around, we all gathered in the compound and started working hard. The sun was pretty intense, too. Just look at the pictures.







A lot of the process wasn't just unloading and putting the stuff away, but the disassemblement of the crates. We had to take them apart and get the nails out. Once that was done, half the crates were given to San Ignacio members and the other half to La Palma. The wood is a great resource for them.

Here is one little table of toys. On the other side of the room were bags and bags full to give away to the sponsor kids here.


And here are some pics of the medical supplies. The little pharmacy room was jammed full of walkers, canes, crutches, and, of course, medicine. And the one of the wheelchairs is really only half of all the ones we were given. So. Many. Wheelchairs.



But, that was only part of the reason the week was so long. After all the unloading was done, Teresa, Mom, Dad, Nathan, and I went out to lunch to sit down and cool off. On our way home we stopped by the little ice cream place for a treat. While we were there, Dad's phone rang. He couldn't understand it and gave it to Mom. It was Andrea's grandmother, frantic, telling us that little Andrea passed away that morning.
Andrea was born with heart problems, and doctors said she wasn't a candidate for surgery. They said she wouldn't make it long, but she outlived their expectations. Two years ago, a team took her to the beach near San Sal as a "make a wish" kind of trip. Andrea was 7, and she was going to be graduating pre-k this upcoming Tuesday. She was excited about it, and already had her dress and little shoes and head band picked out.
When we got home, Teresa and Mom and I left to go to the vela with Jose at their house. Culture is so different here... The day before the funeral, they have a vela, where the body is basically displayed in the home with candles and flowers. She was wearing the graduation dress and holding her Barbie doll. People here take pictures of the funerals and the bodies, and people were snapping all sorts of pictures with their cell phones. At one point, they even brought out a hanging lamp to put over her to make the pictures come out better for everyone. Mom's blog has a better description of the whole experience Here.
Yesterday was the funeral. People gather at her house, and the casket is displayed in the back of a pickup and everyone walks behind it following it to the church building. At the church was the actual funeral. They sang all of Andrea's favorite children's Sunday school songs. Her Sunday school teachers talked about her, and even her grandmother talked about her. She said that the Bible tells us to always be thankful, and that even though it's really hard to be thankful in the death of a little girl, they were happy that God had loaned Andrea to them for these 7 years.
After everything at the church was over with, another procession to the cemetary starts. Again, the casket was in the pickup and people walked and followed it all the way there. A few words and songs were said and sung there, too, although we couldn't really see or hear from where we were. Please please keep Andrea's family in your prayers. It's a really tough time for everyone.
More to be posted soon!
Su amiga,
Erin <3

In our living room are a bunch of sewing machines used for teaching sewing classes. The sewing machines were mostly donated by people in the States. One of them is an old one that isn't electric. The kind that uses a treadle base. At first, we wondered what we would do with it because we don't have the treadle base or anything. Today, we found out what God had planned long ago. There's a family with four children; Ana is 12, Jonathan is 9, Ezekiel is 7, and Sarai is 3. Ezekiel has leukemia. They live in a house with no electricity, maybe one window, you get the idea. His mother has to take him to San Salvador every other day for treatment. Last year, her house was broken into. She had a treadle base sewing machine. The sewing machine was stolen, but they left the base. Today, she came over, and we were able to provide her with a sewing machine that works with it. She was so excited!


You know, God really knows what He's doing. Why don't we remember that more often?

While Mom and Jose and her were working on it, Nathan and I were going to hang out with her kids. They are soooo sweet.

Jonathan at one point asked me what my name was, in slightly broken English, and he liked showing me what English he knew. So, we got out an English/Spanish matching card game, and he loved it. His favorite new word to learn was "chicken". :) It was a lot of fun.



They were all so sweet, and their mother kept saying how she had been blessed by God. Anyone else think there's a lesson there? This woman, who has no electricity in her home, and whose child has leukemia, lives her life content with what God has blessed her with. It kinda makes me cry. We were blessed by their visit today. Please, please, keep them in your prayers. More to be posted later!
su amiga,
Erin <3

Alfredo is the brother of the mayor of La Palma, his sisters are members of the church, and he is Flor and Edith's uncle. This very short post is basically just a request for prayers for his family. The same night we went for the oranges, we saw an ambulance go by, which is fairly unusual here. The next morning we were informed that Alfredo had attempted, and failed, suicide, and was immediately taken to San Salvador to the hospital. We received information today that he did pass away this morning. Please keep his family in your prayers through this time, it's extremely appreciated. More to be posted soon!
Su amiga,
Erin <3

Another day of celebrations in La Palma! Today was the celebration of the signing of the peace papers during their civil war. It started in La Palma, hence the name and nicknames calling it the city of peace and such.

Anyway, a parade went through town this morning. The two older schools from La Palma marched. And then a whole bunch from all over, too. As a band geek myself, not even gonna try to deny that one, I like watching these kinds of parades and seeing the differences. There isn't the same kind of budget to have these bands sounding or looking like any similar to where I'm from. As a matter of fact, most of the younger schools and some of the older ones don't even use any instruments besides percussion. Another difference is their equivalent to color guard. There tend to be a group of girls with baton in each group. Then the actual band playing, and sometimes some people carrying country flags. Also, there are groups of students dressed in the "typical" clothing. Girls wear the dresses with the super long flowy skirts, and guys dress like farmers. That's about what the average school does. Some schools, on the other hand, go a little out of the ordinary and make it fun. For instance, having a dancing lion mascot.

The whole parade was a bunch of fun. Teresa, Mom, and I stood outside Lilian's for most of it. The street was supposed to be blocked off for the parade, but somehow a bus got through! It was stuck with no where to go. Eventually, after the driver had gotten out and talked to several officials and people, he started to drive on forward. The girls at the front of the parade were looking around and trying to figure out what to do if he kept going. Luckily, they didn't have to and the bus did procede to put it in reverse and go back down the hill eventually. A couple times we noticed some official looking people and cameras videoing parts, and we're kinda excited to see if we show up on one of the new El Salvador tourism videos! ;)

The parade route led all the bands to the soccer field, where they then competed. We went to the field for a while, but couldn't stay the whole time. It seemed like it might go on forever, and it was getting really hot and sunny out. Even though we didn't stay long, I have a sunburn. My neck, face, and forearms are bright pink. I've got one of those hard outlined farmers' tans from the t-shirt I was wearing. And the little lines on the top of my feet from my flip flops XD. But hey, the bright side? Maybe now I'll finally get the golden tan everyone expects you to have from living in Central America. Right, Megan? ;)

Despite the sunburn, it's been a great day. As always, thank you to everyone for the prayers. Please continue! Here's the SPECIAL REQUEST mentioned in the title. There is a medical mission trip happening here next March. We really need more medical personnel; doctors, nurses, etc. If anyone is interested, or knows of anyone who might be, let me know! More to be posted soon!
Su amiga,
Erin <3

A few hours ago (hey, that's an improvement from my usual "many days ago!) I posted about the independence day celebrations. The day afterwards was Nathan's birthday. We celebrated with Grandma and Teresa and had some cookie cake. He got to open presents that were brought down with the group that was here (in Honduras at the time), from people at home. And because Dad was feeling sick, he and Nathan spent the whole day putting his presents to use together. Nathan later claimed it was "the best day of his life" :)



Something else happened that morning, though, that I would really appreciate your prayers for. There was an accident involving a semi and a motorcycle. I'd rather not go into details or anything, but it left our friend Janixa a single mother of their adorable four year old son, Vladi. Please, please pray for this family during this difficult time. This is a picture of Vladi and his mother less than 24 hours before the accident:

Grandma, Mom, and I left after Nathan's celebration with Angelino and drove to Honduras. We started at Jorge and Gloria's house. They are always so hospitable and welcoming of people in their home. She fed the team a lunch of some sort of sea food soup. It was actually pretty good! Amy was sitting at our table and she got "the prize" as we joked with her ;)It's difficult to see here, but it was part of a fish.

Pretty soon, all the suitcases from the team were loaded into the van and we headed off for an afternoon in Guatemala! Just a little road trip. I'm still not over the fact that going to GUATEMALA is just a little road trip. Not that I mind ;) We took them to the big Catholic church and Black Christ statue that I posted about about a month ago. But this time, we got to go shopping afterwards! The vendors' booths went on forever and then some. We literally could not see where they stopped. Some were under a huge tarp kind of covering, and divided almost like cubicles. I bought a pretty neat (even if it's tourist-y) bag! I think I have a picture with it on facebook. It was funny to realize that even though the man selling me the bag acted like he spoke English, he really only spoke enough to try to get me to buy his purses. When he first told me the original price, I started to walk away. "How much to pay?!" I turned around at his way of asking how much I was willing to give him. Still unsure, he assured me that "Is nice! Is very nice!" I also got a chance to check out these neat little hats :D

I didn't get one, but they were fun. I absoluetly loved having the American team here. We were really upset when they left. After a teary goodbye, we are all already looking forward to the next visit! Thank you to every single one of you on the team for the gifts you brought, helping us out, and just making this week great. We will miss all of you! When the bus left, we all went home to enjoy some cake and a happy, "feel good" movie. Though none of us can remember right now exactly what. Thanks again to this wonderful team, love you all!

More to be posted soon!
su amiga,
Erin

Yes, I'm sorry Selina, I stole the name from one of your photo albums... But it's a good name. And plus, I can't think of anything that could capture all the stuff that's happened in the past weekend!
Saturday was a big day. There was a children's program meeting in the morning that Mom and Dad went to. While I was home with Nathan, Gloria called. She and Jorge and their three girls were in El Salvador for the day from Honduras, so we invited them to come over for some food and futball :D

We had a pretty great time with them. You know how I found out that tag here is "meeka"? Well we learned that in Honduras it's "landa".

Sidenote: After they left I watched "One Night With the King" on a laptop, and it was good :) I would probably recommend it.

Anyway, Sunday was a packed day. We had a surprise yesterday morning! Around 8:00 we were getting ready for church, when there was a knock at the main gate to the compound. When Mom went out and got it, Selena was standing there! She said, in Spanish of course, that she was all ready for church, and she had her offering and everything, and her mom had left to go sell some meat, so she just thought she'd visit us for a little while. She came in and had breakfast with us. Her coffee, she was sure to tell us, could have a little sugar, but her mom says not to put too much because it's not good for her. She was so proud to show us her money for the offering... Her mom had given her $0.20, and she kept saying 10 was for her and 10 was for God.

Ack! It's sideways... Oh well, you can just look silly and tilt your head. Otherwise, sorry. :)

After church we went to Gladys's house so her kids could play with Nathan, and she could visit with us. She took us to this amazing, beautiful, undescribable hill for the boys to run and play on. It was so great. You could see the whole city form the top. We took a lot of pictures on top... Too many to post here. You can check my facebook September album for them.

We came back and went to the normal teen classes at 4, and at 5 Jorge came and picked us up to go to Honduras. The worship services there are at night instead of in the morning. They are in the process of building a new church building, and the group from America that is coming down on Friday will be working on it. Until that is finished, services are held in Jorge's garage. They also had to knock out the wall from their master bedroom to the garage to extend it because they grew so much. After church I got a picture of me holding this precious little girl, Alessandra.

She is blind. She was born with fluid on her brain, and had to have surgery to drain it. They also installed something into it. Now she has around a couple seizures every day... And all the doctors know is to tell her mom to take care of her. She is so, so sweet. There is a doctor's appintment for her in San Salvador sometime in October.

Also, in regards to late doctor's appointments... We're asking for everyone to pray for Estela's little boy, Douglas. He is about 8 years old. They think he might have epilepsy. The sad thing is, when they scheduled an appointment for him, the closest they could schedule it was for next June. So prayers would definitely be appreciated for both of these kids.

I'm sorry my post took waaaaay too long get up this week. And last week. And possibly the week before that. But I'm going to start this post with last Wednesday.
As every Wedensday, we had services in someone's home. This time at the house of Marina, and tomorrow night is going to be at our place! We took a family picture before we left... And another on our walk down the long hill to their house through the rainy jungle...
We had singing and a lesson, as usual. And we had the coffee that they fix over an open fire... It's so good!
This Saturday was amazing. We had a work day at the compound in the morning. Volunteers from the church came with their machetes and stuff. They started cutting the grass with them, which is pretty impressive. Mowing with machetes, you would think that it wouldn't be a very good job, but it was actually very well done. We've had a big problem with these little ants that we call zombie ants, and Sonya traced them back to where they were coming from. She grabbed some ant poison and set to work. Here is my attempt at playing with the macro setting on my camera to show the ants taking some of the poison. There is another good picture of them that Mom took of them stealing food in my "Creepy Crawlies Of La Palma" album on facebook. I also had some fun sweeping and mopping with the twins... Maybe a little too much fun... Speaking of the twins, I'd like for you all to pray for their mom, Deyci. She stepped on a nail Sunday and it got infected, we don't know how bad. And after we had all finished working, we served everyone breakfast. It was a pretty fun day :) We had an English service tonight with Teresa, Jose, Norma, Marlon, Lilian, and Victor. It's really nice to be able to completely understand when you're singing praises. And a few minutes ago we had an... adventure. We were sure that everyone left after the services tonight. But when Teresa was about to go home, someone noticed a door open in the school. Thinking that something might be up, she stayed here for a little longer. They called Jose to see if it was worth being worried about. He called the police so they would just go check it out and make sure everything was okay. When they got here, Nathan and I stayed in the other room, but Mom, Dad, and Teresa said that watching them was like something out of a movie. They peeked around the corners and spun around with their guns text-book perfect... But nothing was actually up. We think the new teacher may have left the door open when she went home tonight. Other than that, it has been an uneventful, good day.