Saturday, November 10, 2007

Busy Week

There has been a lot going on this week, some good and some not-so-good. Here are the highlights.

Sunday: We had a new visitor at our Bible study for nationals. Nora is a twenty-year-old college student who also happens to be a former neighbor of ours from several years back. She hasn't come to faith, but she is reading and asking questions.

Our study for nationals is from 2-3, and our home church for Americans starts at 4. The national meeting is always in our home and the American meeting rotates among our three families. That means that every third week, as soon as I calmly close the door behind our last national visitor, I have to rush like crazy to get the teacups all washed and finish up the meal we share after home church. This week, however, not only did we have a bigger mess than usual (birthday cake for Nora), our water storage tank was stopped up. So, our fellow church members were greeted by a huge stack of dirty dishes. (It wasn't really *that* huge of a stack, but a tiny kitchen makes a few dishes look like a mountain.)

By the time we had our meal, plus cake and ice cream celebrating yet another birthday, the pile of dishes was truly amazing. I did have plenty of help washing up once the city water turned on, and it was yet another opportunity for God to wean me off of my fantasy of being the "perfect" hostess.

Monday: This was an exhausting day, but a lot of fun. We put on a Thanksgiving dinner for our students. I was in charge of the cornbread dressing to begin with, but one of our coworkers hasn't been feeling well, so I offered to make the pumpkin pie also. Since that project came up late Monday morning and our dinner began at 5 at another coworker's home, I was thankful that I had already cooked and frozen several cups of fresh pumpkin.

The students (mostly) were good sports about trying our traditional foods. They did comment that having salty and sweet foods on the same plate was excessively odd for them. They also had never realized that North America was first settled by people in search of religious freedom.

Tuesday: To add to our tiredness from all of Monday's activity, Hannah Grace lost her last pacifier. I won't elaborate on our day, but it wasn't pleasant.

Wednesday: As always, we hung out at our English center from 2-8:30. I was able to have some good conversations with girls that I haven't had the opportunity to talk with before. Please pray that I can continue to get to know these girls better and have chances to share with them.

Thursday: This was our only reasonably quiet day all week. Randy had to pick up a visitor at the airport during the middle of the night, so we accidentally overslept. I did manage to start school almost on time.

Friday: Julie came down with a terrible stomach virus during school. It was an especially trying day because of our continuing water problem, plus there was a nearly city-wide electrical blackout for over 10 hours. Kevin and Randy were able to get away for a few hours to help teach the students about college football. They watched parts of the Georgia-Alabama game and all of the Americans brought along party foods. What a sacrifice!

How you can pray for us during the coming week:
  • Pray that Julie will recuperate and that the other three will not catch this--most especially the baby.
  • We need some time to rest and catch up on everything that has fallen behind last week.
  • A week from Monday we will host another student Thanksgiving dinner, this time at our house. Please pray for those preparations. Mostly, pray that it will be an opportunity to share the true basis of giving thanks.
  • Please pray that the city will begin to turn on the heating systems soon. (Yet one more reminder that this is a former communist nation.)

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