Birthday Week

This has been a great week with work and new gringos, and it has also been birthday week! Laura turned 17, Tobin turned 3, and I turned 26 (yikes). We had some celebrations and a lot of fun. Also, gringo food, which might be the highlight birthdays these days.

I miss being with my family, of course, but I am reminded (often, but especially occasions such as these) that I must be THE luckiest human to have such an incredibly amazing family at home AND to have formed such a loving, fun, and real family here in another country. 

God has been good to me. That is an understatement.

AIMers

Last week, a new group of gringitos arrived that will be joining us for the next year or two-ish. (I'm very confused about the amount of time that they will be here... Apparently 14-22 months). 

This is blurry. It's from the Ipad. It's the best I can do.

There are 8 of them, ranging in age from 18-24. They are with the organization Adventures in Missions, hence the term AIMers. They went through a training program with classes and such and are now serving as "missionary apprentices". 

They're going to be helping with several ministries, including helping to initiate a college-aged ministry, involvement with our already existing ministries, and more. For now they're getting moved in, adjusting to life, and are taking Spanish classes. 

In order to kick-off their time here the MUR gringos and AIMers went on a retreat to Gracias, Lempira. We stayed in a hotel and had sessions to worship together, review their contracts, and fill them in on all of the MUR inside info they will need to know. Then, of course, we went to the zip-line just for fun. (Although I am absolutely positive that they did not all enjoy it). It was a great chance to bond and begin getting to know one another.

Can't you see the enthusiasm oozing from their pores?!
Can't control it. They love it here already.

I'm excited about getting to know them and work with them over the next months. It is fun to have more people with whom we can speak English.. But honestly I'm equally excited to have some new minions to carry my heavy boxes and things:).. I'm sure it will be quite helpful during this busy summer to have some extra hands around. 

(I realize y'all are probably going to read this.. Love y'all already! Not just excited that y'all will help me with my dirty work.. But it doesn't hurt.)

It was also Laura's birthday! Happy birthday, niña!

Spring Update

Alejandro came to visit!

Sometimes I'm terrible at writing posts and keeping people updated because the stuff I'm doing really doesn't seem interesting enough to write about.. Sorry, Mom!

The last couple of months have been filled with preparations for the summer, a VCOM group and a handful of visitors, a little vacation time (Holy Week), and some quality time with the girls. It has, of course, been somewhat busy, because who isn't busy all the time? But in comparison to the next several months it has been the "calm before the storm" and I'm really trying to take advantage.

First of all, there was VCOM. Went pretty much the same as those weeks always do. A few challenges, but in the end everything went pretty well and we saw probably about 500 patients. It's always fun to have them around.

Then, there was holy week. Everything shuts down in Central America for the week, so we had the week off. I thought I would keep working just to get ahead, but I ended up actually taking the week off and it was marvelous. Spent a LOT of time at the Stacy's house playing games and spending time with our co-workers, and it was a much needed break.

I also used the week off to spend some time with the girls one-on-one. It's something I don't get to do as much as I would like, so it was nice to have a week where they all had time off.

Now we're all busy getting ready for the quickly approaching summer months! The AIMers get here next week and the interns sometime after that, and soon after we'll have groups every day for 2 months. I'm looking forward to it!

Dama teaching someone to write

Dama and Stefa refusing to leave the Waldron's

Yeni and Alejandro

Oh, just my favorite crazy Iris (Karol's mom) and Merlyn Laura