Wow! I had an insanely crazy, half good and half bad week last week. I'm just grateful that we're here, it's December 16th, and we all made it through to the other side just fine. The 6th of December, Andrew left for Germany, for a short one week trip. It was going to be a good week (as good as it can be without your all time favorite person), but challenges surfaced in every corner of life here. I don't deal with cockroaches--they are 3 inches long, fast, and way to clever. However, they decided since the cockroach killer, a.k.a. Andrew, was out of town that they would come visit us. UGH!!! I found myself some cockroach spray that you can use from 4 ft away--it's lethal stuff. They become almost completely paralyzed with in seconds of being hit with the nasty chemical. Now that Andrew is home, he just uses shoes again--much safer for all of us. I also had clicking lizards jumping off the walls behind my computer chair, flooding from a vicious tropical storm, my internet died an hour after Andrew left and didn't return until the day after her returned,which also meant that my VoIP phone was rendered useless. It was a very trying week. But, in spite of the bugs, lizards, isolation from the U.S., we managed to have some fun, as there were two American families visiting to check things out before they transfer down here next year. The girls and I had a blast showing them around, and giving them tips on where to shop, etc.

A new thing we started doing last week is jornaling our prayers and thanksgivings with the girls, so we could physically document how God answers prayers. One prayer we pray everyday is that God will send someone to us that day that we can help. God has gone above and beyond the call of duty, and blessed us with several people everyday. We have people coming to the house needing food, clothes, etc., and yesterday, we had a teenage girl that I've never seen in our neighborhood stop by to tell us that she thought our poodle had escaped. Our poodle was safely within our gates, but as it turned out what she really needed was to talk, a word of encouragment, and a few good hugs. It has been so exciting for all of us to see God answering this simple prayer. Today, we had a few phone calls from people needing encouragment and a mother with little children needing food and clothes. How exciting is that? We also have not had one single cockroach today--at least not yet.