Loving and Letting Go

Father's Day is on Sunday and I have a pretty great father. Mainly since going to college and having discussions with friends have I realized the extent of the impact having a good dad has had on my life. He has always loved me, supported me, challenged me, and given me such a variety of experiences. He has always told me, and still tells me, that he loves me and is proud of me. He holds me close and lets me go.

As kids, he told us "Alley stories" in the woods and took us to see the "Woodsfairies" by the creek. He built a 100 foot waterslide on our property -complete with water pumped from the creek, industrial padding and plastic, and a pool at the bottom. Redneck, but so much fun. We rode the tractor with him, picked and ate cherries from the trees in the pasture, built fences, and fed our farm animals. He bought us baby calves that we bottle fed and raised, brought home box turtles from the side of the road until they took over our chicken coop. He bought me a mule that we hitched to a wagon and rode in the 4th of July parade every year. He made tree houses and forts in the woods with my sisters and I. He filled our "schoolhouse" barn with classroom desks for us to play "school" and let us keep the stray cat who had kittens in the barrel in the corner. One year we picked up pecans, bagged them, and sold them at the intersection near our house. There were a few years we loaded up the baled hay from our land, advertised, and sold it (I drove the truck pulling the trailer at around 11 years old). One night we all got up at 3am to drive out in the middle of a field to watch a comet streak across the sky.

(**Disclaimer: He also spanked me and made me pick up sticks in the yard so he could mow the grass and got mad when all of us girls had no clue what he was drawing in Pictionary. But, it's Father's Day, so I will give him a break on those stories.)

My dad took me on birthday dates, went with me shopping for a formal dress, and bought me nice jewelry for significant birthdays. We danced in the kitchen to The Drifters. While running errands we stopped to get homemade milkshakes and didn't tell anyone else when we got home. We learned about constellations at a series of astronomy classes held at the local university. He took me on a business trip to Williamsburg, Virginia where I hung out in the hotel while he went to meetings and we went to Colonial Williamsburg when he was done. He taught me how to look people in the eye and give a firm handshake. He bought me a car the summer before I turned 16. As it has gotten older, passed 300,000 miles, and had some "minor" issues arise, my family members have given me a hard time about my attachment to the old car. But mostly dad just provides sympathy (slightly sarcastic though it may be) for their comments and replaces the battery cables or has the tire plugged. I hand him the tools and find the screws that fall under the car.

When I wanted to be a sociology major in college he wouldn't let me. Turns out that meant I found something I liked a lot more. When I wanted to go on a mission trip to Ecuador after my 9th grade year he said he'd think about it. He signed the papers when I gave him the already filled out paperwork a day later. When I woke him and my mom up at 12:30am two days before my high school graduation and told them I decided to go to Baylor, he had me wake up the rest of the family and we went to Waffle House at 2am to celebrate. When I went to Kenya he told me he'd recreate the movie Taken if he needed to. When I told him I agreed to date Cody Sherman he said he was disappointed. He soon called back to apologize and say he was always proud of me and he was only surprised I found a guy I would say yes to.

Especially when driving, my dad always gives commentary on life - driving skills, the difference between men and women, successful business ideas, church dysfunctions. He has told me to invest in retirement early, that nice things aren't that great if you never use them, and that you can live a life of fear, or take chances and live a worthwhile life. He explained to me the stock market and taxes and why paper mills smell worse when it rains. He tries, awkwardly sometimes, to ask me about my relationship with Cody. Regardless of my answers, he always responds with relational advice. Usually his life advice and commentary are valid. But he has also taught me to think for myself and I feel free to form my own opinions, and frequently exercise this freedom.

Obviously, with the coming marriage, our relationship will change and grow in new ways, but I will always have these memories, and will always be my daddy's little girl. He cried when he left me at Baylor and I'm anticipating more waterworks as he walks me down the aisle in a few months. But, when he gets to the altar I know he will pass my hand. Because while he often holds me close, he always lets me go to pursue great things.

Life with my dad has been an adventure. And a story. And there have been lots of Character Developments along the way. Here's to dad, and to more of all of the above.

Location, Location, Location

We have a wedding location!!! Yay! This has been the most difficult part of the wedding planning process so far. It's obviously one of the first decisions, so I don't have a lot to compare it to, but I think in the end it will rank towards the top. The main problem has been that I am 7 hours away from where I'm getting married and churches in east Tennessee don't always have websites, and when they do, there aren't pictures. Also, churches around Benton are small. Like 100 person capacity small. And churches with 100 person capacity expect about half of that to show up based on the size of their parking lots. Also, I really wanted an outdoor reception. So, I needed to find a church that either had an outdoor area to have a reception, or was close enough to a place for an outdoor reception.

We looked at every church in a 20min radius of our house. It's the Bible belt - that was a lot of churches. Mom, Shannon, Cheryl, and I went driving on a Sunday afternoon. We stopped at every church we passed. We peeked in windows, tried locked doors, met pastor's wives, came across birthday party carryovers waiting for the evening service to start, sneaked in through a door that was open because a sink was being installed, and compared every church to our church and all the other ones. We especially looked at carpet colors. I think carpet stores give major discounts to churches who buy green carpet - the bolder the color, the cheaper the carpet. Mom and I also drove to an area 45min away and followed every little white sign hiding in the grass around stop signs that pointed to a place of worship. We saw a lot of interesting places. George (my GPS who speaks in the voice of George Bush) took us on some interesting shortcuts. But ultimately we found it true that the prettiest place is in your own backyard. Or your neighbors' backyard...
We are going to have the ceremony at First Baptist Church in Benton where my parents attend and the reception in our friends'/neighbors' backyard. Buddy and Cheryl live up the river from us and have a pretty place down the hill from their house with a pavilion by the river. So, I am very grateful they are willing to let us use it, and very excited we have that all settled. Now to the rest of the checklist.

As for other non-wedding related things, I've found some music I like. I first heard about Adele from one of my RAs when I came to interview at MC. Only recently did I actually listen to her. I listened through a concert of hers and these are the songs that stuck out to me. She has such a powerful voice and evokes strong emotions. As Cody would say, she's got soul.

The first song is Rolling in the Deep. I really like the video as well. The imagery communicates so much emotion - passion in the dancing, anger in the dishes, anticipation in the glasses, and the build-up in the city. I really love the progressions too - the powder on the floor and sparks on the paper city. The background vocals and percussion of the song are awesome too.

Also so good - Someone Like You

Another song I love is If I Die Young by The Band Perry. I love the essence of the song. Something about the whole sound just connects deeply with me. I really like the video of this as well. I think if I fully embraced the artistic, hippie, dramatic, free spirit part of me, I would be the girl in the video. I love the nature and vintage setting. Agh, it's just so good.

In other media news, I am reading the book Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott. She's been called the female version of Donald Miller (Blue Like Jazz). Traveling Mercies reminds me a lot of another book I read recently called I'm Perfect, You're Doomed. I'm Perfect, You're Doomed is about a girl raised Jehovah's Witness. It's about her childhood in the faith and how she questions it and about all her exploits. She gets involved in a lot of bad stuff - drinking, sex, a terrible teenage marriage, eventual self-mutilation. She kind of leaves the Jehovah's Witness faith, but still is kind of attached to it. I expected the book to eventually describe some kind of turning point in her life, but it ends with her in pretty much the same situation, except divorced by the end, I think. It was a disappointment. Not that every autobiography needs to have the person come to Jesus, but at the end of the story you would kind of like to know that the author isn't going to keep drinking and cutting herself, or is at least going to try to stop or get help. This book didn't give any hope of this. So, I'm left with the idea of some lonely 20-something girl sitting in her apartment drinking herself useless by noon, cutting, and experimenting with comedy and beat poetry, while living off of royalty checks she gets from her book. But, I digress. The point - while these books seem similar, I'm hoping Traveling Mercies turns out better. It actually already is better. Anne Lamott does come to a point of being willing to believe in God and she stops drinking. Now she's exploring how God plays into the daily struggles she faces as close friends die and friends' kids are sick and her own son faces the possibility of a disease. I'll let you know how her story turns out.

Today in Sunday school we were talking about King Jehu (2 Kings 9-10). To sum up the story - God tells Elisha to proclaim Jehu king over Israel. Once Jehu is king he kills Jezebel, Ahab's family, and all of the servants of Baal as a cleansing of Israel, according to God's will. But, he doesn't stop the worshiping of golden calves. God tells Jehu because he has done his will completely regarding Ahab's household and other areas, Jehu's descendants will sit on the throne of Israel for four generations. After that Jehu was "not careful to keep the law of the Lord," but God still kept his promise and Jehu's descendants were on the throne for four generations. It reminded me of David. He was called a man after God's own heart, and yet had an affair with Bathsheba and had her husband killed. It's comforting to know that even the guys with huge faith and who pleased God screwed up sometimes. We feel like it's ok that we mess up sometimes, since they did. We can even feel better because most of us haven't had an affair, or murdered someone. We aren't that bad. But, how many of us have defeated Goliath or led an army to victory or carried out a risky mission for God? We might not have as low of points as David or Jehu, but we don't have as high of points either.

We live like this:
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

And David and Jehu live like this:
        /\                /\                /\
      /    \            /    \            /    \
    /        \        /        \        /        \
  /            \    /            \    /            \
/                \/                \/                \

Which does God actually prefer from us? Radical obedience and faith with occasional really bad mistakes, or small faith with small mistakes? Judging from these 2 guys and Moses, I would say the former.

Quick Catchup

Well, a lot has happened since that last entry. For all you people know, I never made it out of Peru. You can rest easy, I am back in the USA. We had a great vacation time in Puno, and then all gratefully headed home. I came back home to Tennessee, so glad to be back to familiar foods and digestive normalcy.

I spent the fall semester fishing, doing Pilates/Yoga, traveling to Baylor and the beach, cooking, taking pictures of food, and, oh yeah, looking for a job. Finally a week before Thanksgiving, Larry Correll-Hughes (my old boss/hall director at Baylor) saw a post of mine on Facebook about looking for a job. He knew a former Baylor Residence Hall Director, Sharia Brock, who is now the Director of Residence Life at Mississippi College. She had an open position for a Residence Hall Director (RD). I turned in my application the week of Thanksgiving, did a phone interview the next week, and traveled down to Clinton, MS for an on-campus interview the week after that. The next week I traveled to Dallas for Cody's graduation from nursing school (YAY!). I came a week early so we could spend some time together before heading separate ways for an undetermined amount of time (Cody home to Alaska, me back home to Tennessee). That Tuesday Mississippi College called and offered me the position. I accepted it on Thursday. Friday Cody had his pinning ceremony and that night he proposed to me on Baylor's campus on the swing we sat on when we first talked about our feelings for each other! I accepted that offer too. I was completely surprised and very excited. The next day he graduated from Baylor with his BSN. Less than 2 hours after graduation, however, Cody's car was broken into while we were eating a celebratory lunch at Cheddar's. A plethora of actions were then required. I won't bore you with the details.

Monday we left Dallas - the Sherman's driving to Florida and me along for the ride until reaching Georgia where I took a shuttle to Chattanooga and then went home. Christmas was the next week. We had the usual catfish stew Christmas dinner with mom's family and wrapping paper fight with dad's in Columbia. Then New Year's Day I packed my Honda and moved to Mississippi. Among all that, Kim, my youngest sister, went to India on a mission trip for 2 weeks, including Christmas Eve and Day. So, we actually celebrated our immediate family Christmas at the beginning of December, before all of the Texas excitement. She had a great time and returned safely.

I have really enjoyed my job and life in Mississippi. I live in an apartment on the campus of Mississippi College. I am in charge of 7 RAs and a building full of upperclassmen girls. Mostly I meet people - RDs for weekly staff meetings, RAs for weekly staff meetings, RAs for bi-weekly one-on-ones, students when they lock themselves out of their rooms. I also get to be on call a few weeks of the semester. Mostly you just carry around a phone and hope it doesn't ring :) I work in the Counseling Center on campus as the other half of my job - planning outreach events, organizing files, and other general office work.

I found a really great church close to campus. It's called Morrison Heights Baptist Church and I love that they have lots of opportunities for people to serve. From the first Sunday, I felt like I was needed. I am also a part of a great singles Sunday school class there. I know I'm not exactly single, but I'm not married either, so I've settled in the singles class. And I'm so glad I have. The people are great, and everyone really has ownership of the group. Recently we've enacted a (frequency to be determined) game night. At our first meeting we had a great time playing Nertz, Taboo, Bananagrams, and Psychologist.

Probably a month ago Cody accepted a job at Mat-Su Regional Medical Center in Palmer (his hometown) as an RN. He then passed the NCLEX, officially becoming an RN! He completed training at the hospital almost 2 weeks ago and is currently on his 5th night shift since last Tuesday. Two and a half more weeks of night shift and then he will be working during the day, for a few weeks at least.

The excitement and stress overshadowing all of this is the not so happy counterpart to engagement - wedding planning. The first decision we made on the drive from Dallas to Georgia was that we were getting married in Tennessee. It is where my family is, a really pretty area, and in the middle of his family in Florida and Kentucky. Then we debated whether to get married in September and live in Mississippi, or wait until May 2012 and live in Alaska. September because I like fall and May because I would have stayed at my job for at least a year and a half.

Three months and not enough decisions later, we are getting married in September and moving to Alaska. And...that's about all the things we have confirmed. Between starting a new job and being 7 hours away, it has been difficult to plan a wedding. I have spent Spring Break this past week at home in Tennessee in hopes of nailing down a lot more details. Or at least a place and a date. Hopes were high for a church I stumbled upon last fall and loved. It has a beautiful prayer room and a creek running alongside the property. I was called back tonight and told that they no longer allow any non-church members to have weddings there :( So I kind of feel like it's back to the drawing board. I have looked at other places this week though and still have a few things to check out. It's just not going to be as easy as I'd hoped.

As for Cody and me, the night shift and a 3 hour time difference doesn't make for the easiest communication, but we've had a lot of practice being apart and I'm sure we will adapt to the added challenge. I'm excited he is finally getting to do what he has been studying for so long.

My feelings change daily about the decision to move to Alaska. On one hand it will be a great adventure and experience. On the other it will be cold and dark and far away from my family. Cody will be able to stay at his job after completing 3 months of a training/supervision stage. I will have to leave my job and church that I really enjoy after only 5 months. We get to be around his whole family. We will see my family at Christmas and my sister's graduation. Also, I will have to sell, or transport and store at my parents' house, the furniture I just bought for my apartment. Whichever location we had picked, one of us would have to give up a lot. This time it's my turn. I call dibs on picking the next location though :)

I was going to just start the blog back up once I moved to Alaska, but after some wedding location search adventures this week, I figured I could start now. Hopefully from now on posts won't be so long, or cover so much time. They should be more in depth, humorous, and serious as well. Happy following.

Debrief and Vacation!

Well, we finally made it to Huancane after waiting for the bus for a few extra hours.  Monday we got to hang out with the Huancane Girls and the Moho Team and talk about our summers - the ups and downs and what all we saw God do.

Tuesday we had competitions for the End of Summer X Games - Texas (Conima) vs. Georgia (Huancane and Moho).  Our team won the fastest mountain hike competition, Huancane girls won the trice (pronounced tree-see) race, and we won the volleyball game.  The trice race was probably the most fun.  Trices are bicycle driven carts used like a taxi.  One person rides the bike part and pedals and two people can ride in the cart attached to the front.  John and Pastor Ruben found two drivers who let us borrow their trices for our race.  We raced through the main street of Huancane, down and back.  It was a lot of fun, but it was hard uphill.  Unfortunately our opponents had gotten to practice the day before and they took notes from the Peruvian trice drivers and got off and pushed up the hill.  It was a lot of fun though.  And Ruben drove us back down the road afterwards.  After the volleyball competition we played more volleyball for fun and then Andrea made rice pudding at Ruben and Louisa´s house.  We sat around and ate it, then went to dinner.  After dinner we came back and gathered in the common room in the hostel.  At Jeremy S´s suggestion we had a foot washing ceremony, or whatever you want to call it, for John, Sonia and Pastor Ruben.  We just washed their feet and each prayed over them.  It was really cool.  Lots of tears.  I would have been fine if it weren´t for Edith, Ruben´s young daughter, but when I saw her face I started crying too.   I think we all were by the end.  I´m really glad we did it.  Afterwards we played cards and watched Kung Fu Panda :)

This morning we got up and packed to head to Puno for our vacation time.  There was supposed to be a transportation strike that would keep us from coming, but it didn´t end up happening, which we were very grateful for.  We got here in time to move into our rooms and go to lunch.  On the way into town in the van we saw a white couple on the street and we all stared at them because we haven´t seen other white people in so long.  Then we realized we are just like the Peruvians.  We stared and Jeremy told them ¨Hola!¨  It´s so strange being in a tourist city.  There are so many people here who aren´t Peruvian.  And it is weird thinking about how everyone here just thinks we are other tourists.  We kind of want to tell them, no, we´ve been living here for 2 months and know a lot more about the real Peru than all the random tourists.  But it´s nice being in a new place and being able to enjoy nicer things.  We had a delicious lunch near our hotel.  The best part was the appetizer of avacado filled with essentially a chicken salad.  It was really good.  Then we walked around the main tourist street.  Now I´m back in our wonderful hotel.  It was just built in the past year or two.  It´s really modern and we got a really good deal on our rooms.  Then our room got upgraded to a suite.  So, we finally get to have definitely hot showers and there is a jacuzzi tub I know we will all enjoy before going home.  It´s so nice to relax after this summer and get to visit cool places here in Puno.

Tomorrow we are going to the floating islands and then Friday we are going to see some ruins.  I´ll let you know how it is!

The Last of the Last Week!

Well, we´ve come to the end of our last week in Conima. Here is all the news you have been waiting to hear, and some you didn´t know to expect.


Friday afternoon we got out all of our leftover coloring sheets, crayons, foam bookmark materials, frisbees and goody-bags and played with the kids in the plaza for 2-3 hours. We had a lot of fun, attracted a lot of kids and even got to talk to a few parents. Also, while we were playing with the kids, Jeremy L. got to story with Sophia and her husband behind their store. This caught them up to the story we were doing with the community that night, so we invited them to come. They indicated that they would probably close their store and come. That was good and it freed up more of our time that night.

At 5pm Jeremy L., Kelsey and I went to story with the police officers. Two of them were there. We sat in front of the police station and Kelsey told them the story of Elijah and Baal. They talked a lot with Jeremy about it. They thought about it and compared it to their culture and how people worship other things. After that Jeremy told them the story of Jesus´ life. They talked some more about this. At this point it was 6pm, time for the English lesson. Jeremy invited the cops to the community storying that night, but they said they couldn´t come. Then we found out there was not another time they could meet before we left. Since Armondo just tolerates the storying and is not interested in it spiritually, I suggested Jeremy stay with the police officers and finish with them. So, Jeremy stayed to story with the police and Kelsey and I went to our last English lesson with Armondo. We taught him some last things he wanted to learn and gave him the gift bag we put together for him. Then we invited him to the community storying, but when we left and asked if he wanted to come with us, he said he needed to sleep. So, that was unfortunate, but hopefully we planted some seeds with him.

After the lesson, Kelsey and I went back to the house to grab a quick dinner before heading over to the government building. John and Pastor Ruben came in since it was a presentation of the gospel. We went over to the government building and met John, Ruben, Pablo and the Jeremys. Pablo had memorized the story of Peter´s sermon and was prepared to tell it. It turns out it was only Pablo and 2 kids, besides us, so Pablo told the story once and we discussed it. Then John used the story to share the gospel and asked Pablo if he had or wanted to repent and be baptized. He said he did and they talked for a while about what that means and what it specifically means in this culture. Pablo agreed with all of it, but when it came to baptism, he said he wanted to become a better Christian first. To address this, John set up for Jeremy L. and Pablo to meet the next day (Saturday) so Jeremy could tell him about the story of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch and about Cornelius to show the urgency of baptism in the New Testament. John also told Pablo that he and Ruben would be coming through Conima fairly often and would love to meet with him and talk to him more. They also invited him to a training seminar in Huancane in August. It was so good to finally see fruit from our labor and how God has started his church in Conima with one young man. Last night Jeremy L. met with Pablo and told him the stories, but Pablo still wants to learn more before being baptized. So, we will just wait and pray about that. Hopefully John or Ruben will get to come out soon and baptize him.

Yesterday morning Kelsey and I decided to climb the mountain henceforth named ¨mud-butt mountain.¨ We left aroud 11:30am. On the way to really start climbing the mountain there is this area of ground that is really wet because water runs down the mountain along that path, but it is all grass so you can´t tell that it is wet until you step on it. So, before we even got to the real base of the mountain, Kelsey found the wet section. Just as she was telling me to be careful, she slipped and landed square on her behind in the muddy grass. But, being as determined as she is, she said we had to do the hike, mud-butt and all. So, I took a path around the water and we kept hiking. Before long, I heard another yell from behind me and Kelsey had stepped on a rock that rolled and landed on her knee and shin. After come recovery, we continued on. Once we passed the more shallow part, the hiking got intense. It was a really steep slope and it was almost all rocks, of all sizes. So, you had to be careful what rocks you stepped on, because it was obvious they got where they were by falling. The altitude also gets to you and it´s hard to breathe. We had to take lots of breaks. The bottom kept getting further away, but so did the top. As we kept going toward what we thought was the top, we would see a new top, higher up, so we had to keep climbing. We kept picking places to eat lunch, but then felt we had to keep going. Finally, we couldn´t go any further and found some huge rocks we could sit on and eat lunch. We could see all of Conima (which was really small by this time), Suasi Island, lots of Lake Titicaca and mountains all around. We enjoyed our lunch of chicken salad sandwiches, chips, granola bars and peach halves. Then Kelsey read and I journaled. It was so nice and peaceful just sitting there, leaning on a rock, journaling and being warmed by the sun. While we were eating we saw a man in the distance. He was herding sheep and a few llamas. He herded them with a dog and by throwing rocks to head them off. As we were sitting there we could hear him whistling and sometimes singing to the sheep. It was a nice peaceful sound. After a while, we headed back down the mountain. So did the shepherd. It seemed crazy, but he herded the sheep down the steep mountain face we had just climbed up. The climbing down was more scary than climbing up. It was really steep and we had to watch every step so we didn´t go sliding down. We made a video telling our families good-bye in case something happened. Maybe a little melodrmatic, but funny. So, we slowly picked our way down, occasionally yelping as our foot would slip. Finally we reached the trees and were able to walk on more stable rocks and hold onto trees on the way down. Stepping onto level ground never felt so good. We made it back to the house around 3:30pm. Kelsey showered and I collapsed on the couch (after hiking up to the 4th floor).

That night (last night) is when Jeremy L. storied with Pablo. After the storying, we had CHRISTMAS! We´ve been planning our Christmas celebration since one of the first few weeks here and last night it finally arrived. We had chicken and beef fajitas/burritos for dinner (it was a Texas Christmas). We also made apple cider and chocolate oatmeal cookies. Us girls decorated the living room using our missionary ingenuity. We started collecting green 2-liter Sprite bottles a while back. We tied them all along a string and stretched it across the living room. We also used our extra yarn to loop down in front of the windows. Alison was wearing red fuzzy socks so sher took them off and we hung them above the fireplace as our stockings. Once everyone was ready we gathered together with our fire, cider and cookies and played games. We played the game people play at showers where you have clothes pins and if you catch someone saying a certain word you get to take one of their clothes pins. Our words were ¨Christmas¨ and ¨home.¨ Jeremy Stanley won in the end. We also took fun pictures spelling out Merry Christmas and other random words.After that was the white elephant gift exchange. The gifts included a huge yellow flower hair clip and a pack of clothes pins, a water bottle and pack of chocolate wafer cookies, a dvd entitled The Condemned of Lake Titicaca (except in Spanish), and a baby rattle. I´ll leave it up to you to guess who brought and received what. After that we ate our cookies, drank our cider and played telephone pictionary (a group favorite) and charades. Kelsey and I ended up dominating charades, but Jeremy L. took home the ¨most entertaining¨ award. As everything was winding down Jeremy L. played a few Christmas songs on the guitar (all without using the word Christmas, of course). After our fun-filled night we went to bed after agreeing to postpone worship until 9am the next morning.

This morning we had worship at 9am, finishing the last chapter of Romans on our last day here. Then Jeremy L. left for Moho, where all of his things are so he could pack up to head back to Huancane tomorrow. After getting some things packed, Kelsey, Alison, Jeremy S. and I headed out hiking. The three of them had been out to this peninsula on the lake and wanted to visit again and I wanted to go. So, we packed lunch and headed out of Conima. We hiking a good ways along the lake and then stopped on a rock wall that jutted into the water for lunch. Then we kept going out to where a cliff face stuck out into the water. We climbed up the steep rocky slope and sat at the top, looking out over the lake. It was really pretty. We hung out for a while and then came back to clean up the house.

We leave Conima tomorrow morning to go back to Huancane. It´s crazy how long we´ve been here and crazy that it´s finally time to leave. I think we are all ready though. It´s been a good summer, but most of us are ready to see our families and friends and start new parts of life.

Pray for the work we´ve started here - for Pablo and his continued growth. Praise God for his salvation. Pray for safe travel to Huancane tomorrow and that our debriefing and vacation time would be good, restful and helpful times. Thanks for your prayers for our ministry here!