Yesterday was our Joseph's seventh birthday! It gets more difficult every year to hide anything from him, but we were able to pull off a couple of birthday surprises for him.

His big sisters helped me make cupcakes. I needed some kind of animal theme, and the ickier and slimier, the better.


Frogs! Perfect.


Lotsa frogs!


Jessica's adding the eyes. She and Jillian take special pleasure in preparing surprises for others! They also made him some birthday cards, and a storybook written and illustrated, with the main character being Joseph himself. :o)

We took our froggies and an urn full of hot tea to church with us in the evening. We so much enjoy attending the church here in San Juan when we are not in La Esperanza at the new mission. There were hymns, an excellent sermon on praying fervently, and some special prayer time.

After the prayer service, Pastor Oto invited Joseph to stand before the church so that we could sing to him. This video shows the rest... Enjoy!




SEVEN things I love about Joseph:

1) He throws so much energy into everything that he does!

2) He loves his family, and frequently tells us so.

3) He is a good artist.

4) He sings with all his heart, and has already written some songs about the Lord.

5) He's all BOY, and some day I know he'll be all MAN. (*sniff*)

(Here's Joseph mixing concrete, con mucho gusto!)

6) He loves to be Daddy's helper, and works so hard to please him.

7) While it's hard to get him to read anything else, he really enjoys reading the Bible at Family Devotions!

I love you, my boy! Happy Birthday!

We really enjoyed the church meeting in La Esperanza tonight. Daniel preached on "The Last Words of Jesus" (see Mark 16:15). We have a new neighbor who moved in next door earlier this week, and she came with one of her daughters. Ruth (the mother) has many needs; we hope to be a blessing to her, and that she will come to know Christ soon.

There are visitors - missionaries - in our home this week and next. Bro. Bob Stevenson calls himself a carpenter for Christ, and he is helping us with our roof situation. He and Nalani are such a sweet couple, and we enjoy having them with us! Everyone gets up early, works all day, and sleeps well at night.

For our family, May is a big month for birthdays. The first May birthday is this Friday. I'll be 34. That's thirty-four. Four and thirty. Just trying to get used to it.

Otherwise, there is not much going on, except that the sun is coming up earlier and EARLIER. I mean, it's light outside at 5:30 a.m. (So my husband tells me. I do not know this first hand.) We don't do Daylight Savings Time here in Guatemala, so it gets dark around 6:30 p.m.

Mother's Day is coming up! Be sure you do something special to honor your mother, and if you are a mom, I pray that you have a sweet day in the Lord on Sunday. Blessings to you all!

I hope you all enjoyed a blessed Lord's Day. What a refreshing way to start the week, meditating on God's word and fellowshipping with other believers. We need each other! So much the more as we see these last days upon us.

Friday we all went to the Seminary with Daniel, and the children and I did school while he taught his classes. Then we all ran errands and did grocery shopping together - a rare treat! All our business in town took all day, and by the time we got home everybody was exhausted.

It was still too early to go to bed, so we had a bite to eat, then some read books, some colored, some played...


...and some just couldn't last another hour.

Poor children! It was a long, busy day.

On Friday we also "chanced" to meet up with a very nice family from Pennsylvania. They have come down to Guatemala for a family missions trip. They seem to be getting along bravely by themselves, visiting different areas of the country using the bus system.


They accepted our invitation to visit our church on the Lord's Day, and we had a good time of fellowship around God's Word, and later around the table for lunch. Does that look like a crowd, or what? With our six children, and their six children (they have three more that are married), we did make a large, lively group. What fun!

Daniel arranged to transport them to the bus station this week, and they will travel to the airport in the capitol, from whence they will fly home. What a sweet blessing it is to have met these sweet believers, and to be able to help them in some small way. It is amazing how when strangers meet and find one another to be believers in Jesus, they don't regard one another as such "strangers".

May God bless you in a special way this week!

We certainly weren't all work and no play during VBS time! We got to visit Antigua, where Shelley and I had tea with a friend of hers. The above photo was taken in the central park of Antigua.


Daniel watched the children so that she and I could do some "girl stuff" too, i.e. lunch and shopping. :o) It was fun to have my cousin and childhood friend with us again, and her week with us flew by all too quickly.


Thanks for coming, Shelley! (I know you'll read this in Nicaragua.) Can't wait 'til next time.

A HUGE THANK-YOU to my friend Tori, who not only helped me fix the problems with my blog, but also did some fine-tuning. I think it looks better than ever!

THANKS, TORI! You're a genius!



P.S....
I was wondering if there is something you can do about our bathroom?

:op

Marla is one of the young people that attends the church in San Juan. Saturday her family invited us over for lunch at their house.

This is Marla's mama. Next to her is their woodburning stove, where our meal was cooked.


Here is some of the group that was there:


Left to right: Marla's mom; her sister Dora; friend's mom; friend whose name I can't remember; Marla; and another older sister who cooked our delicious meal.


Johanna's digging in!


We had chicken that reminded me of a Guatemalan dish called Pepian, but it wasn't exactly that. I would call it Chicken and Broccoli Yum!


We enjoyed the Guatemalan hospitality. Casual, comfortable, and so friendly...
















And look what Jillian, our animal-lover, caught:


This little pigeon flew down to the patio, Jillian cornered it and caught it, and it seemed perfectly happy to come home with her!