House Staff Family

Rita, Tess and Ruth

Sam (and family)

Manny

Ely

I have been blessed with the most incredible house staff family. They are very dear to my heart and I'm going miss them so very much...

Family Portraits

My incredibly attractive roommates everyone!

Up first here we have S. She's a really close friend of mine who happens to also be the person the Father has called to come along behind me to serve as the Volunteer Coordinator! It is such a blessing to be able to pass on the reigns here to someone I know and trust. She's a mess load of fun too ;)

Next we have A :) She's living here in the vol house with us as she studying our wonderful language here on the island. She'll head out the same time I will in November to move to another city where she'll also be working with vols.

I love these girls so much! We got to cleaning out the garage here the other day and came across this big tub filled with eye glasses! As you can see from our pictures here...they're pretty amazing ;) We thought we'd print these off and hang them somewhere in the house...

:0)

Oh come...

A few things I'm really enjoying right now...

Coffee, and lots of it :) 

I think I'm going to have to reserve an entire suitcase for coffee alone!

And then there are the beautiful rice fields. The mountains and the blue skies and the deep green fields. Oh I wish you all could see it for yourselves...

Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the

 Rock of our Salvation!

 Let us come into His presence with thanksgiving; 

let us make a joyful noise to Him with songs of praise! 

For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. 

In His hand are the depths of the earth; 

the heights of the mountains are His also. 

The sea is His, for he made it, 

and His hands formed the dry land. 

Oh come,

let us worship and bow down.

new hobby

SNORKELING! 

This is by far one of my favorite things to do out here :) You just never know what you're going to see! I haven't actually perfected the art of snorkeling yet. I often grab things I shouldn't :) or let myself get pushed into large chunks of coral. I have learned that there are better times for snorkeling than others and this typically depends on the tide. 

If the tide is out and the water's too low, the waves are harder to manage and you're too close to the coral itself. For those of you who haven't been snorkeling yet, this is dangerous because coral can really cut you if you're not careful! If the tides is coming in, the currents may be too strong and you could find yourself being tossed around. A very unnerving experience as well and unfortunately, I have the scars on my legs to prove it. 

There really is a perfect spot of time where the tide is in and the water's high and calm...it's perfect.

It just reminds me of how sweet the Father is :) I really mean that. This is something I really enjoy doing in a town that lacks avenues of entertainment. We have no parks, we have no movie theaters or bowling allies (no  jokes, I love to bowl :), and no malls to stroll through; BUT, we have the ocean. I've never lived near the ocean before and so now I think I'm addicted ;) 

There really are some beautiful coral reefs around the island. It's amazing I get to see them. 

Thankfully a new friend of mine actually owned an underwater camera so we were finally able to get some pictures of the things we've been swimming around this year :) Thanks Marshall!!

Green Acres is the place to be...

   Farm living is (maybe) the life for me! I went out to the farm last month to lend a helping hand, but I don't think my poor little hands were much help! I think I've posted some pictures before from the agricultural training center here. I've always said that, next to the beach, it's one of my favorite places to be. It's so beautiful to me and I just love how much is going on out there...brick making, gardens filled with all kinds of vegetable, fisheries, rice paddies, and some of the cutest goats you've ever seen!    

   Well, as you can tell, I have a great appreciation for all that's being done there to model for the community what they hope to be new or better options for local farmers. However, amidst all my appreciation and admiration I had yet to roll up my sleeves jump in and help...until this past month! Here's a few "action shots" of my time on the farm...

 

This is me...with a machete

The bamboo we cut was used to makes stakes for the garden

Ok...so maybe the heat was getting to us :) Our break...which consisted of one of the men shimmying up a tree with a machete to cut down coconuts for us to drink from...well, it seems to have gotten a little out of hand :) Maybe it was the heat PLUS the head-coverings! 

A friend of mine and one of our volunteer teams from a neighboring country