La Di Dah and life in general

Good afternoon (or morning or evening, depending on when you're reading this ;) ) to you all! Well, it's been a busy couple of weeks for me. I suppose that when I first came here I really had to work to fill my time, now it seems like there isn't enough time to do everything that I want (and need) to do! Funny how that works.

My adult Spanish class has begun. I had a smaller turnout than I had expected, but I am satisfied in knowing that God brought exactly the people who needed to come. I truly enjoy being able to move at a little faster pace and to know that my students are studying at home. I suppose that this really is the greatest struggle I have faced with the younger class; I can't know that they will all study at home. I know that they do to some extent, but because they don't always, we have to spend a lot of class time reviewing. Granted, reviewing is good, so I can't complain too much. I do know they are learning, even if we're not moving as quickly as I would like!

I still don't have an actual job, but I have been offered a part-time babysitting job once a week at the church for Financial Peace University (a class that they are hosting at our church). I am not sure how long this will last, but I have something for at least a month! In addition to this I also have been doing yard-work and weeding for our neighbors. What with these things and my Spanish classes, I manage to keep my week rather full!

As to school, I am still hoping to enroll come Fall. I went to the college a few days ago and got some information regarding some different classes that I want to take this term. Unfortunately, when I took the placement test a few weeks ago it seems that I placed in a rather low math class. If I start in the class that I placed in, I will have to take two classes before it will actually count for college credit. I didn't like that idea at all, so I am burying myself in Algebra for the foreseeable future.... not a pleasant prospect, but it must be done! My plan to re-take the Algebra test so that I can place in a higher math class. I know that I can move up at least one class; I am hoping that I might even be able to make it two. We'll see.

Last Sunday was the graduation of the public and Christian high schools here in Roseburg. I didn't make it the the public high school's graduation, but I did attend the graduation of Umpqua Valley Christian School. A bunch of my friends graduated. It seems like such a short time from when we all started high school together... granted, I was homeschooled, but we were still all in the same grade technically. Anyway, it was great to see them starting off into new adventures. Most of them are going to be attending college come Fall. It's a little surreal. I will have you know that I didn't actually cry at the graduation. I was quite proud of myself! *gives herself a pat on the back*
Well, now that's over. The next thing you know I will be attending college graduations... or even weddings! I think that I am in denial... ;D

Alright, well I did take a bunch of pictures from the top of the mountain and down by the river, but I put them on my old desktop... and I forgot to take them off before I put it away. Now that it is completely taken apart I really don't feel like getting it all put back together and set up just to pull a few pictures off. So, until I get back up and over the mountain (shouldn't be too long :) ) you will have to be satisfied with these pictures that I took this past

Here's a picture of the front of the house from the yard. It's a little hard to really see the house because of the tent trailer out front... but I wasn't about to try to move it to take the picture ;) . Hopefully we will get it moved soon.


Okay, these are pictures from behind the house, looking up the hill.




Here are some pictures of my "garden". It isn't exactly one garden, more like several little pieces of garden...




Okay, if you look closely, you will be able to see the pea plants in two rows...


I love all the colors!!


This is my roomie ;) ! Meet Emily.


Okay, I am now going to make it a habit to carry my camera around with me so that I can get some pictures which actually contain people instead of just plants...

Now I must close and move on with all the other things that I need to accomplish today. Today these verses really stood out to me when I was reading. I am caught up in the moment. What would it have felt like to have been shut in your house, fearing that at any moment soldiers might come through the door to arrest you. Suddenly, you turn and see the One who you had thought dead standing right in front of you. Doubts are swept away.
We say, "Seeing is believing" Jesus says "Blessed are you if you believe without having to see"

John 20:26-29
After eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Then He said to Thomas, “Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing.” Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.”

Our New House!!

Welcome to our house!! Here is the "official" tour ;) !!

If you take a step through the front door, this is the first thing that you see. Welcome to my dad's shop! He is loving having all this new space and has already put it to good use!

This is where most of the men of the village spend their lunch hour now!

Standing in the doorway -- at the left side of the above picture -- you can see our table, part of the kitchen and just past the reach of the photo, beside the fridge, is located the door to our bathroom.
This is our new kitchen. I absolutely love the new setup and I actually enjoy cleaning the kitchen now that there are places for everything!
If you turned around and looked behind where I was standing when I took the picture of the kitchen, this is what you would see. Hi, Dad!

Here is the completed stair, though it is still missing part of the railing. My dad is working on that and it should be finished by the end of this week... or perhaps next :D !
Through the railing at the top of the stairs and looking into our living room...
The door pictured here is located directly to the right from the picture above. It leads to the upstairs balcony. This is our new "music corner" (the piano is under the black dust cover). It's much less dusty than where it was located before, for which I am heartily thankful!
Here's the back door. As of right now, it doesn't lead anywhere, although the brothers like to jump out as a short-cut to the pool.
This is my room... or couldn't you tell?! ;)

This picture was taken standing in the doorway of Seth and Jessee's room. The bed you see is Jessee's...
...and this one belongs to Seth. The cloth below is covering his iguana's cage (yes, he does have another iguana and a good sized one at that!). It was early in morning when I took the picture and Seth hadn't "awakened the iguana" yet.
If you could see all of the camoflauge decor that these boys have in their room you wouldn't believe it. Andrew and Caleb's room might not be the neatest all the time, but they do definitely have the most consistant theme! Caleb's bed is located above where I am taking the picture. The red bars are the bottom of the frame.
This is a picture of our yard off of the upstairs balcony. We are finally starting to get some green in the yard, thanks to Mom's hard work and dilligence! It's so nice to look and the flowers and stand in the shade of our "trees" that used to be 2 foot tall sticks! Awesome!
And there you have it! I hope that this post might give all of you a better idea of what our house looks like at present. Blessings! I hope to see you all around again soon!

Pictures from deaf school

Hello everyone!! I hope that this finds you all quite well and strong in the Lord. I know that it has taken me forever to get back on here to update you all... but it really couldn't be helped. Since I have been gone for awhile it is going to take me a few posts to get caught up to the present, but I am hoping for an uneventful week ahead in which to write several posts. Let's hope and pray that it works out!

This first post is going to be mostly just pictures with captions, but as they (don't ask me who "they" is; I have no clue) say, "a picture is worth a thousand words". So, every time you see a picture just imagine that I wrote a thousand words!

HERE WE GO!!

Aren't they all the sweetest looking kids! They really are! This is on the way to church in the Bonsels' SUV. I think that they have us beat on the number of kids that they fit in that vehicle. I think that the final count on Sunday was 20. That's the kids and adults all added together.

Ahh... the boys playing with their tops. They did this every opportunity that they could get. Every afternoon one of us (the girls volunteering at the school) would take the kids out the park to play and burn off excess energy. It didn't always work, but it did help!

This is Jenna (blue dress and bangs), Teresa (red shirt) and Petra. Petra has been working at the school for three years. Teresa has been working there for 8 months and Jenna arrived the day after I did-- she stayed until the first week of July. Christy is the other girl who was volunteering at the school. She had been there for three months.

Estefania and Brian! Aren't they so cute!

Tops again!

This was at a birthday party we went to for a friends mom. We had a great time hanging out with everyone. Christy (the girl who I said was working at the school) is the one in the red dress.

Everyone looks so tired in this picture! We were on our way back to the school after the party.

Sergio!

Proof that I was there!



Making lunch. We had BLTs. Very yummy!


The school itself is set up in two buildings. One is the actual school and the other is the home of the Bonsells and about 20 other children. The main job of the staff working at the school is to take care of the children before and after classes. My job was to help out in the school in the mornings and then in the afternoons Christy, Jenna and I rotated the rest of the jobs amongst ourselves (bathing the kids in the evening, supervising naptime, taking the kids out to the park, preparing meals, etc.).

In conclusion, I must say that I had a great two weeks at the deaf school. It was a dificult schedule, but I think that I benefited from it. I enjoyed working with the kids and the ladies that I had the priviledge of working alongside were a wonderful encouragement to me. I already miss everyone I met there and am hoping to be able to return soon, Lord willing. I am praying about it!

Alright, now I need to go. God bless you all!

Youth Bash!

Hello again everyone! I am glad to be here again. It's been awhile, but God is still good, always has been and will continue to be! Isn't that SUCH a blessed assurance?!?!

This past week has been quite full. It was wonderful, but I must say that it was VERY tiring! Right now I am typing on the computer while literally having to hold me eyes open so that I don't fall face first onto the keys. Some of you might say, "What are you doing typing when you sould be asleep?" but that's just not who I am. If I don't write this now I will be up for an hour laying on my bed composing this post in my head... that's why it's just better to get it out of the way now!

It will probably take me a few days to get you all caught up to the present, but I hope that I will have you all filled in by the end of this week. The funny thing about blogging is that you think that you are getting caught up when, in reality, you are just barely keeping up because things keep happening! That's how I feel right now, but I don't mind. Besides, I don't really want to drop the blog. If I did that then none of you would know what was going on in my little corner of the world! So...

Camera... Lights... Action!

This Friday (the 15th) we had a group of about 30 "jovenes" (youth) come to Las Glorias from the nearby town of Los Mochis. They were here for a little more than a day and, though the focal point of their retreat was to take a time away from "life" to study the Word, we also had a great time hanging out at the beach, swimming in our pool and just getting to know one another.

We (my Dad and those of us involved with the youth at our church) took this opportunity to invite the 8 or 9 "faithful" jovenes from Boca del Rio to stay at our house over the weekend. This was the first time we had done something like this in awhile so everyone was pretty excited!

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, so let me just post pictures and you guys can imagine all the words that I would say if I was actually telling you the story in person!

We have had a lot of people in our pool in the past, but I think that over the weekend we broke our record!

This is one of my favorite things about large groups of Christian teens; we can always get enough people together to have a worship time! The guy who shared the message (Daniel Warne, or Dan) also was an exeptionally gifted guitar player. It was really neat to have him playing with us.

The first night after we had all been down to the beach everyone headed over to our house to prepare the food. After the meal we had a bonfire and toasted mashmellows. I was so glad that God protected us from the mosquitos. As a general rule you wouldn't be able to be outside past 7pm but on Friday it was perfect!

On Friday night everyone left our house around midnight with the intention on being in bed by 1:00am. Of course, not everyone went to bed when they were supposed to!

This was the second part of the message that Dan shared. The message was in three parts of about an hour each. The main point of what Dan shared was the heart and its spiritual significance; namely, living from the heart out. Great insights! If you want to hear more leave me a comment letting me know and I'll email you about it.

Lunch prep!

This picture seemed really funny to me. These guys were trying to figure out how to get the seeds out of the limes without squeezing out the juice at the same time! The expressions on their faces was just HILARIOUS! :P

This was at the last part of the message. The guy in this picture is David and he is translating for some of the youth who came who were deaf. They came from a Christian school in Los Mochis dedicated entirely to teaching children who are deaf to be able to communicate. There were six deaf teens who came and they were all very nice. I didn't get to talk with them as much as I would have liked, but it made me REALLY want to learn sign language!

After the conference was over we all headed back to Las Glorias. Since no one really wanted to squeeze into the car for the short trip, several people rode on top! Quite Mexican, if you ask me!

This is a picture of all our youth group plus theirs. We had a fairly huge group!

All in all it was a great day and a half. The group from Los Mochis was really neat and all the kids pitched in to help with the preparation, serving and clean up of all the meals (I REALLY appreciated that!). I don't think that I learned everyone's names, but that is no surprise for me since I truly have a horrible time with learning names, more so in Spanish, though it's easier than when I first got here! Oh well, I suppose one must learn with time!

The group was an interesting mix of Americans who spoke Spanish, Mexicans who spoke English and everything in between. Never having been with a group like that it was a little confusing, but not in a bad way!

Now you are officially caught up to Saturday evening. I will be back very soon (I hope) to tell you all about our trip to the river on Sunday... but not until tomorrow... or maybe later!
Blessings!
Hasta entonces! (see ya)