Happy Mothers Day!

It is odd to celebrate Mothers Day away from my family. But all holidays bring sadness when you are away from those you love!

First I want to answer Marjo´s question about a pupusa. It is delicious! It is like a tortilla stuffed with cheese. And then topped with sort of like coleslaw. Many things here are topped with shredded cabbage and carrots that is mixed with vinegar and salt. Similar to in the U.S. putting lettuce on things. Pupusas are wonderful and Paty´s are great! She used more cheese than some of the local pupusa stops.

It has been a while since I have posted, so I will try to catch up on everything here.

Continue to pray for issues we are having with PACEs, which is the curriculum we use for the students. The last order we sent in is "coming" but they didn´t have enough of the numbers that we ordered so we will be making copies of PACEs. And some of my students are so bright they are almost finished with half of the school year (except for English because I still am waiting on those PACEs)....so I am about to need to order the last half of the year for some of my students. It is hard to explain to parents why their students have not finished some of the subjects because we don´t have the materials. Some are understanding and some not so much.

Last Friday was when we gave the grades to the parents. This was a new experience for me. Some conferences were easy because their child is a good student and well behaved. And some are difficult when I have to tell them the problems I am having with their child´s behavior. One of my students was sitting with his father as I explained that he is not staying focused on his work and many times just day dreams and does not work...and out of 12 PACEs has only completed 5. His father looks at him and says "You´re going to get it" Brian put his head down and began to cry. I wanted to cry with him. But dad wants to help him and has taken away his game boy and playstation until he gets a better report from me on his work habits. I had Mr. Peter with me during these conferences with the parents to translate for me. Most of the parents only speak Spanish. And of course two of my boys with problems, I had no parent show up to pick up their grades. Makes it hard when you can´t get support from home.

We have a new student at our school. We call him New Christopher. Because we have another student who is Christopher Joseph who we have problems with, so as to not confuse the two boys, this child is New Christopher. He came to our school because he had been kicked out of other schools and Christopher Joseph´s father recommended our school. Christopher Joseph has come a LONG way, but we continue to have behavior problems with him.

The New Christopher needs prayer! Last week he showed me this long marks on the bottom half of his leg. He told me that his mother beat him with a belt. These marks looked like he had been beaten with a belt or switch or something that would make these marks....he said it was because he had thrown his sister´s food at her when she broke his toy. Then he said she will beat me tomorrow too. I asked him why he thought that. He said because I got an 88 on my Word Building test. I told him that was a good grade, his mother would be proud of him. He said oh no that is not good enough, she will beat me.

This broke my heart! I talked to Miss Paty and he had shared this with her as well. Right now we do not know much about his family or what his home is like. Paty was going to talk to Miss Denora about the situation and see what we can and need to do from this point.

Please continue to pray for my student, Moises, as he continues to teach the children bad words, and talk about sexual things to the other 2nd grade students. We are struggling with what to do with him, and Denora has even talked about not letting him continue at Ruach.

Now for some good news.....

I rented a house this week! I really wanted to find something near Annette & Lance´s house. There were 3 houses which I found, and one was $350 a month....one was $450 a month...both way out of my budget! I was afraid I would not find anything I could afford. There was a house by the school but it was rented almost as soon as I heard about it being available. There was one other house which I had seen a sign but we had not been able to reach the owner. Finally we got him last week, and Lucy went with me to look at the house. It is in Colonial Casa Blanca (a colonial is a step up from a barrio)....this is a nice neighborhood and would truly be a blessing to be able to find an affordable house here for me. Well he was renting it for 4000 limperas, which is about $215 ...my budget was $250 so I was thrilled! It is a 2 bedroom one bath. There are several things about it which I really liked....for one it has closets in both bedrooms! And cabinets in the kitchen! Sounds unbelievable I know, to think that houses would not have these things, but these are a luxury here! There are ceiling fans in each room = a plus when there is no air conditioning. And the area outside the kitchen where the pila is (out door sink/laundry area) has a fence on each side so that I can keep Samson out of this area which will be great when I am hanging clothes to dry. Otherwise Samson would think my clothes on the line were there for his enjoyment! This will be a new experience for me as I will not have a washer or dryer. I am planning to hire Maria, who works at Annette´s house 3 days a week cleaning, etc....so she can help me with my laundry being done by hand.

I will stay at Annette´s house through the end of this month. Annette is in the U.S. and we have people coming this month from the U.S. who are coming to help at the school. So I will be with them at Annette´s house until she gets back from the U.S. then I will move myself to the house. My new house is about a 5 minute walk from Annette´s. This will be nice, I will be close by and still able to hang out with all the folks coming in to help out this year! And I will be nearby to help Annette if she needs a hand with all the new folks.

That´s it for now....I have some errands to run and then to the new house to measure windows so I can have PVC Pipe cut to make curtain rods this week...then back home to watch the season finale of Survivor!!!!!

Yes I get Survivor here. The cable company we currently have gets 4 U.S. channels with current programs. Although that could change at any moment...but hopefully it won´t change today!

Love and Miss you!