Amazing month. It is
still hard to believe we have already been here almost a month. Almost 3 & 1/2 years after we decided to
come to El Salvador we finally made it.
What a busy time it has been!
From our last days working at Encore in Dec. to all the traveling in
Jan., then the final goodbyes to families and friends. We arrived here Jan. 31 and had a great trip
and no problems throughout. We were met
at the airport by Bros. Hector and Carlos with a van large enough to
accommodate all our bags. Then we
arrived at our house about 10:30 p.m. to the news that the house had finally
been sold and that we had to be out by the end of Feb. We overlapped by 9 days with Lucky, who had
worked with Caleb and Della all of last year.
She took us on a whirlwind week of visiting people she had been working
with-even taking one long trek through a coffee field. Thankfully, we have been able to keep the two
main studies she was having. One,
Stephanie, is a young mother who is a cousin to a member here. The other, Reyna, is an older lady who has
been coming to Sunday services but has not been baptized. We have started going through the booklet
“Que Dice La Biblia,” What Does the Bible Say, with both of them and the
studies are going well. Please put them
in your prayers. Charlotte is also
studying Mark with a young sister, Kathrine, who was just baptized in Jan.
2015. Charlotte has also started
attending the Saturday ladies’ class (which she has been asked to lead next
time) and having lunch with the teen girls on Sunday and going out with them to
visit the members who did not come that day.
She really enjoys it but there is a lot of walking involved and it is
tiring. There are three services every
Sunday that we attend. One at 9 am in
Shucutitan , one at 4 pm here in Ataco and the last at 7pm in Juayua (a town
about 30 minutes from Ataco where a new work is just beginning. We usually get home around 9 on Sunday nights
if we do not go out to eat after the last service. We started right in working on our long term
visa applications with the help of a brother here, Cesar. We made 4 trips to San Salvador, one on every
Thursday since we got here, and last Thur. Feb 19, we turned all our paperwork
in to immigration and they told us to come back this past Monday. WE HAD BEEN APPROVED. Now we have temporary cards good for 3 months
while we wait for the one year visas but all is done and certain. We know that our good progress was due in
large part to all the experience we gained from what Caleb and Della had to go
through in getting their visas. We also
had to start looking for a new place to live.
The first week Lucky took us to a brand new house here in Ataco. It has been built a while but no one has
lived in it yet. Caleb and Della
actually looked at it but all the bedrooms are upstairs and they decided that
would be too much for Della because she was pregnant at the time. We did look at a couple of other places but
they were not suitable and ended up with only one real choice in the end. Fortunately, the lady was willing to rent to
us month to month and not require a contract.
We are moving the last two days of Feb. We have gone every Wednesday to
the town of Juayua. As I mentioned, it
is a brand new work that is just beginning and Hector has asked us to consider
being a part of. We spend the day going
from house to house having studies and end the day with home Bible studies at
two different places. It is very
exciting and rewarding. All of the
Christians here have been so warm and receptive and we are so thankful that we
have already had the chance to have several families into our homes for evening
meals and some lunches and lots of fellowship.
We are also so thankful that we are at least at a level of Spanish where
we can communicate well even though we have a long way to go. It would be hard to imagine how this month
could have gone much better, except maybe for having to move, but even that has
gone well too. Keep us in your prayers
and if you want in depth info check out our blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment