Beautiful Feet: September 2015

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

September 30, 2015

Wrap-up day in Ataco. We unpacked a little in the morning, but left about 10 to go to Ataco. We had no hot water in Juayua, so I took advantage of one last hot shower before we handed over the keys. We are uncertain how long it will be before Dwaine can set up the electric water heater on the shower. We cleaned for about 3 hours and then went out for a lunch at a small restaurant in front of the park. It was a nice lunch and then we headed out for some visiting. First, we went to Natividad’s. Her daughter was also there with her son, Christopher. But we missed seeing Mirdna. Natividad’s health was not very good. We talked for a little while on her difficulty with making a decision for the Lord. While we may return to Ataco for some visits, we probably won’t be involved in too many ongoing studies. It is hard to know when a person has rejected Christ, so we are prayerful that her daughter and people in the church in Ataco will continue to try to influence her to move on her knowledge. Next we went to Edgardo’s. His wife, Maritza was home and we visited with her, their son Javier, and their daughter Paola until Edgardo arrived. Edgardo, our brother from Ataco, had taken a new position working in the coffee fields. He has to get up each morning at 4:30, walk two hours in the dark, work a full day at hard labor and then walk two hours home in the afternoon. He was exhausted. We are going to get him a heavy duty flashlight to travel with. Hopefully, that will help him along his journey. Next, we went back to Ataco to load the car for a final trip and to have the landlady to do a final run through of the house. We were supposed to give a one month notice, but we really couldn’t since we had to jump on a house as soon as we found one in Juayua. So, we used our deposit as the payment for our one’s notice on the house. She was fine on that and everything was in order. It was strange driving out of Ataco for the last time…..from living there at least. We stopped by Hector and Rachel’s and they let us borrow their hot spot for the internet. It was good to get that and still be able to Skype with the kids. We got home about 6ish and then had an unexpected welcome to the neighborhood. Two little girls about 8 came by and introduced themselves. Then, they left for a moment and returned with two little boys. And, then they left and came back with even more….I lost count. They kept watching all we were doing from our kitchen window. We finally ran them off after about 30 minutes. I did tell them I would bake them some cookies when we get settled. We unloaded the car and unpacked until about 11ish. Moving makes for long days, but we are truly thankful to begin to settle where we are working.

Balcony View

The little tower is part of our patio.

Peaceful!

September 29, 2015

Wrap-up day in Ataco. We unpacked a little in the morning, but left about 10 to go to Ataco. We had no hot water in Juayua, so I took advantage of one last hot shower before we handed over the keys. We are uncertain how long it will be before Dwaine can set up the electric water heater on the shower. We cleaned for about 3 hours and then went out for a lunch at a small restaurant in front of the park. It was a nice lunch and then we headed out for some visiting. First, we went to Natividad’s. Her daughter was also there with her son, Christopher. But we missed seeing Mirdna. Natividad’s health was not very good. We talked for a little while on her difficulty with making a decision for the Lord. While we may return to Ataco for some visits, we probably won’t be involved in too many ongoing studies. It is hard to know when a person has rejected Christ, so we are prayerful that her daughter and people in the church in Ataco will continue to try to influence her to move on her knowledge. Next we went to Edgardo’s. His wife, Maritza was home and we visited with her, their son Javier, and their daughter Paola until Edgardo arrived. Edgardo, our brother from Ataco, had taken a new position working in the coffee fields. He has to get up each morning at 4:30, walk two hours in the dark, work a full day at hard labor and then walk two hours home in the afternoon. He was exhausted. We are going to get him a heavy duty flashlight to travel with. Hopefully, that will help him along his journey. Next, we went back to Ataco to load the car for a final trip and to have the landlady to do a final run through of the house. We were supposed to give a one month notice, but we really couldn’t since we had to jump on a house as soon as we found one in Juayua. So, we used our deposit as the payment for our one’s notice on the house. She was fine on that and everything was in order. It was strange driving out of Ataco for the last time…..from living there at least. We stopped by Hector and Rachel’s and they let us borrow their hot spot for the internet. It was good to get that and still be able to Skype with the kids. We got home about 6ish and unloaded and unpacked until about 11ish. Moving makes for long days, but we are truly thankful to begin to settle where we are working.

We found a friend on our patio table's bench.

Close-up in case you couldn't see it well.

Too think I was sitting right here on this bench yesterday.

I just love it!

Dwaine said, "We passed a lost 'soul' on the road."

Then, Dwaine said, "We just passed a child sandwich." Can you figure that one?

Exiting Ataco

Heading out of town.

The Welcoming Committee!

September 28, 2015

A moving experience. We stayed up till about eleven Sunday night packing up for the move and started again about 6 am on Monday. We were expecting Cesar and Jose about 8:30. I got everything done that I could find and was anxious for their arrival with the truck. At 9 I called and Cesar said “We are in Apaneca” which is about 10 min. away. But when he arrived he was alone. Unless he had a frog in his pocket which I forgot to ask about. I was pretty distressed. It was supposed to start raining about noon, he was late because he had to wait for a worker to do some repairs in the house they had moved from before he turns in the key on Wed. And we were short one man, Jose had had an accident on a bicycle after we talked to him Sat and was unable to make it. We had to make four trips on Ricardo’s truck because it had a metal frame and a tarp over the back that restricted us to about 5 ½ ft. of height. We were mostly fortunate on the rain. On the second trip we got everything loaded and the tarp all in place because the rain looked imminent and as we were returning to Juayua it poured down but everything stayed dry. When we arrived in Juayua each of the first 2 trips Jose and his son came over and helped unload and on the second time it was raining but I wanted to unload anyway because we had so much yet to do so they did not come back after that time. Kelly and her daughter, Nicole, also came over helped unpack the kitchen items. Charlotte had lunch ready for us in Juayua at the new house on the second trip. We had loaded the trunk and back seat of the car before Cesar arrived and on the first trip I drove the car and she held Wicket and Cesar drove the truck. Wicket was pretty content sitting in Charlotte’s lap for the trip. Charlotte stayed the rest of the day in Juayua while Cesar and I went back and forth to Ataco. From Charlotte, about 30 minutes after Cesar and Dwaine left, Regina, Zuleyma, Kenya, Arnoldo, and Danielito came by for a visit. They stayed for about 4 hours and I took Regina and Arnoldo home after dark. We just visited because there wasn’t really anything they could do to help put things away. Off and on, workers came by trying to get the water going. In the end, they got bathroom water turned on, but not the outside sink and washer. From Dwaine, we were scheduled to have a study with Raul and Anita at 5 but had to call and postpone until another day. We got back to our new house with the last load at 5:30 and it was about 7 by the time we finished unloading. One of the funniest events of the day for me was that when we helped Cesar and Eliza move into their first house in Juayua we found out that night they were directly beside a Pentecostal church with loud services and preaching. I had told Cesar I was so sorry. The church had moved up the street while they were living there and are now located just past the house we moved into. As we were finishing they began evening services and were very loud. I told Cesar it was his turn to say “I’m sorry Brother”. Cesar had left his car at Ricardo’s when he picked up the truck and we were without water at the new house while the owner was having a sink put in for us. So on the last trip we stopped by and got his car because his keys to the old house were in the car and it was just down the street so we were going to go down there for the bathroom. About 8 Charlotte and I took the truck back to Ricardo’s. When I tried to go up his road I got stuck because the rain had made his dirt road into mud. I finally got it out but they were not home so I threw the key inside the gate. Charlotte had waited in the car back down the road and I decided the only safe thing to do was to back the car down to the main road in the dark and the rain. We made it ok and then we ran by Selectos to buy a jug of water and a couple of other things we needed. Then we made the 3 minute drive back home!!!

Ready for first load.

Ready to roll.

Sister Regina and grandson, Danielito came by for a visit.

Zuleyma, Regina and Danielito

Kitchen is shaping up.

September 27, 2015

First Sunday back. Up and going early, I was cooking up a storm because I was going to take lunch for the girls and then we wanted to have company for lunch. On Saturday, Carlos had said that he could go to Shucutitan with us, so we planned to pick him up at Apaneca. When we arrived, he was not at the stop, so we went on to church. Soon after our arrival he came and said he had run late and just taken the bus. It was great to see everyone and Linda and Rachel had prepared a great program for the children after the sermon. Because the church had been going through the Bible, each of about 25ish children quoted a verse from the different lessons. Afterwards the children had gifts and a cake. It was a nice event. I left the girls their lunch and we left for lunch with Ricardo, Joli, Carlos and Lucky. Joli had started the Debra Ministries in Santa Telca, near San Salvador and she had asked me to do one of the lessons on mentoring October 24th. So, we were meeting to get final details on the lesson. It was funny because Ricardo and Joli had to go by their home in Juayua to pick up their computer and they didn’t arrive at the house until 1 o’clock. We laughed and said they had gone home to take a nap first. When they left we rested for about 30 minutes and then headed for Juayua. We picked up Isabel Chaves on the way. She had not come to the morning service in Shucutitan because her husband had surgery for an infection in his intestines. He had just come home from the hospital, so she stayed with him. We had a good turnout for the service. When we got home we stayed up and packed a while because we were hoping to get an early start on Monday with moving. We sure had a busy day before a big move.

Children's Program at Shucutitan

Ladies at Shucutitan

Service at Juayua

Monday, September 28, 2015

September 26, 2015

We’re on the move. While we had thought that we would take a load in our car Saturday on our way to English class, we decided that Dwaine could make one run during the morning. Since we had packed some things Friday night, we had enough for two loads. He wanted to go by and pay the rent and ask a few questions as well. That was a successful run and when he returned he said that the landlord had already started on the sink outside the bathroom on the patio. He had also planned to buy a commode seat because that was not present. That is very common here. But he said the landlord had picked one up for us! I worked on preparing for English class and packing a little more. We rounded up another load and headed out again. We had three students for English class, Arnoldo, Nelson and Carlos. We had learned that Carlos had been going to Shucutitian church in our absence and kept asking when we would return. So, it was great to see him. He had finished one Bible lesson and we took it home to review it. He had some difficulty, so it will give us a place to start on our next study. He said that he was coming to service on Sunday, so we invited him for lunch afterwards. Nelson was eager to pick back up with a new study, so we planned that as well. I told him that we wanted to have his family over sometime on into October. He came back to our evening service and he said his wife would be glad to come. He asked if we just wanted his immediate family or his extended family. I knew he had a large family from our English graduation with the group, but I asked the number. He said 15! So, I thought, wow, what a lot of great contacts, so I said yes. Our house is really small, so I hope that it will not be raining so we can take advantage of our large patio area when we set a date! Oswaldo was planning to have our evening service at 4 because he had a later commitment. When we learned this, we knew we would only have time to visit our family who sells coffee. It was a great visit. They were all there with Bibles in hand. It was wonderful to see them so eager. We had brought a few gifts and Jim had sent a gift so we gave those out. They said they were so excited about having us a neighbors. We will be just across the street from them. Kelly said she and the kids would come to church on Sunday, but Jose had to work in San Salvador. Jose said he was off Monday and he wanted to help us move. That is great! Afterwards we went to our service and Nelson did come back and Anita was there. We also had many members as well. Osvaldo is doing a series on different religions and he was working on the Mormons. It was really good, especially since Nelson had questions along this line. We stopped by Selectos because we have guests coming for Sunday and teen girls to cook for.

Saturday, September 26, 2015

September 25, 2015

Getting ready to move. We had forgotten to get the address of our new house in Juayua so that we could tell the cable people so they could move our internet. We planned to go to Ahuachapan today for some errands, so we could go by Claro and get that done also. We decided the easiest thing would be for me to run back down to Juayua while Charlotte worked on getting ready for the seminar in Oct. When I got to the hardware store the people there said the owner was up at the new house. When I got there he and a worker were already putting in the sink for us. I told them we had a clothes washer and they are going to put in the hook-up for that right beside the sink. These will actually be on the balcony just outside the bathroom since this is the only source of water. We will have to carry our dishes from the kitchen about 20 feet but considering all the people here who have to carry water (usually ladies carry it on their heads) from sources outside and sometimes pretty far from their homes we thought we could survive for a few months. He said they would also work out something for clothes lines since there is no dryer hook-up. Charlotte said that would mean ironing and I needed to learn how. He was very uncertain of the address but tried to describe on paper where the house is located which is normal for here. I told him we wanted to start taking boxes as we went to English class on Saturday and to services on Sunday and he gave me a key and said we could start anytime. I offered to go ahead and pay but he said wait and pass by his store on Sat. It was neat that they were already there getting it ready for us. On the way back I stopped by Ricardo’s and he said we could get his larger truck for Mon. and Tue also if we needed it. I think we will have to make at least 3 to 4 trips with the truck as well as lots of boxes with the car. When I got home I went over and told our Ataco landlady about our moving on Monday and she was very nice about it. Then we headed out to Ahuachapan. We passed by Joli’s store and she gave us lots of card board boxes and tape so that was great. We had a good trip and got all our errands done and got back about 1:30 for lunch. We then went over to visit with Linda for a little while and to take some presents. Lucky was there getting stuff ready for the Friday children’s service here in Ataco. It was good to see she was feeling well enough to be out and doing stuff. We had a good visit and everyone was really excited to see us back and to hear our news about the new house in Juayua. It has rained all day and is much cooler than when we left for the states. I am chilly and Charlotte is downright cold. We finished up the day packing so that we can make a couple of trips to Juayua on Saturday.

Friday, September 25, 2015

September 24, 2015

What goes around, comes around. We had thought that we would spend the entire day Thursday looking for a house in Juayua but we decided that would be a really long day so we decided to get there at 1 and spend the afternoon. We had lunched Wednesday at the little restaurant of the Italian chef and he said we could come back at 4 Thursday and he would try to have something for us to see. We had also stopped by the hardware store because the owner has some houses, one of which we had looked at before but was too small. He said to come back at 5 on Thursday and he would show us a house he was reconstructing. So we arrived at Cesar’s at 1 and he went with us. We had a number to call about a house that was to be empty on Sept. 30 so we tried to call but it was a wrong number. We had gotten the number from the man who runs a flower shop and is friends with the owner. We went back by there and he said he could not remember any other number but the owner of the house would be here Sept. 30 and she always came to their shop since they were friends. He said he would tell her about us and make sure that we got to meet with her. The house was just around the corner so we walked over but no one was there so we could not go in. We did see a little through a window and were not all that excited about the lay out as far as we could tell. So we tried to ask around and run down some other leads but they were all dead ends. At 4 Cesar needed to go back home to see about Eliza because of her sickness. We dropped him off and went to see the Chef. He got in the car with us and directed us to the hardware store. We told him we already had an appointment with the owner at 5 and he said he did not have any other leads. We had an hour to kill so we went to Selectos and got some more groceries because we are trying to restock. We still had to just wait in the car for about 30 minutes. At 5 we went to the hardware store. When the owner got in the car he said he had an idea for us to consider. He said we could move in the small house we had already seen (it may have been the very first house we saw when we started looking way back in April) and that he was rebuilding a much larger house and it would be ready in 4-5 months and we would be able to move in as soon as it was ready. We decided that was worth considering so we went back to the smaller house first. When we saw it the first time it seemed dark and the rooms seemed very small and we understood the kitchen was to be down stairs. Now that it is completely finished it is very pretty. The rooms are painted with a light color which makes them seem larger. The finished down stairs part is very pretty with a patio and an umbrella. There is not an actual kitchen upstairs but there is a room that could be dinning-kitchen, a decent size living room and 2 small bedrooms. There is no kitchen sink anywhere but he said he would put one in for us. The bathroom is really small but will get by. And there is a pretty upstairs balcony with a nice view. There is also a large bedroom and a small storage room downstairs. Then he took us around the block to the house he is reconstructing. It was very old and dilapidated and hard to visualize what it would look like when finished but he said it would be very beautiful and large and judging from how pretty the other house is now that it is finished we believed him. We decided that it would be worth a go since we are so tired of traveling back and forth from Ataco. Also we believe we can be so much more effective living in Juayua. If for any reason we do not like the new house when it is finished we can look for another while living in Juayua. We will almost be across the corner from Jose and Kelly and just around the corner from Julia. We will be across town from Regina’s family but it is a small town. We hope to be able to make some suggestion about the new house (he already agreed to put in a plug for a clothes dryer which this house does not have). It is not perfect but will certainly get by for a while and we are so glad to not have to keep looking for now. Also the rent will only be $200 per month and we are now paying $375 so that will really help. He said we did not need to pay a deposit or sign a contract and we were expecting to have to do both. We thanked him and he said no but to thank God. He seems really nice and as we get to know him better perhaps we can talk more about our Lord. We plan to move on Monday. It is hard to believe but the timing all is probably exactly for the best and we can now get to work in Juayua in earnest. We had asked for prayers at Central on our last Sunday that we would find a house and many people said they would be praying for us. At the very end of a tiring and discouraging day all those prayers were answered with a good and safe location and an adequate house and better prospects coming soon.

Rotti Statue in new home!

Can't see'em, but there are many huge spiders between the house and trees.

Enlarged version.

Huge Patio

Long Room Below

Only bathroom and it's outside on a patio.

Kitchen....no sink

Front Room

September 23, 2015

Sweet reunions! Since we typically spend the entirety of Wednesday in Juayua, we headed out early to renew our contacts. First, we went by Ricardo and Joli’s because Lucky was recovering from Dengue Fever in their home. She was up and walking, but appeared really thin and tired. Dengue Fever is called the bone breaking disease because it is so painful that every bone in your body feels like it is breaking. She had visited the doctor in San Salvador and he said that she needed to go to the hospital, but that if she did, she would die. Her platelet count was dangerously low and fever very high. It was wonderful to see her improving, but it broke our heart that she was having such a difficult time. She is in El Salvador to have four root canals and crowns because the price is so much less than California, where she lives. She is going to try to complete the treatment next week in San Salvador and then return to the States. Then, we joined Cesar and went by Mr. Rivas, but he was not at home. However, he was well from his bout with chikungunya. Next we stopped by to visit with Delmy. She is working on ‘Que Dice La Biblia?’ series…’What does the Bible say?’ and she had two lessons to turn in. That is exciting that she is diligent to move along. Around the corner, we stopped by to see Julia. She has been watching a Bible overview series on DVD and we talked about her progress. She said that she was ‘coming along little by little.’ Then, Dwaine and I went by to see Jose and Kelly. Kelly was home and she was in good spirits. That study is Saturday, so we only visited for a bit. She showed us pictures of all the Independence Day costumes she had finished. It was close to 20. Next, we spent our lunchtime to check on house hunting contacts. We ate lunch with the Italian chef and he said we could come back to visit at 4 on Thursday for one contact. Then, we stopped by Coyito’s a lady who owns a little hostel and had helped us several times. She said we could come back at 4 to see one house. Some times in the past we were going to visit Mario and Sara on Wednesdays. This is the family that the man broke his leg in a bad fall. Cesar said that Mario had to move near the Juayua waterfalls with his family for recovery. He wants us to come to this area with his wife to continue the study, so we will have to work on this. It is a more dangerous area, but we have learned that the dangerous part is when you are on foot and we will be able to be in our car. So we will have to plan this. Next, we went to Ana’s with Regina and Arnoldo. Ana had a bad cold and headache. So did Regina. And, Eliza had a bad sinus infection. Everyone says this is the worst part of the rainy season and many are sick. We had a short study and then headed to Omar, Gisela and Emily’s. We wanted to visit for a few minutes. At four we went back to Coyito’s She said she would be in San Salvador on Thursday, so she went out to ask about a couple of places. One place she talked about was where a medical business was moving from at the end of the month, but we could not see it. Then, there was a funny one. Some time back we had asked about one house that was empty, but the family said that they were remodeling and were planning for their own family to move in. Coyito knew the owner and before we knew it, we were entering to see the house. The part that was funny, is that it was not for rent, she only wanted to show off her handiwork and finished product. That was a disheartening tour knowing it was not available. Then, we went back to Julia’s to give her a ride to church, but she had company. The service was great, with Zuleyma, Regina’s daughter, her baby, Daniel, and Aracely all being there. Zuleyma and Aracely have rededicated. This has created difficulty in the marriage of Zuleyma, so keep her in your prayers. We are prayerful that Aracely’s husband may also return to church as they had come some ten years ago when there had been a church in Juayua. Arnoldo helped me teach the children and it was wonderful to see them all. Afterwards, we headed home. Several dropped by for a visit once we got back to Ataco and it was a blessing to be home again.

September 22, 2015

Home again. We had a smooth flight though there was some challenge in Houston. We only had one hour to get from the Huntsville flight to the San Salvador flight. We had to wait for three of our carry-on bags that had been checked because they were too big to fit in the overhead storage in the smaller airplane. When we got them we took off to find our gate and hope to have time for the restroom and a bite to eat. When we got to the gate it had been changed to another gate which was quite far away. We had two very stuffed and heavy back packs and two very stuffed and heavy small carry-on bags. By the time we got to the gate I (Dwaine) was really struggling. I had a backpack on and was rolling both of the carry-ons. Charlotte looked back several times to see if I was still moving. I made it but sure was wiped out when we got to the gate. We still had about 20 minutes to boarding so I got us a couple of fruit yogurts that were salted with gold nuggets. They costed $6 each tax and all. But there was to be no free food on the plane and we sure needed something. We could have eaten at a nice restaurant here for that amount. Our seats were next to an elderly Salvadoran lady and she was so happy that we spoke Spanish and she and Charlotte had a good visit during the flight. All of our flying was really smooth and we got to San Salvador a few minutes early. When we went through immigration a lady asked if we were residents and we were taken to a different desk with no line except for our friend from the plane and one other lady. We also did not have to pay the $10 tourist entry fee. We had to wait a long time for our bags to show up on the luggage carosel but at least everything was there. What a load we had on our cart as we approached the final immigration check point for entering the country. We were also behind a lot of people because many people were arriving on our plane and one other. We ended up beside the same lady from the plane again so we joked about that. When we got up to the check out the officer asked if we had anything to declare. I felt like saying “I declare I am exhausted and hope you don't want to check out what is in all these bags” but I resisted the temptation. We got the green light and went on out. Cesar was not to be seen so Charlotte waited with the luggage cart at the curb and I went to look for him. After the second trip as I returned to Charlotte he was there and they were already almost loaded. It sure was great to see him and especially since we could not get our phones to work. We were amazed that we were able to get all the bags in the car but somehow we did. We stopped at China Wok for lunch then went to the Dentist. He took over 1 1/2 hours to form the mold for her crown and she said several times he had to work in another room for several minutes and she would fall asleep and he would come back and shake her and say open your mouth. They said we would need two more visits and one would be only for about 15 min while they made sure of the final fit before they completed the crown. We told them how much we did not want to travel to San Salvador for a 15 minute visit so they are going to try to get it all done in one day but we will have lots of time to kill between the first and second visit. Cesar and Eliza had moved about a week before we got back because they had to be out of their house by the end of Sept. Turns out they had taken a small 2 story house that we had looked at and did not think we really wanted. It did look better with their furniture in it than it had empty. Eliza had a pretty bad sinus infection that had been going on for about a week. We stopped by Selectos and got just enough to have a little dinner when we got home. We arrived about 7 at our house and Paulo was here. The house was clean and in good order and Wicket was fine and so happy to see Charlotte. She had to warm up to me. She had grown some. Paulo decided to go on back to his house since the buses were still running. We ate and actually got everything unpacked and skyped with the kids. What a day but it was good to be back.

Stopped for lunch after arriving.

We were envious of the two fruit drinks these guys were having

Fun!

Thursday, September 24, 2015

August 21-September 22, 2015

Stateside! I don’t know that we planned to stop blogging once we returned to the States, but it seemed a respite was due. Unfortunately, it seemed I did a respite on picture taking too….except for Charlotte’s birthday. So, I am going to recap our visit. We had a grand reception at the airport with lots of family and friends....complete with Spanish Welcome Home sign. It was a blessing to be home and see the children. We spent all of Saturday with our families at the house and that was wonderful to have some Charlotte time. Our first Sunday home Dwaine gave the El Salvador report with many pictures. The Central body was so welcoming and we got many great comments on the report. Many of our friends and family came to hear the report as well so that was also a sweet reunion. During the next week, we had lots of ‘eat outs’ with friends and we hit up many thrift stores for some clothes. We have not purchased clothes in El Salvador yet, but we are sure they have some tooJ. On Saturday, August 29^th, we (along with Caleb, baby Charlotte and Leanna) traveled to Dwaine's brother and sister-in-law, Guy and Shirley Simmons. Clifton joined us from Auburn. During this visit, many family members gathered to visit and Dwaine also gave his report to the Rockhill Church of Christ. On Monday we returned. On September 3^rd, Dwaine and I celebrated our 37^th year of marital bliss. Unfortunately, Dwaine was really under the weather with another cold virus of some sort. But, that does not take away from our many years of blessings we have shared. Then, all the girls headed for a Labor Day weekend visit to the beach. What a relaxing weekend. We stayed on the beach as much as possible and even got to see a water spout. Charlotte was perfect on the beach, patient, loving both the sun and water. Going home was quite a trip….about nine hours….due to construction, stops, and traffic. About this time, we got one interesting story from El Salvador. We had a young man, Paolo, to stay at our home in Ataco in our absence to watch our little dog, Wicket. On Sunday, the 6^th we got an email from him saying that in the wee hours of the night he heard a ruckus next door. He realized that the police were entering our neighbor’s house. After a few minutes, the police were knocking on our house door. He opened it to about 6 police all pointing guns at him! They thought that the neighbor was dealing drugs and that he had escaped through his a hole in his roof. Since we have an adjoining wall, they thought he had come to our home. They came in to search our house. We had locked our bedroom door and they wanted to enter there. But, at last, they decided they would let that go. I think both Paolo and Wicket were scared to death! Dwaine and I were sad that we missed the excitement! (When we returned Dwaine saw our neighbor and he told his side of the story. He said that he was not at home when the police came. They made his teenage son lie on the floor with guns pointed at him. They demanded that he give information regarding a man with a different name than that of his father that no one in their family knew. They searched his home, but found nothing. The next day, the father returned and called the police. They said that it was a case of mistaken location. The man they were looking for, lived about two blocks from us. They apologized, but now the father is trying to sue the police for all the trauma!) Saturday, September 12, 2015 was Charlotte’s first birthday. She was just delightful and we had another great day of family and friends. I had made my first quilt, so it was fun to pass that to Charlotte. There was a pony theme and Della had made noodle stick ponies and there was a pony on the ice cream cake. It was such a wonderful day. On Monday we got the call that Charlotte was walking! Next, Dwaine and I made a trip to my Aunt Nell in Stringer, Mississippi. Like our trip to Luverne to visit Dwaine’s family, many cousins came as well. On Sunday, September the 13^th, we got to go after church to visit my brother, his wife and daughter. My brother has Parkinson’s, so it was so nice to see him and know he is faring well. Their family’s faith is such an inspiration to us. On in the week, on September 16^th, Dwaine and I celebrated my Dad’s 87^th birthday. Then, late in the week my Dad and Stepmom took us out for a nice good-bye dinner. At this point, we were closing in on our trip. Throughout the weeks, we had the opportunity to visit life talks and speak for classes. We expressed a couple of needs for dear friends in El Salvador and we were overwhelmed with generosity. Thank you, Amelia Biser, for taking on the final collection of the funds. We are thankful for the kindness of so many. Our last family day was Saturday, September 19^th and Central gave us a sendoff on Sunday. We ended with a delightful meal with the Life Talk that meets at the Greenleafs. We took this time to return a car they loaned us for the entire month. Finally, we had one surprise from Leanna. Thursday before we left, she unexpectedly (at least for us) sold her jeep….for more than she paid for it two years ago. She made one trip to Dalton on Saturday to look at one vehicle, but it was not the one. So, on Monday, she found a Mazda CX7 in Decatur. It was the one! The cost was identical to her jeep, with two needs: steering pump and tires. It was great to have this taken care of before we left. Clifton had come home this last weekend for a visit from Auburn and then on Monday we had one last dinner at the food court with everyone. We finished out packing and were over on weight a couple of pounds on every bag. We had picked up items from church that needed to come, so we left some things at home for another time. As always, I had the "clean the house syndrome " before we left so I cleaned til 2 a.m. and slept for an hour. We got up at 3 to head out for our 6 o’clock flight. What a blessing for the children to come to the airport and see us off. While we had planned to come back in a year, Caleb and Christina offered to help with one set of tickets per year to bring us home. They said that was easier than them trying to come. So, we are going to try to visit the States for about 2 weeks twice a year, instead of a month once a year. A month seemed too long to be away from the work and a year seemed to be too long to be away from our precious family. So, Lord willing, we will see you all in March next year.