Beautiful Feet: 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.