Prayer Requests and Praises

I've got some good news and some bad news.

1. Mark and Sonde have finally found a place to stay! They are staying at the SIL guesthouse. SIL is another missions group that is involved with translating the Bible.

2. Robyn Lenz, an old friend of Angie's who is now here on the mission field just found out that they have a baby on the way!!! Robyn has some health problems, and they were really happy to have even had Michael, who Robyn refers to as her miracle baby : ). So just yesterday she decided to do a test just for fun, and what do you know?!?! They are of course absolutely ecstatic. The day we got here, Robyn was explaining to Angie and I, that they probably couldn't have any more, even though they would love to. As Robyn puts it "It's totally a God thing!"

3. One of the other women from here (she's in the USA right now), just safely delivered her baby girl, in spite of having some serious problems over the last couple months.

4. The sad news is that with the baby epidemic going on around here, and even with people in the US, Angie is feeling kind of depressed. I can completely understand that, knowing that she would've been about five and a half months along with hers right now*. Actually I guess I can't REALLY say that I understand what she's feeling, but I can sympathise with her since I don't have one either : ). She mentioned it to me this afternoon when we found out that Robyn's expecting, and someone else just announced their pregnancy, and we received news about the baby's arrival. I had a chance to congratulate Robyn, and I mentioned that to her, and she said she'd try to check with her and make sure she's doing OK.
*For those of you that didn't hear this already, Angie had a miscarriage about three weeks before I arrived here.

5. Some more good news is that Angie, who has been taking kernel checking lessons from Linda, has completed her "course". Since I haven't had a chance to explain much of this before, I'll tell you why this is so exciting to me : ). Angie has been going over to Linda's house first thing in the morning, and spending her whole day (except for meals) there learning how to make her kernel checks a lot more meaningful. Today was her last day there, so I won't have to worry about doing all of Jael's schooling anymore. Hallelujah!!! Today was absolutely rotten. Jael didn't get to bed until almost ten, which is about two and a half hours after her bedtime, and I was up until midnight skypeing my family. So, two very tired people do not mix the greatest! Jael couldn't concentrate for anything, and if I looked at her wrong she'd start pouting or crying. I'm afraid I don't have much patience when it comes to pouting kids, and especially when she was trying to cheat too! I had the teachers book sitting on the other side of me, and if I don't keep it covered or with me, she cheats whenever possible. School didn't go well today. Finally at about two-thirty I gave up, and sent her out to play. After a little while she got bored, so she came and asked me what she could do. I told her that I had been planning on going to the playground after Baruch woke up from his nap. She thought that sounded great and left my room. Next thing I hear is her talking. I thought to myself "She wouldn't, would she??" Yup, sure enough, she was in Baruch's room waking him up telling him that we had to go to the playground. I kicked her out of there, and told Baruch, who was crying by then, to go back to sleep. Fortunately for Jael, he did : D. We did eventually make it to the playground. All that, just to explain that I am happy to give up my part time "Mom" job. The one good thing that I can say came out of it, is that Baruch and I are on better terms now. It's great all I have to do is give him "The Stare", and he'll stop his pouting, or glaring. After being put in the corner once for glaring at me when I told him "no" all I had to do was give him "The Stare". The real test will be to see if it works when his parents are around. Before this it didn't, because he knew I didn't have the authority to do anything about it. We'll see.

Well, I think it's about time for me to head for bed. I'm about done in after everything that's happened today. I really appreciate knowing that I have people back home praying for me. And don't forget to add Angie to your list.

Love you all,
Anna