the comings and goings

life has continued to be busy, and we feel the loss of the allisons in many areas of life. they helped out not only with the many aspects of ministry, but we also miss our "gringo neighbors." we are thankful, though, for the season of time that we had with them and all that we learned from and with them along the way. from clinics, to bagging milk, to accounting work, learning the value of sabbath and slowing down, to late night capture the flag games, beach volleyball games, and sack races, they added a lot of good to our lives with their presence here... we look forward to seeing where God leads them.

as everyone has heard, we crossed a large milestone with abi's adoption as the judge approved her paperwork to become an offical part of our family! this was a huge answer to prayers, but duane and leslie continue to fight systems and paperwork struggles to help things keep moving... lets just say there's been lots of guatemalan hugs lately :)

the rains have begun to come a little more consistently now, raining the past three nights in a row! we are now hoping that the rainy season will start in full bloom soon and help bring down the high heat levels and bring some green to our corner of the world again. aaron, joe, dave and craig planted seed in our back pasture yesterday, and dave continues to get more calls for tractor work. i have forgotten how much your entire body can actually crave rain after the mini drought that october through april brings...

psator phil along with wade, vinny, and micahel were an encouragement and blessing once again this year. we were able to get out into some different aldeas as they preached in a few different churches each of the three nights they were here. it always makes my heart happy to see the different people that we see in clinics in the midst of the church services as well. while i am so grateful for the way that we are able to have one-on-one time with these people in clinics, i love the way that the body of christ can be seen in a tangible way as i watch these american pastors come here to preach to these same people, showing them the gospel of christ in a way that we cannot in the clinic setting. i know that this is how God intends it to be... we each play our part and He moves among each of our gifts to plant and cultivate the seeds that are planted in the people around us.

and we look forward to more visitors this summer starting with heidi next week! although she is not really coming just to visit us, we are claiming her for a couple days of visiting and with plans for a trip out to san pedro. we have continued to be able to make it out to this village about once a month and it is always a joy to work with and further relationships with the people there.