Lately...

In no particular order, here are a few things going on lately with us.

With one of our base's couples on furlough, I've taken over a few administrative jobs.  They deal with accounting, an area I have really come to enjoy over the years.  So, sometimes the whole family is in the hangar office....

...some being more productive than others.  Thank you Curious George for keeping E entertained!

The big SIDs project is underway in the hanger and today Jeyson banged up both hands pretty good in maintenance.  I'll spare you a pic :) Nothing too serious,  but it's good thing it's the weekend and he has time to heal.

I've been getting more and more involved getting to know women in the community.  Here is a mom that I reached out to helping her prepare for her birth.  Her daughter is getting big now (and has amazing hair for a 5 month old, as a side note hahaha!)  It's great to continue the relationship with the couple.  I also have been getting to know another sweet lady who recently became a Christian and moved here.  She is engaged and her and her fiance asked us to be their witnesses in their court wedding (a semi big deal here) since they don't know many other Christian couples here.  What a privilege!

We have also been enjoying to get to know a lot of the young couples who live in villages.  They are only flown out every 4-5 months for a few weeks and we've been slowly inviting them over for dinner when they're in the city.  It really puts a face on the people that we're serving behind the scenes. 

Elijah started 2 mornings a week in preschool again this week after a several week break.  I'm so excited about what that will mean for him Portuguese-wise this year.  I see him really opening up and wanting to repeat things in Portuguese for the first time.  I'm hoping he'll be at least partway speaking in Portuguese a year from now.  We'll see!  We're still working on English too, but Portuguese is pretty far behind and we want him to feel at home here.  I think preschool will be a big help.  

We had a great but intense hike to a waterfall a few weeks ago.  We went with several friends who lived in the village for years and they thought it was no big deal, even when one of the guys lost his flip flop in the waterfall (yes he intentionally hiked the hour long hike in flip flops!) and so he hiked the whole way back barefoot...fire ants on the trail and all. And he said it wasn't a big deal.  WOW I am a WIMP! I guess I need to get more in touch with my jungle side!

A while back a missionary wanted to start outreach to an unreached village.  He opened up a very preliminary airstrip himself by hand....which took a long time.  Then a few months ago our Asas plane flew in with a team of guys and they spent the week removing 30 TONS of dirt in order to flatten out the airstrip so it would be safe to land on long term.  This was also done by hand, but with a bigger team and the help of some native people as well.  The missionary who originally opened the strip, Kirt, is not able to live in the village full time for various reasons so his ministry is come and go and therefore somewhat limited.  Great news!  Now, there is a lot of talk about missionaries preparing to move there to live and serve there full time.  Awesome to see how God is working.

This weekend we're planning to do some resting.  A missionary couple who lives in a village is coming over for dinner tonight.  But other than that, we'll be relaxing and getting ready for another week!