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Family Pic - June 2018
12.30.2011
11.22.2011
Happy Thanksgiving!
Well the last few weeks have been very not fun. It all started when Juliana got sick on November 3rd with a fever that just wouldn't go away and then a somewhat unrelated cough. I believe it was the flu, or if not, then just some other virus that's been going around both the school and all our friends at church. Then I got it 3 days later, and we were both completely miserable for a few days. Just as I was starting to feel better, the fever came back and I ended up at the doctor, this time with a sinus infection. Then after a couple days on an antibiotic, I was just starting to feel better, and then Kyle got it and missed most of last week at school. I think we're all feeling mostly better now, but still pretty tired. Juliana's been taking some GREAT naps (some days close to 3 hours) which has been great, since by lunch time I'm usually completely exhausted and in need of a nap myself!
The other sad thing that made the week not fun is that we attended our first funeral of the year :( One of the young guys at our church is also an alumni of Academia Los Pinares (as is his 2 younger sisters who are both in college in Minnesota). Their mother is a well known lawyer here in Honduras, who is known for being just and fighting corruption, when MANY other lawyers and judges in the country are corrupt. In 2008 she was in an SUV, being driven to her home, when the car was attacked and she was shot (I think 8 times) but survived. Then on the 7th we received word that she had been attacked again, in an SUV being driven to her home, in the exact same area. This time she was killed immediately. The thing is that this area is one of the most wealthy areas in the city, very heavily guarded, and during the beginning of rush hours (around 4 in the afternoon). It's not known who attacked her, but they were very bold, and it was probably someone that she went against in court. Funerals here are different than in the States, and most often take place within 24 hours of the death. She was killed at 4 pm on Monday, and the viewing started at 6 am the next morning. Because her daughters were in the States, they had to be flown in as quickly as possible. We were at the viewing around 2pm that day when they arrived, and it was very sad. I can't imagine how hard it would be to receive word that your mom was shot, get on a plane within a few hours, and arrive just in time for the burial. Many of their friends and teachers from high school were able to be there as well, but it has to be a very hard time for the family.
This weekend we're not planning on going anywhere but Kyle has almost 2 1/2 days off work. We do have 3 thanksgiving dinners: one at church this past sunday, one at school tomorrow, and a real Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday with the Mattica's! Then on Friday I think we'll go downtown and do some Christmas shopping. Thanksgiving isn't a Honduran holiday, and most don't celebrate it, so no big sales on Friday, but also not a crazy day in the stores either. Juliana also has a birthday party to go to tomorrow afternoon...a friend of hers is turning 2, and the mom is throwing a party for around 10 little girls all around the same age....she's one brave mommy.
Sorry, no good pictures of Juliana this time...haven't done much recently except lay on the couch :( I'll have to make a better effort for next time.
The other sad thing that made the week not fun is that we attended our first funeral of the year :( One of the young guys at our church is also an alumni of Academia Los Pinares (as is his 2 younger sisters who are both in college in Minnesota). Their mother is a well known lawyer here in Honduras, who is known for being just and fighting corruption, when MANY other lawyers and judges in the country are corrupt. In 2008 she was in an SUV, being driven to her home, when the car was attacked and she was shot (I think 8 times) but survived. Then on the 7th we received word that she had been attacked again, in an SUV being driven to her home, in the exact same area. This time she was killed immediately. The thing is that this area is one of the most wealthy areas in the city, very heavily guarded, and during the beginning of rush hours (around 4 in the afternoon). It's not known who attacked her, but they were very bold, and it was probably someone that she went against in court. Funerals here are different than in the States, and most often take place within 24 hours of the death. She was killed at 4 pm on Monday, and the viewing started at 6 am the next morning. Because her daughters were in the States, they had to be flown in as quickly as possible. We were at the viewing around 2pm that day when they arrived, and it was very sad. I can't imagine how hard it would be to receive word that your mom was shot, get on a plane within a few hours, and arrive just in time for the burial. Many of their friends and teachers from high school were able to be there as well, but it has to be a very hard time for the family.
This weekend we're not planning on going anywhere but Kyle has almost 2 1/2 days off work. We do have 3 thanksgiving dinners: one at church this past sunday, one at school tomorrow, and a real Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday with the Mattica's! Then on Friday I think we'll go downtown and do some Christmas shopping. Thanksgiving isn't a Honduran holiday, and most don't celebrate it, so no big sales on Friday, but also not a crazy day in the stores either. Juliana also has a birthday party to go to tomorrow afternoon...a friend of hers is turning 2, and the mom is throwing a party for around 10 little girls all around the same age....she's one brave mommy.
Sorry, no good pictures of Juliana this time...haven't done much recently except lay on the couch :( I'll have to make a better effort for next time.
11.04.2011
Basketball, basketball, and more basketball
Not too much going on around here except for a lot of BASKETBALL! Kyle has been right in the middle of basketball season for awhile (actually, I THINK we might be near the end...at least, that's what I'm hoping). This year Pinares has had a number of games take place at the school, plus they were invited to participate in another tournament that they haven't done before. This weekend was the big tournament of all the bilingual schools of Honduras...thankfully in Tegucigalpa this year! All that to say, Kyle has spent a number of early mornings and late nights at school. Yesterday he left at 6:30 am and returned at 9:45 pm, with work to do before he left at 6:30 this morning. But, several of the teams are playing very well and they've won a few games.
A couple weeks ago our school hosted a Family Game Day and Kyle was in charge of a good part of it (its a fund raiser for the Athletic Department). There were several carnival type games that the kids could play as well as indoor soccer, volleyball, and basketball. During the last 2 basketball games, Kyle had planned a a Balls and Dolls Toss. During the first free-throw of each game, the audience threw balls or dolls onto the gym floor (balls during the boys game, dolls during the girls game). All the balls and dolls were (or will be?) donated, but I don't remember where he said they would be donated to.
Kyle will also be starting a bible study with a few guys who graduated from Pinares 2 or 3 years ago. They are in college here, and he will be doing the Truth Project with them on Saturday afternoons.
Juliana and I have been busy here reading books, playing dolls, coloring, and blowing bubbles! I guess there's a lot more than that, but that's the fun part. I have a women's bible study that I attend; we're currently going through 1 Samuel. We also attend an evening home group every other Tuesday evening. In the past we have always gone through a book (that usually correlates with a book of the bible). However, because of things that are going on politically in Honduras, it was decided that we would go chapter by chapter through Nehemiah. For each chapter we make a list of observations (characters, setting, history, reoccuring ideas, things that stick out, etc), write down questions that we have about the chapter, find the answers to as many of those questions as we can, and then finally write down life applications from the chapter. This last Tuesday was our first week doing this, and it was very interesting.
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| Fun in the nursery |
Currently Juliana is a little bit sick. Not too bad, but she's running a fever, has a cough, and some congestion in her bronchiols. She's now on a decongestant and nasal saline spray and hopefully she'll improve soon! It was just disappointing, because she has a friend in town for the weekend and they LOVE playing together. Hopefully she'll get better fast so we can fit a couple play dates in before Maddy leaves. She is still pretty happy, plays a lot, and eating pretty well...we just don't want to get Maddy sick. Today the sun actually came out and the weather warmed up, so we went outside for awhile. It wore her out pretty fast, but she had fun at the time!
10.13.2011
Canadia
The last few weeks have been exceptionally busy, but at the same time full of a lot of exciting events!
First of all, my birthday was in September. Kyle suggested that we invite a few friends over for an outdoor potluck and movie on the big screen, which I thought was a fantastic idea. However, we're in the middle of a VERY rainy, rainy season...so we did a potluck and movie on a big screen indoors. We had about 24 people over, for the first time in our current house. The funny thing is that a couple days before someone commented that it would be funny if the electricity went out in the middle of the movie. So the morning of my birthday, at breakfast, Kyle prayed that the power would stay on during the movie. About 20 minutes later, it went out...and stayed out for the entire day. It did come back on for a little while as we ate dinner, but went out again after we started the movie. We ended up borrowing a generator to power the projector, computer, and speakers, and a great time was had by all!
It's pretty amazing how quickly Juliana learns new things and you never know what she will come up with each day! Lately she has started playing hide & seek and finding small places to get into. She really likes taking all of our shoes off the shoe rack and then either getting inside the shoe rack or wearing my shoes all over the place. I may have to get a hanging shoe rack or I just might lose my mind :) Her new word of the week is "UP", which she says all the time when she wants to be held. And she has started trying to jump (from a standing position on the floor), dresses herself (which whatever random clothes she can find) and is pointing to people (either in a picture or standing in front of her) and can sometimes identify them...so far she has Mama, Dada, Nana, Amy, and Titi (Adriana) down well. She also likes to make animal sounds and shhh people (which makes for some pretty interesting times in church)!
Our biggest excitement is that we went to Canada for a week (just returned yesterday). We were going for one of my former roommates' wedding. Amy and Heidi, who I lived with for 3 years, are both living in Canada, and Amy's wedding was Saturday. Amy is living in Gatineau, Quebec, but the wedding was nearby in Ottawa, Ontario. After we flew in on Friday we met Dom, Amy's fiance, as well as several members of his family and some of their other friends. They then took us into Quebec for some true Canadian food. If you don't know, French is the language spoken in Quebec and it pretty intimidating to walk into a restaurant and have no idea what the menu said. However, Dom and Amy had us order Poutin, which was absolutely DELICIOUS! It is a plate of french fries, covered with gravy and cheese curd. Sounds a little weird, but we'd highly recommend it. Anyways, we had a wonderful time at the rehearsal and the wedding. It was a beautiful wedding and we both decided that Canadians are more friendly that pretty much anywhere else. If it weren't for the cold winters, we'd probably be tempted to move to Ottawa. After the wedding, we stayed for a couple more days to spend some more time with Heidi and visit Parliament and a national park. Thank you so much, Heidi, for finding us a place to stay and driving us around the whole time! And thank you to Amy for planning such a fun wedding...and for getting engaged last year so we could pay for this trip while I still had a paycheck...we're so glad we could be there to celebrate with you :)
We got back home yesterday afternoon and Kyle jumped right back into work, in fact today he worked until about 7 pm. This coming Saturday is Family Game Day at the school, which Kyle is in charge of. I'm sure everything will come together and everyone always enjoys the day, but it is definitely time consuming for him.
I think that's about all for now. I have posted more pictures on Facebook, so check them out if you would like to see more!
First of all, my birthday was in September. Kyle suggested that we invite a few friends over for an outdoor potluck and movie on the big screen, which I thought was a fantastic idea. However, we're in the middle of a VERY rainy, rainy season...so we did a potluck and movie on a big screen indoors. We had about 24 people over, for the first time in our current house. The funny thing is that a couple days before someone commented that it would be funny if the electricity went out in the middle of the movie. So the morning of my birthday, at breakfast, Kyle prayed that the power would stay on during the movie. About 20 minutes later, it went out...and stayed out for the entire day. It did come back on for a little while as we ate dinner, but went out again after we started the movie. We ended up borrowing a generator to power the projector, computer, and speakers, and a great time was had by all!
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| Juliana with her friend Madelyn |
Since Juliana can now get out of both her crib and pack & play, we've had to take her mattress out of her crib and put it on the floor (we're waiting for the school to bring a toddler bed over for her). There's nothing to keep her on the mattress, so she ends up sleeping all over the place. And finding all kinds of toys to sleep with her. I have found her on the floor (both the rubber mats and the cold tile), in her tent, and on the couch in her room.
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| This is a pretty common occurrence during nap time... |
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| And so is this... |
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| Wearing mommy's shoes (and the exta dress she decided to put on that day) |
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| Where's Nana??? |
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| She played so hard she fell asleep during lunch! |
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| Reuniting at the Ottawa airport |
Our biggest excitement is that we went to Canada for a week (just returned yesterday). We were going for one of my former roommates' wedding. Amy and Heidi, who I lived with for 3 years, are both living in Canada, and Amy's wedding was Saturday. Amy is living in Gatineau, Quebec, but the wedding was nearby in Ottawa, Ontario. After we flew in on Friday we met Dom, Amy's fiance, as well as several members of his family and some of their other friends. They then took us into Quebec for some true Canadian food. If you don't know, French is the language spoken in Quebec and it pretty intimidating to walk into a restaurant and have no idea what the menu said. However, Dom and Amy had us order Poutin, which was absolutely DELICIOUS! It is a plate of french fries, covered with gravy and cheese curd. Sounds a little weird, but we'd highly recommend it. Anyways, we had a wonderful time at the rehearsal and the wedding. It was a beautiful wedding and we both decided that Canadians are more friendly that pretty much anywhere else. If it weren't for the cold winters, we'd probably be tempted to move to Ottawa. After the wedding, we stayed for a couple more days to spend some more time with Heidi and visit Parliament and a national park. Thank you so much, Heidi, for finding us a place to stay and driving us around the whole time! And thank you to Amy for planning such a fun wedding...and for getting engaged last year so we could pay for this trip while I still had a paycheck...we're so glad we could be there to celebrate with you :)
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| Most of Kyle's day was spent keeping Juliana entertained |
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| What a beautiful bride |
We got back home yesterday afternoon and Kyle jumped right back into work, in fact today he worked until about 7 pm. This coming Saturday is Family Game Day at the school, which Kyle is in charge of. I'm sure everything will come together and everyone always enjoys the day, but it is definitely time consuming for him.
I think that's about all for now. I have posted more pictures on Facebook, so check them out if you would like to see more!
9.08.2011
What do you do with a poop-smearing little acrobat?
It has been way too long since I have updated this blog. The last post I wrote was right before we left Hawaii to return to Honduras. Since being back we've been trying to get more settled in our house, take care of the jungle that is our yard, and readjust to life here.
Melodee has been getting involved in the women's bible study at church as well as exercising a couple times a week with a few other missionary women.
The major adjust for for me (Melodee) is that I'm now home with Juliana. I know that this is where I'm supposed to be and for the most part I really enjoy it. This week, however, has been challenging... In June Juliana figured out how to climb out of her crib. Since we were leaving right away for the States, we just surrounded her crib with couch cushions and prayed that she wouldn't fall on her head. Then she slept in a pack 'n play while traveling. After we got back here we decided to just continue having her sleep in her pack 'n play because she had never tried to get out of it (plus its much closer to the floor). All that changed this week...
Starting this past weekend Juliana decided that she no longer wants to take a nap. Its not that she is not in need of a nap...she just doesn't want to be in her room by herself. If we let her out, she's crabby and ends up falling asleep at less convenient times (such as in the middle of dinner). So she hasn't taken a good nap for 6 days now. Instead she screams for an hour or 2 until you let her out. On Tuesday afternoon she kept screaming "I dirty". For about 30 minutes I would go in every few minutes to check her diaper which was always clean. Finally I just decided to leave her for 20-30 minutes and see if she would go to sleep. When I did go in, I found that she had taken off her shirt, pants, and diaper. I then realized that she had "painted" herself and her pack & play with poop. On Wednesday, she attempted to do the same but I caught her after she had stripped but before she could make any messes. Needless to say, we have now begun potty-training.
Today, Thursday I decided to outsmart her and dress her in a onesie type outfit that she wasn't able to get off. While it did save me having to clean up a big mess, it made her really angry and she threw a huge temper tantrum (in her pack & play) for 1 1/2 hours. Near the end of this time, her screaming changed and she was sounding kind of panicked. I went in and she was stuck on top of her pack & play (on the corner). I put her back in and turned to leave, only to hear her run across the floor to me (she got out in about 5 seconds). Now she refuses to stay in bed and I'm kind of at a loss of what to do. I'm not really wanting to switch her to a toddler bed since she's also potty-training and I don't want to overwhelm her with too many changes at once. That and the fact that she strips her clothes and diaper off ALL THE TIME is making my week pretty frustrating.
In other news, Kyle is really liking his job. He is only teaching an elective, plus serving as the athletic director. He found out this week that our school is hosting the Knowledge Bowl, which adds some stress and unexpected costs for him, but he does have several months to get things worked out.
Because this is getting really long I'll stop here and promise I won't wait so long before writing again!
Melodee has been getting involved in the women's bible study at church as well as exercising a couple times a week with a few other missionary women.
The major adjust for for me (Melodee) is that I'm now home with Juliana. I know that this is where I'm supposed to be and for the most part I really enjoy it. This week, however, has been challenging... In June Juliana figured out how to climb out of her crib. Since we were leaving right away for the States, we just surrounded her crib with couch cushions and prayed that she wouldn't fall on her head. Then she slept in a pack 'n play while traveling. After we got back here we decided to just continue having her sleep in her pack 'n play because she had never tried to get out of it (plus its much closer to the floor). All that changed this week...
Starting this past weekend Juliana decided that she no longer wants to take a nap. Its not that she is not in need of a nap...she just doesn't want to be in her room by herself. If we let her out, she's crabby and ends up falling asleep at less convenient times (such as in the middle of dinner). So she hasn't taken a good nap for 6 days now. Instead she screams for an hour or 2 until you let her out. On Tuesday afternoon she kept screaming "I dirty". For about 30 minutes I would go in every few minutes to check her diaper which was always clean. Finally I just decided to leave her for 20-30 minutes and see if she would go to sleep. When I did go in, I found that she had taken off her shirt, pants, and diaper. I then realized that she had "painted" herself and her pack & play with poop. On Wednesday, she attempted to do the same but I caught her after she had stripped but before she could make any messes. Needless to say, we have now begun potty-training.
Today, Thursday I decided to outsmart her and dress her in a onesie type outfit that she wasn't able to get off. While it did save me having to clean up a big mess, it made her really angry and she threw a huge temper tantrum (in her pack & play) for 1 1/2 hours. Near the end of this time, her screaming changed and she was sounding kind of panicked. I went in and she was stuck on top of her pack & play (on the corner). I put her back in and turned to leave, only to hear her run across the floor to me (she got out in about 5 seconds). Now she refuses to stay in bed and I'm kind of at a loss of what to do. I'm not really wanting to switch her to a toddler bed since she's also potty-training and I don't want to overwhelm her with too many changes at once. That and the fact that she strips her clothes and diaper off ALL THE TIME is making my week pretty frustrating.
In other news, Kyle is really liking his job. He is only teaching an elective, plus serving as the athletic director. He found out this week that our school is hosting the Knowledge Bowl, which adds some stress and unexpected costs for him, but he does have several months to get things worked out.
Because this is getting really long I'll stop here and promise I won't wait so long before writing again!
Saying goodbye to Grandma & Grandpa Webb
Our massive pile of luggage that we came back with
We got to travel in first class! So nice with 24 hours solid traveling with a toddler (without a night in a hotel).
8.05.2011
An amazing BBQ and a banged up little girl
So last night we had a BBQ at the private pool area in the community with some of Kyle's friends and their families. Thanks Kenny Han for the wonderful idea! Juliana was having a great time in the pool, but I (Melodee) was getting cold and hungry. So, when I promised her she could have food if she got out of the pool, she started running for the table! I ran after her to get her to walk, and just as I caught her, she fell on her face. Thankfully she's a pretty tough little girl, and was almost back to normal after about 3 minutes. Since we forgot to take our camera to the BBQ, we have no pictures, other than these 2 that I took of Juliana's face after we got back home :(
My poor little girl
Other than that, we've just been trying to enjoy the pool and nearby beaches, raise some needed support, and finish up last minute things this week. Thankfully, going back we can take 6 suitcases, each up to 70 pounds...and we're going to come pretty close to that maximum! We've already packed up most of the things that we don't need before we leave and have just enough room for our clothes and toiletries.
For now, I'm headed out to blow some bubbles with Juliana!
7.20.2011
Lots of Traveling
So we have had a very busy summer so far. Juliana has done AMAZING on all of our flights so far, even the 5+ hours from Los Angeles to Honolulu. We spent probably about 30 hours in the car during our 2 1/2 weeks in Nebraska and visited more people than we can possibly count. Juliana is so used to meeting new people that she just walks up to random people and sits or plays with them. She's just such a friendly little girl! Currently she is working on her 3rd new tooth in 2 weeks, so she's been pretty crabby the last 24 hours--pray that it gets completely poked through QUICKLY.
Arriving in Nebraska to visit Grandma and Grandpa Crouse. We spent 2 1/2 weeks there driving all over the place visiting friends and family. We also were able to visit the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha and celebrated the 4th of July in Kearney and North Platte.
Juliana's cousin Madilynn is about 4 - 4 1/2 months younger than her. Once they got over the tiredness of too-short naps and fighting over a ball, they got along pretty well!
We spent a day visiting Great-Grandma Joyce. Juliana got to see the chickens and horses and play with Grandma.
We spent a couple of days in Omaha visiting my aunt and uncle and even got to see Mr. and Mrs. Birky one afternoon. Juliana had a great time playing and reading Clifford books.
On the 4th of July we went to North Platte and had a picnic with many of my mom's family. This is a picture of Juliana, me, my mom, and my grandma.
We went to Lincoln one day to see a friend of mine from high school. Sorry for the bad picture--its hard to get 1 child to cooperate for a picture, much less 5!
On July 9th we flew to Hawaii and have been here now for a week and a half. Since being here we've been swimming quite a bit and visiting several of Kyle's family and friends. Here we are at a petting zoo with 2 of Kyle's cousins (Maria and Danielle--and Maria's son, who is just a few months older than Juliana). They had a great time petting the goats.
Last Friday we met up with Kyle's friend, Quang, and his family. They took us on a night-time bus ride.
This weekend we are going to spend a few days with Kyle's sister and her family. They have 2 kids and I'm sure Juliana will have a wonderful time playing with her cousins. Hopefully her other front tooth will come through before then and stop bothering her. We're looking forward to everything coming up in the next couple weeks!
6.20.2011
We have a house!
The past couple weeks have been a whirlwind of activity. The house that we had been hoping to move into fell through, which was very disappointing. We then chose a different house, closer to the school, about a week ago. Over 5 days we packed up our whole house, moved 3 gates down, and have tried to unpack as much as possible. Tonight we are finally starting to feel moved in, but there will still be much to do when we return in August. Also during the last week, we finished classes and packed up our classrooms, said goodbye to many friends, and found a new home for our dog (also known as dog-dog to Juliana!). We are now in need of some rest!
In the morning we leave for Nebraska, arriving on Wednesday evening. We hear there is a lot of flooding in eastern Nebraska, so hopefully that won't affect our flights. We're also praying that Juliana will do well on the flights. This is the first time flying with a very active toddler (last summer she wasn't yet crawling). I imagine we'll be spending a lot of time walking the aisles :)
In the morning we leave for Nebraska, arriving on Wednesday evening. We hear there is a lot of flooding in eastern Nebraska, so hopefully that won't affect our flights. We're also praying that Juliana will do well on the flights. This is the first time flying with a very active toddler (last summer she wasn't yet crawling). I imagine we'll be spending a lot of time walking the aisles :)
Juliana's bedroom
Kitchen (way bigger than I had before!)
Living room and dining room
6.01.2011
Big Changes
So we have finally decided to enter the world of blogging! The main reason that we have decided to do this is because we have some big changes coming up in the near future and we'd like to keep our friends and family up-to-date and also to ask for your support! (Just in case you're wondering--the big changes do not include a new baby.)
First of all, we will be moving out of our house in the next 2 1/2 - 3 weeks. We don't yet have a place to move to but it has become very obvious that we need to move to a place with fewer problems. For those of you who don't know, here are just a few of the problems that we're dealing with:
Our second, and even bigger change, is that Melodee will not be teaching during this next school year. This year we have had an excellent nanny who takes very good care of Juliana. But as Juliana has gotten older, we've started to see the need for Melodee to be home with her, guiding her through these very formative years. While we are very excited for Melodee to not have to do 2 full time jobs, this is also a little scary because we will be dropping to about half of our former monthly paycheck. On the other hand, we have seen God take care of us over and over again this year and we're excited to see what he'll do in the future.
However, we don't want to enter into this alone. Most importantly we are asking for your prayer support. We don't want to enter this new stage in our life without knowing that our friends and family are praying for us.
Secondly, we are asking you to consider supporting us financially. After looking at our budget we feel that we can come very close to covering our normal day-to-day expenses with Kyle's paycheck. And since Melodee will not be working it will eliminate a few of our previous expenses, but if we have to move further away from the school it will increase some of our other expenses (such as gas, which is over $5/gallon!). We also need to take into account college loans that both of us are still paying for, as well as other expenses that come up, such as doctor's visits and car repairs. After looking very closing at our budget we believe we need to raise about $500 per month. Would you please prayerfully consider supporting us monthly?
If you would like to know more about what we are doing in Honduras, we would love to meet with you if we are in your area this summer! We will be flying into Nebraska on June 22nd, and flying out of Denver on July 9th. We will then be in Hawaii until August 8th. We will be calling many of you anyways to meet up with, but feel free to contact us too!
If you would like to support us financially, there are 3 ways that you can do this. We will explain this on the side of our blog, or you can visit www.ripeforharvest.org/donations.htm for additional information. Our account number is #189 and is in Kyle's name.
We hope to be seeing you this summer!
First of all, we will be moving out of our house in the next 2 1/2 - 3 weeks. We don't yet have a place to move to but it has become very obvious that we need to move to a place with fewer problems. For those of you who don't know, here are just a few of the problems that we're dealing with:
- Sewer problems - The septic system has backed up as well as tree roots growing into the pipes.
- Water - Most people here have a reservior tank on their roof with an extra supply of water for when the water turns off, but our house doesn't have one. When the landlord was asked about it, the response was that we never lose water! However during much of the past year we have lost water several times a week.
- Robberies - This fall someone broke into our house at night while we were in bed. While we didn't didn't discover the robbery until the next morning, it was still very scary. Other homes in the area have also been robbed, and because Kyle has to travel several times a year for his job, we simply don't feel safe with Melodee and Juliana being home alone.
- The last straw! - Last Friday a friend invited us to spend the night at his house. When we returned Saturday morning we discovered that a tree had fallen on our roof during a bad storm the night before. Our house doesn't have shingles on the roof, instead many houses here have "tiles" on the roof which crack pretty easily. The tiles cracked the whole way along the roof and everything in our living room/dining room/office/kitchen was completely soaked and sitting in water. The school came and put some temporary tiles on top of the broken ones and we were able to save most things. However the roof still leaks a little, there are other trees around our house that could potentially fall, and we simply need a place with not quite so many problems!
Our second, and even bigger change, is that Melodee will not be teaching during this next school year. This year we have had an excellent nanny who takes very good care of Juliana. But as Juliana has gotten older, we've started to see the need for Melodee to be home with her, guiding her through these very formative years. While we are very excited for Melodee to not have to do 2 full time jobs, this is also a little scary because we will be dropping to about half of our former monthly paycheck. On the other hand, we have seen God take care of us over and over again this year and we're excited to see what he'll do in the future.
However, we don't want to enter into this alone. Most importantly we are asking for your prayer support. We don't want to enter this new stage in our life without knowing that our friends and family are praying for us.
Secondly, we are asking you to consider supporting us financially. After looking at our budget we feel that we can come very close to covering our normal day-to-day expenses with Kyle's paycheck. And since Melodee will not be working it will eliminate a few of our previous expenses, but if we have to move further away from the school it will increase some of our other expenses (such as gas, which is over $5/gallon!). We also need to take into account college loans that both of us are still paying for, as well as other expenses that come up, such as doctor's visits and car repairs. After looking very closing at our budget we believe we need to raise about $500 per month. Would you please prayerfully consider supporting us monthly?
If you would like to know more about what we are doing in Honduras, we would love to meet with you if we are in your area this summer! We will be flying into Nebraska on June 22nd, and flying out of Denver on July 9th. We will then be in Hawaii until August 8th. We will be calling many of you anyways to meet up with, but feel free to contact us too!
If you would like to support us financially, there are 3 ways that you can do this. We will explain this on the side of our blog, or you can visit www.ripeforharvest.org/donations.htm for additional information. Our account number is #189 and is in Kyle's name.
We hope to be seeing you this summer!
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