too many days..

without blogging! I have been meaning to sit down and write but every time I think about it I think "oh no, I have let it go too long" and then I just thing I will do it later...and now here I am, after eight days of not blogging so, of course, I have a lot to write about!

This past week has been good but busy for us. We spent Christmas Eve preparing for the church service that evening and the supper that we had prepared afterward. The day was full of cleaning, decorating, planning, but it was fun. We went to the church in the late afternoon and set up the tables and put up some decorations that I had got from my mother in law, she actually gave them to us for our home, but I took them all there are used them to decorate the dining area a little bit. I also made little Christmas candle decorations for the tables, with some help again from my mother in law as she bought me a little glue gun and helped me pick out some cheap ornaments and whatnot..in the end it looked really nice and I think the people appreciated the special touches.

The service started around 8 pm and only went for about 45 minutes. We had the service outside which was really nice, unfortunately as the evening went on the air got a bit cooler out though, and quite a few of the kids got colds the next day from the cool night air, but other than that, it went well. We had quite a few brothers and sisters show up for the service and then had our guests (people that were invited from the community) also show up for the service, they were our special guests for the supper, but it was great to have them come to the service as well! One of the guys was really surprised and shared with one of the brothers in the church that he didn't know how nice evangelicals (Christians) could be! He said normally the Catholics are the ones who do community events and they always thought that the people in this church were more strict and legalistic....so it was really good to get a chance to change the way that some people in the community see us, and to be able to bless them in this way.

The supper was really good, the ladies in the church were originally going to make it, but then a friend of one of the ladies heard what we were planning and she was so excited that we were doing something to bless the community that she volunteered to come and do all the cooking for the meal! She is not a Christian and doesn't attend the church, but it was so great to see her willing to get involved, and of course, the ladies from the church all helped out and we all did our share when it came to serving the food and whatnot.

During the supper the youth had made some movies of skits and funny things for the guests to enjoy so they had that playing on a big screen and that brought a lot of laughter to the tables as we ate together...they did a really good job! Once we had dessert and got everything cleared away and the dishes done it was probably about 11 oclock, so we headed. Josiah had been showing definite signs of being tired, but of course, once we were home he got his second wind and was very wide awake...with that said we allowed him to open his gifts that were under the tree. He had a gift from his grandparents (Jorge's parents) and one little one from us, then also one from a family in the church. The one that he loved the most was the one from Jorge's parents, which was some type of blocks/Lego pieces. We soon regretted letting him open them as it was so late and he, of course, wanted to sit up and play with them, lol. But around midnight he was getting tired again so we convinced him that he could play with them in the morning, and he reluctantly went to bed:)

Christmas day was spent here in the house...we didn't really do much at all. As I said, Josiah woke up with quite a chest cold..coughing quite a bit, and I had a splitting head ache all day. So we just hung out and relaxed together. In the evening our friend Danilo came over and we had a BBQ together, which was nice, Jorge had been long awaiting such a BBQ, haha. We also put some water in Josiah's new pool that he recently got and let him play outside for a bit..not too long though, as he did have a cold. The best part of my day was spent talking to family! I got to have a three-way call with KB and Tanya and the rest of the family...that meant a lot to me, I find myself missing everyone so much lately that is was good to just be able to sit and chat about nothing important, haha. Truth be told, those are the conversations I miss the most.

The last few days have been getting back into some kind of a routine...to be honest I haven't been feeling the greatest, I dont know if it is just hormones or what, but my emotions have been through the roof lately! I find myself having moments where I am so happy to be here and then moments later I just want to sit and cry, and close my eyes and be somewhere else when I open them. The first few weeks that I was here are so blurry for me as it was soo much to take in, that now that we are getting more "settled" I find myself being more and more sensitive and more aware(if that's the right word) of the situation that we are currently living in. I have moments where I feel so weak and feel I have nothing to offer these people. Then I have others where I remind myself that God is the one who brought us here, and although it's true, I have nothing to offer them, He DOES have something to offer them, and I need to allow Him to use me. It has been a constant battle of ups and downs...I have not been the most pleasant person to be around the last few days, and for that I feel awful. I am also having quite a bit of back pain and pelvic pain at times, as Josiah insists on being carried around still, and that is taking it's tole on me. But anyways, these are just details, small things that can get a person down, but I know that my GOD is bigger than these things and I am trying to focus on His Goodness and His Grace.

If you think about it maybe you could just pray for me...thanks to all and I will write again soon. I am going to go lay down now while Josiah is napping and try and get some rest myself.