A Heart of Flesh

Yesterday when I picked Aliya up from school, I asked her how her day was.  She said, “Good.  Actually, it was a really good day!  I understood more and the work we did was pretty easy.”  Those words were like music to my ears!  Yesterday morning, this same 9-year-old girl told me that she thought she didn’t need to go to school.  I asked her why and her answer: “Because my Spanish is terrible!”  So, what a relief to hear that she understood more and actually had a good day!

Every day I hear all three of the girls saying more and more things in Spanish.  They don’t realize it, but they are learning.  And quick!

I spent the weekend in San Jose, Costa Rica.  Just me, no kids.  Thursday I took the bus over there because we have a bunch of household things that have been in storage since last June, when we left.  We left pretty quickly so I didn’t really remember everything we had there.  So, we decided that I would travel over for the weekend and sort through our things and make a plan as to how we will get those things over to Panama.

So, on Friday, my friend Sue took me over to the OM office, where we had stored our things.  When we got into the closet, I was shocked to see how much stuff we had there!  Plus, it was all covered with termite droppings!  YUCK!  I immediately felt overwhelmed by this task.  And I immediately knew that I could not take all of this stuff back with me on the bus to Panama.  So, we quickly opened each box, bag, suitcase and container, to look in and see if there were things in there that we needed right now.  The kids all had a list of things they wanted me to bring:  Gabi wanted her guitar, Julianna her “favorite baby doll” (I still have no idea which one is her favorite!) and Aliya wanted her bags!  (She seems to have inherited a gene that makes her a bag fiend.  I don’t know where she might have gotten THAT!).  Clint wanted the rice maker.  :)  I wanted our stainless steel coffee press and our drinking glasses.  The most important items were our bedding things:  sheets, comforters, etc…  Well, I was able to mark off all of these things except the bags and the baby doll.

I had taken 4 suitcases with me to fill up, and all the things I brought back from storage fit perfectly into my 4 pieces of luggage!  In addition to that, we had 2 suitcases at Dan & Sue’s house, which Clint had left in January when he was down here for some leaders’ meetings.  Well, I asked at the bus station how many suitcases I could bring on the bus and the lady said, “No hay problema” (no problem).  Of course, when I showed up with all 6 suitcases on Sunday, there was a problem.  The guys tried to make me pay extra but I argued my way out of it, IN SPANISH!  Some people say that you know you’re fluent when you start dreaming in a foreign language, but I think it’s more about when you can argue your way through business things!  I was so proud of myself for arguing in Spanish (hey, only a Widup would be proud of arguing, right?!)!

So, I managed to get all 6 bags through to Panama, with no problems at the border or anything!  Plus, the bus ride back was so much nicer because they took the new Pan-American highway, which is a much more pleasant trip than the other route, through the mountains (can we say PUKE- AGE!?)  Plus, on the Pan-American highway, you get to see the Pacific coast for a good long stretch and it is really really beautiful!

I finally got home Sunday evening and Clint and the girls came to pick me up and we had supper at Pizza Hut in David before coming home.  I was plagued with a headache that night that was making me soaked with sweat and nauseous but some Tylenol and Ibuprofen numbed it out and I went to bed early.  It’s so good to be HOME and to have a HOME to come to!

So, life is back in order here in Volcan and we had our first OM team meeting yesterday.  We just had devotions and chatted about what’s coming up.  It was only the beginning of many meetings in order to get the ball rolling and start to learn how to work together as a new team.  But it was truly so exciting to FINALLY be here, meeting and praying with our new teammates and looking to the wide-open future of the ministry!  It really makes me take a minute to look back at this 2-year journey that brought us here and to see God’s perfect timing and planning in bringing us all here, right now, for this time.  He is good.