Adjustments!

One year ago today I arrived in the states for my year long furlough! Isn't it amazing how time flies? Yesterday, a few of us went to a friend's house, Medardo's, in the afternoon. It was his birthday. A year ago, that was my last big outing before leaving the country. We went to Medardo's house and had cake with him and his family. They live right next to the church, Medardo's wife is my friend Avelina, you may remember me talking about her before. They live upstairs in a two-story house, downstairs lives another family from our church. I remember leaving after some tearful good-byes and then having the HAuses drive me to the airport. After that, the year was a whirlwind of activities.

At the time that I left Bolivia, life here seemed so normal to me. I had forgotten how different it really was from the environment in which I had been raised. Things in the states looked strange, I remember feeling a step behind everyone else! It didn't take me long to catch up though, and living in the states felt like home once again. Now, here I am back in Santa Cruz. So much of it still feels natural, seeing my friends again and being able to be a part of the ministry here is wonderful, yet there are adjustments of which I had forgotten how hard they could be...

1. Do you know how much concentration it takes to remember to throw your toilet paper in the trashcan instead of in the toilet?
2. There sure is a lot of dirt here...keeping clean is next to impossible...both on my body and in my house!
3. Are there traffic laws in Santa Cruz? It's a good thing there are enough cars that people can't move very fast...I'm sure there'd be a lot more accidents!
4. I played on the worship team last weekend...we practiced all of the songs on Saturday so that I would know what they were...on Sunday morning, the leader decided to add a couple more that we hadn't rehearsed...why not? Who needs to practice anyway?
5. Dogs are everywhere...and it isn't just the nice ones that are left to roam the streets!
6. Spanish, Espanol....on the brain a lot...definitely a good thing as it keeps one focused...but it's difficult when you're trying to speak in English with someone and the sentence is a perfectly good English sentence, when all of a sudden a Spanish word pops out in the middle of it! Pretty strange!

Well, it's getting late so I'll close with just a couple of other bits of news. My friend, Virginia, left last Thursday so I have now officially moved into the house. Many of my things are still in boxes and basically all of my stuff has to be cleaned as it gets unpacked as it is dusty and moldy, but I'm getting there. I'm looking forward to being completely settled in my new home. Chiquito has settled in quite nicely, he thinks this is a pretty great place! The neighborhood is nice and the guards on the street have been extremely helpful. I brought two seminary classes with me to do via distance learning. So far I haven't had much time to work on them. I'm hoping that will change this week! It is difficult to force my self to sit down and read, because quite frankly sometimes unpacking my boxes and getting settled just looks like more fun! However, I'm praying that God will give me the strength to be diligent this week in getting some studying done! I guess that's the short of it all! On a side note...this weekend is my parent's 40th Wedding Anniversary as well as my older sister and her husband's first anniversary! I'm sure they'd appreciate any well wishes you'd like to share. If you don't have their email addresses you can send it to mine and I'll pass it along! Thanks again for your prayers!