Sunday, April 27, 2008
Today was a good day, thank you Lord! We had 23 in attendance this morning; 8 children in children’s class, and 15 youth and adults. Ezequias taught about the fruit of the spirit for the second week. I have not been in the class, but
Yesenia helped with the children’s class again. She is a little unsure of herself, but does a good job when I specify what she should do. Of the 8 children, 7 had their memory verse down. The eighth is only 3 so I cut her a little slack. I was thrilled. Today we talked about Daniel and the Lion’s Den. It was the first time they had heard the story. This was humbling for me. Can you remember when you first heard that story? Not me, I was too young. They were excited and worried, and then happy for Daniel. It was all over their faces. Maybe God knew that I needed to remember why we are here. Not that I have thought of quitting, I have just been discouraged.
We had ‘rib soup’ for lunch with rice. What is up with the rice thing there? Last Fall the price skyrocketed here, jumping almost $4 for 25 pounds. It was a terrible blow for the people here. Rice is their staple, and sometimes the only thing they can afford. There were protests in the City, but it changed nothing. The price here, however has not risen since then. Back to the soup – it is a quite traditional meal here. It has beef ribs, but only a few, ῆame, otoi, yuka (these are root vegetables something like potatoes, but better), pumpkin, onions, peppers, cilantro and garlic. Then of course there is lots of water. If you want to be formal, you take a spoon of rice and dip it into the soup, pull it up and eat it. If you don’t care, you just dump your rice into the soup and chow down. I lean toward the latter. We feel certain that Salinda’s children had not eaten at all today. They each had 3 servings. The youngest girl cried through services, asking her mom for ‘teat’ but Salinda has a baby 3 months old and needs all her milk for him. I spoke with Ezequias this afternoon about their situation. He said that the step-father still has a job, but spends his money on alcohol as soon as he is paid. This is the same family that we gave the beds last year, and the same family whose children generous folks from
The young folks still hang out here when they can, but because school was postponed for three weeks due to a teacher strike, they are hitting the books hard and heavy and don’t have much free time right now.
We are very busy, and miss the folks at home more than we would like, but God is faithful, and He will see this pass. We look forward to Ben coming down as soon as he finishes up his classes in two weeks. Then before we know it the groups from
Other important news: The cow is bred – we will have a calf in 3 months!!! Fresh milk for us and our neighbors! The dog is being bred. We will have Dalmatian puppies mixed with chocolate
Ok, maybe not really important to you so far away, but what a gift to share with neighbors (the milk), and what joy puppies always bring.
Until next time, may god bless you richly!
Joy & Lynn
1 comment:
Rice crisis seems to have started with drought conditions in Australia, a major exporter of rice and wheat. One crisis precipitates another. Countries where rice is a staple in diet have banned exports to protect their own like India, etc.
Sam's and wholesale clubs here are enforcing 4-25# bags to prevent hoarding. I never owned that much rice in my lifetime.
Shelly's brother in SC was in grocery business. Earlier in our marriage we visited his store and I was astounded to see such big 25-100# bags of rice, which exceeded the size of large bags of potatoes.
In north central Texas where I lived rice was not a staple and 1-5# was maximum but in southern Texas largely populated by Hispanics, it may well be sold in larger quantities.
Wheat and corn product prices here have risen due to emphasis on biofuels. Worldwide, all kinds of oils including various cooking oils are increase in price due to emplasis on biofuel synthesis.
Groceries overall have increased around 10% because of supply and demand and fuel costs I paid $4.10 for 1 gallon of skim milk at the local Dollar General store this week.
God bless your efforts which we follow and in which we participate
Shelly & Carol Ann Coward
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