Happy New Year!

12-29-08 Day 31
Today we had another SIMP meeting at 8am. We shared and prayed together. These times have become some of our treasured times here. In the evening we went to the central zone for the prayer meeting. At the meeting it was three American youth, two Argentina youth and Floyd & David. We sang and worshipped in English and Spanish. It was really wonderful! This is the most English we´ve had in a worship service since being here. We were so thankful for that.
12-30-08 Day 32
Today Nathan & I had Jacob, Elizabeth, Kira, and Veronica over for lunch. The goal for this meal was to try to find some american tasting food. We had chicken nuggets, french fries, potato salad, and apple crisp. In the afternoon we played rook and worked on our puzzle together. We were also able to talk to Jacob and Kira for quite awhile about faith issues. This evening Nathan and I went to the North zone church for their evening service. It´s wonderful to see how each zone (North, South, West, & Central) ¨do¨ their church services. The north building has been many years in the making. They already have quite a bit of the new building constructed and are using it even though it´´s not completely done. There is no roof on it or windows yet, but it´s a great building. Also in the future part of the building will be a daycare center. This really interests me. The church will have a daycare ministry to the community.
12-31-08 Day 33
Today, this morning at about 930am we ran to the house where Jacob is staying and lifted weights with him. His host dad has a weight bench and such. It was a good workout. We then ran home and had lunch. This afternoon I took a siesta and got up and made apple crisp to take to Juan´s house for this evening. This evening at about 745pm Juan picked us up to be with him and a few other families for a new year´s eve celebration. We ate asado at about 11pm and rang in the new year with toasts, fireworks, and talking. HAPPY 2009!!!!
1-1-09
There is a work team of ten people coming tomorrow morning from Illinois. This team along with all of us that are already here will be working in a town 10 kilometers away to work on a church building project. We will be working on this in the mornings of saturday, monday, tuesday, wednesday, and thursday of next week. The following weekend we will be taking a mission trip with the group from IL. There are many things planned while they are here, so we will be busy for the next couple of weeks. These are friends of ours so we are very excited to see them. I´ve been washing sheets and making beds for the anticipation of thier arrival. I also am in charge of making lunch for tomorrow for the group, so today I´m also preparing for that. It´s a pure joy to be in charge of certain things and to be given responisbilities. So many days here we´ve had very little responisbility and have had much free time. Responsibility and free time in a balance are good and I am thankful for both.