June

The first week of June we said good-bye to Joel and Marcie Burkholder and family. They served at the Palm Press three years and will be missed. It feels like our mission family has shrunk with a family of 7 leaving and a couple taking their place but we haven't had time to notice since we haven't had one weekend yet since Joels left, that it is just the missionaries.

India is the only other child in our mission besides our children now. She is a ray of sunshine to our family and we are happy when we get to "borrow" her for a few hours!

The children haven't had a chance to get lonely yet, though. Several former missionaries have come back to visit and they enjoyed catching up with friends.

And of course a cousin and aunts coming to visit kept things lively. The boys found an eel at the beach hiding in an old tire.

Eating plantain chips while souvenir shopping.

Hauling plywood.

Celebrated Birthdays

And then they were leaving again!

And then we finished prepping for VBS. Thanks to sisters, most of the food was prepped and in the freezer. The day before they came I needed vegetables at market, and it was raining. Pouring! We decided to go anyway and we made memories in a flooded market where stairs turned into waterfalls.

Our VBS crew arrived but we really wondered if we would be able to do VBS between rain showers. We tried to hand out invitations but it was drizzling and not many people were outside. And the mud made it a precarious undertaking! But God gave us a miracle!

Other then a small sprinkle the first evening, and rain clouds threatened every evening, we didn't actually have any rain. And most evenings were beautiful. The next weekend we had heavy rains again. How blessed we are!

They say more is caught then taught. And that was definitely the case with our prayer groups before we started. I don't know if these girls had any idea what we were doing but they copied it.

We had so many little people (under 6 years old) Kelsey tried to keep them entertained and out of the way and was immensely grateful for her friend Emmanuella who showed up and offered to help her.

Marvin teaching a Bible story and Kwamie translating.

Emmanuella organizing the little people.

Coloring

Madam Grace is loved by children no matter where she goes.

We take the groups touring when they are here. A view of the boats next to fish market.

All the rains make muddy roads. We were trying to avoid a pot hole and slid into the ditch. Thankfully the neighboring mission has a skid loader and a young man willing to pull us out. So thankful we can help each other in times of need.

Beautiful sunrise one morning.

This truck slid into a deep hole on our road. They are working on putting ditches in a long our road. Maybe some day it will be paved?

Our school books came with the VBS crew and since everyone was excited about new books, I decided we may as well start Math and Language. Working ahead for the days we are hosting, or busy and can't do school. We will wait till August to officially start school but doing a little every morning will give us a nice head start.

Everyone is excited about homeschool and hopefully it lasts! I told Brent yesterday I am pretty sure his brain got rusty on school break but hopefully it gets oiled and running smoothly again.

Kelsey is continuing high school. Her workload is quite a bit lighter this year which is a good thing with the Lamp and Light Courses and being my right hand.

The day after the VBS crew left, the WATER students from SMBI arrived. We met Marvins to pick the girls up and noticed our river was rising. When we came home the water was at the edge of the road. Four hours later, the road was not passable.

There was a place out farther where the water was waste deep.

We met these hunters with this civet. On our way home they were burning the hair off of it, preparing it for the cooking pot. The story of the flood will continue next month.

As you can tell, we have been going from hosting one group to the next pretty quickly. But they have all been such a blessing and we enjoyed each one. The month of July we have 4 WATER students staying at various places in our mission. The two young ladies are staying with us most of the month. It is challenging to make sure we prioritize family time when we get the chance to have just our family. But the end of the year looks emptier. Everything has its season and God gives us grace for each season!