Precious Times

Well, Grady's work permit was denied and we now wait and wait for his appeal to be reviewed. The government wants to see much more in our bank account before giving him the ok to open a business. So these days are more and more precious to us. Will we have to leave and head back to the US? Not sure yet but for now we are just appreciating these precious days, filled with opportunities to serve others and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. Here are a few photos we have taken over the past few weeks.

The first Kingdom home meeting in the small village near Guatemala~ there are 2 whose hearts are softening and asking more serious questions about counting the cost to serve Jesus..please pray!

Seeds of the Kingdom being planted..

 

The girls are excited to show off Maria's new stairs!

Nice work Daddy!

Truly a blessing for Big Maria.

One of the most wonderful things about living in this centrally-located place is that we are able to receive so many visitors. The Lord gives us so many opportunities to pray for people, pass on necessary provisions and speak about our Lord Jesus.

 

 We are so blessed to have this opportunity. Whether we are here for another month or for 10 years, we will always treasure this time. Anything less would seem so empty.

May Days

Mid May is always an eventful time of year for our family. Grady's birthday, our anniversary and Mother's Day usually fall within one week of each other.

Happy Birthday!

For breakfast on Dad's Birthday, the big girls made some cupcakes for breakfast!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

That day we literally had 4 sets of company. One was a Spanish family who travelled all the way from Succotz ( 1hr by bus one way) to bring me this beautiful cake for Mother's Day. It was a moist cake, topped with fruit with a ring of milk chocolate on the outside of the cake. She had travelled over to border to Guatemala to purchase it for me. I was so touched by that! She also brought me a rose and a whole bucket of freshly made tamales. Since we had so much company that day, Grady asked us please not to worry about making him a cake. But God provided one! :-) We were able to serve it after dinner and share it with our friends who came for dinner.

 

The guys studied some doctrinal things..

While we ladies had fun with the little ones. Our little girls are enamored with their baby. We enjoy this couple so much. She is from Costa Rica and speaks just about no English. We communicate with motions and broken speech. Talk about a great way for both of us to learn a new language! :-)

 

 

Happy Anniversary!

We had a nice day.. my mother treated us to a lunch out with the family.. on that day we also travelled to a bone specialist for Laura's arm. We had planned that he would set it correctly and put on her permanent cast. However, upon looking at her X ray, he concluded that the emergency room doctor misread the Xray and there was no fracture at all! She definitely had bone trauma from the fall but in his opinion there was no fracture! She and we were so excited. She was such a brave girl even when he accidently cut her with the scissors as he took off her temp cast.  

 

 

 

After lunch and the doctor we headed back to Spanish Lookout to Countryside Park for some family time. The older children had a nice time taking a walk while Daddy and I let the little girls ride their bikes.

Laura shows Daddy her arm

 

A bit of a bruise left behind with a band aid to cover the nick/ But oh so better than a cast! :-)

All better Daddy!

 

 

 

Time to head home!

 

Gorgeous Sunset

 

 

 

Getting Around Belize

We once heard that while living in another country, especially while doing ministry work.. that the most important thing to have, besides direction from the Lord.. is a good running car. We can say AMEN to that! Since late February our van has been growing increasingly ill.. Grady is pretty mechanical and an expert on diagnosing vehicles.. but this one has him a bit stumped. Once he finds out one problem and fixes it, something else becomes problematic or the problem remains.. thankfully most of the parts he has needed have been available here.. but we do have a diagnostic tool coming late next week and yet ANOTHER part which he hopes helps. It is hard to 'go' when you cant go. (if that makes sense!) we have had to cancel some things and change plans as of late. We can pretty much only drive around the Spanish Lookout area and neighboring villages. Sigh

 

 Oh boy! Or should I say Oh Man! Our baby boy is getting to be a man and I no longer can convince he and Daddy that he should never ever grow up. I kept my mouth shut on this day...... :-) I know, incredible. Our friend fulfilled his promise of letting Rye take a ride on his motorcycle

And he's off.. well you know, not literally.. but he's really getting the hang of it!

 

On our way home from taking little Maria to her house, Gracie asked if she could drive the dirt roads. She did great! Yay Gracie! I guess you are growing up too!

 

One morning we found this huge semi truck turning around in our backyard after unloading some bags of fertilizer at the barn..now, if you know our backyard, you may find this almost impossible to belize! :-)  but you've heard me say -' In Belize, It Can Be Done!'

 

The 'workers' clean up the huge broken branch that the semi broke off of the girls swinging tree.. in the background you can see the bags of fertilizer at the barn that they had dropped off..

Once the coast was clear and the big scary semi was out of the yard, the girls had fun playing with the bicycle cart that Grant constructed. This thing is amazing.. he constructed it out of some very strong wood, wheels off of a 24" bike. He even installed a little bench seat for the girls to sit on. Grace chided him for not putting in a seatbelt. He said he would think about it. :-)

Although intended for a bike, Grace and Laura have a fun time pulling one another around the property in it.

The four oldest children have been getting up very early for their own personal Bible Study and a walk. They have really enjoyed spending that special time together. I tell them that they will treasure these days forever. Maybe its been a blessing that we haven't been able to run all over the place for a few weeks. Times together are the best times of all!

Accident!

Now, Grant will be the first to admit that he was going too fast.. and later felt so badly when... they went over uneven ground and both he and Laura flipped over, he over the handle bars and she straight onto her head with her arm bent backwards.. you know *that* cry? Welp, sure enough she had it and I KNEW right away that her arm was broken. Grady and I quietly gathered some things up, told our guests which were at the house that we would have to cut our visit short.. loaded up with the guests and took them to the bus stop.. all the while Laura was mostly screaming which is really unlike her..

 

Ash giving her sissy a goodbye snuggle in the car while we gather up the company and diaper bag, ready for a LOOOOOONG night at the government hospital. After dropping our guests off at their bus stop we decided to head to the medical clinic in Spanish Lookout for their opinion. The nurse at the clinic felt her arm and informed us that yes, there was so much swelling already and that she felt a bump, like her bone had 'buckled' with what she called a probable green stick break. So our options were to have a local lady who does chiropractic wrap it up and let it heal.. or to head to Belmopan for an X ray to see how bad the break was. We didn't want to take the chance of it healing improperly so Grady decided to get an X ray in order to see exactly what was going on with it.  We were a bit concerned about the trip since our car is barely running (our parts should be in late next week from the States!)

We made it into Belmopan, thanks to many prayers and Grady nursing the vehicle which literally died at every intersection and over every speed bump.. and come to find that the only imaging place that we knew of in Belmopan had closed early for the day.. hmm.. well, we spoke with our friend who said that she was pretty sure that the BMP Government hospital had an X ray machine.. so off we sputtered across town to the hospital..

Now, upon first look it didn't really *look* like a hospital.. we had never gone there and hadn't heard the most positive things about it..

Now, this looked more official.. signs and everything.. we must be at the right place

 

It looked clean enough..

 

Thankfully the waiting room seemed pretty empty. We had heard to expect to wait 2- 3 hours just to be seen by the doctor.

We finally were able to meet with the triage nurse and was with the doctor within an hour. The doctor wrote a prescription for an X-ray and we headed over to the emergency side of the hospital

A very nice hospital attendant came with a wheelchair for Laura

 

She was so brave and looked so tiny and cute as he wheeled her off to get her X ray!! :-)

The X ray indeed showed that  Laura had a fracture in one of the bones in her forearm.. the nurse and doctor proceeded to set her up with a temporary cast until we could see the bone specialist who would set it and put her permanent cast on.

She was SUCH a trooper! Didn't cry once through the whole ordeal..

And left the hospital quite proud of her cast and her story. Meanwhile, her brother Grant was suffering back at home.. feeling so badly about the accident. Grace too was very worried about Laura's "casket" and was nervous about seeing her with it. Laura reassured her on the phone on the way home that her "cyst" wasn't that scary looking! :-) Now.... how to manage a toddler for 6 weeks with her right arm broken... eating.. writing and coloring.. dressing, bathing.. sounded a bit daunting.. We prayed that the Lord would let her heal quickly.. for her sake and ours! :-)