Back into life here

It has been a really busy 8 days since we got back.  The kids and I started back to school, adding in some additional subjects this semester, so they (we!) have a lot of work to do.  We also had a staff meeting and succeeded in  taking a first step toward establishing a calendar system for the whole orphanage that should help everyone to keep track of what is going on. We  have worked on a some child sponsorship tasks, and Gabe has done a lot of State Farm stuff as well.  In addition to that regular stuff, here are some of the other things  that have been happening.

First, thanks for your suggestions! We do have two clean, non-smelling couches now after the family couch cleaning party!  They might be re-covered at some point too, but no rush on that.  

Thanks to a great Christmas present to the boys- a portable table tennis game, there have been lots of ping-pong tournaments going on here!  

We also went to a birthday party for Seth’s wife Manny.  We have discovered that there is a tradition here that the birthday person leans in and takes a bite out of the cake while everyone else cheers.  This picture is taken right before she leaned in to take a tiny bite…and then her friends standing behind her smashed her face into the cake!  (I did not take the picture afterward as she clearly does not like that tradition. Gabe did, however, get the whole thing on video, which proved  that her friends did it and that her husband Seth, was innocent!)

Most days, some of the girls here (and Liam, Kiersen and Aliya) have joined me for a workout! I pull up a workout video on my computer and we do it together.  They did well with the 10 minute ones, but the day we did a 30 minute one, only one girl and I (the old woman of the bunch!) made it through.  Apparently that girl was very sore for a couple of days ! 🙂 

Monday night I piled into the van with all the high school girls, plus some of the staff, and we went to a women’s event in downtown Tijuana.  There was a huge crowd there to hear a Christian psychologist speak about healing from various kinds of hurts in your past.  And, what do you know, the whole thing started with all of us doing a zumba song! 🙂  It was all in Spanish, but I caught some of it. Apparently this is the first of 9 weeks of sessions. Since all the girls have stuff to work through in their past, the staff feels this will be very helpful. 

 

 

And… I started teaching Liam and Aliya piano lessons.  No, I am not especially musical, but I am hoping to teach them the basics and switch to a real teacher later on.  When I asked Martha for permission to use the piano, she said, “Only if you DO NOT FALL IN LOVE!”  Ummm. I told her, too late, I really love Gabe.  She said,” Then don’t write your initials on the piano!”  Apparently, the piano is where all the secret teen couples around here write their initials and declare their undying love (for the next three weeks, or however long a teenage romance lasts.) Once I assured her we would really only be practicing on it, she told me it was ok.  

Finally, Gabe taught our family devotion using Luke 6.  (On what being blessed really means… check it out.) Afterward, each kid had to write about a blessing in their journal.  This was Liam’s answer.

🙂  Yep! It is not always easy to live here, but it is a blessing.