Another day in La Cruz

We are off tomorrow for another day in La Cruz, cleaning and painting the kitchen and getting the plumbing for the boiler and the gas lines for the boiler and stove done up. We hope it all goes very quickly. Our furniture is also being delivered tomorrow and we are excited about that. It all makes it a little closer to moving in. La Cruz is where God called us and we can’t wait to get there!

We have been blessed this week with the safe arrival of Tom and Lidia Lumppio and their daughters Cristina and Gracia! The Mexico field has gone from three to nine in just a month! They are getting settled in with their host family, and are actually quite close to us. Carmen insisted that the come for lunch yesterday and while they were tired, they came and thoroughly enjoyed the meal and the visit. We hoped they would come with us to La Cruz on Saturday, but they are still resting up from their trip from Minnesota. They’ll join us another time.

Thanks for your prayers for language learning. Ralph has several new words under his belt now, and we are starting to understand at least part of the conversations of strangers. We are used to the cadence of our host family, their families and the neighbors we see often, so it’s easier to have conversations with them, but when we get out and about on our own, we really have to listen up to catch things, and have things repeated quite a bit. Still, we manage just fine.

We also discovered this week that the theaters here show the pictures in English with Spanish subtitles…so we will try to get to the movies next week and finally see Chronicles of Narnia!

Also learned two new recipes this week, carne asada and atole…I like them both, Ralph didn’t care for the atole. It’s like a thin, chocolate flavored oatmeal drink. Wasn’t up Ralph’s alley at all.

Please continue to pray for our language learning, relationships with our fellow workers, and for Jorge, Emiliano and Jose Manuel. Also for our upcoming move to La Cruz…we’ll truly be on our own there and are looking forward to the new adventures that will bring.

Thanks so much for all of your e-mails, prayers and support! We so appreciate all you do for us!

Love and blessings,

Ralph & Chris