Spanish Attack is Back

We are already half way through the last level of Spanish in Guadalajara. It is going very quickly. It is hard to believe that in a few short weeks we will be released to go and try out our Spanish full scale. Of course, we realise that a lot of learning is yet to come, but it is exciting to think of our graduation around the 28th of October.
Yesterday was a bit of a test of our new Spanish learning as we had guests over...our kids were super excited to have 4 new "friends", though Josiah couldn't understand why the teenage girl would rather listen to the adults talk than come and play lego with Marco and him. The children had a super time, despite the fact that the only English the visiting children would use is "May I use the bathroom?" They did understand more of what our kids said.
The adults visit was almost all in Spanish, though the mom helped out when we were uncertain with our Spanish comprehension. With 9 kinds of verb conjugations floating in our heads, it was a challenge and we messed up, laughed and were corrected a fair bit. We had them try Somma Borscht, and the mom would like the recipe. She had just connected with some Mennonites at Lincoln School at a home school fair, and they thought it was neat that I have a Mennonite background.
After a short visit the Dad had to go, as he is a chofer. Neat job, he gets paid to take the factory manager of Ferrero Rocher's kids to a soccer game hosted by Chivas; it is like getting to see an NHL game.
Another note of interest is that our kids are being taught at home while we are at school. They tried to go back to the school they had attended before, but with a lot of changes in staff, and having lost 2 of their best friends at the school who moved, it wasn't working out. Their new teacher is great, she is a nurse who is raising money to go to Bible School in Paraguay. The kids love her, so much that today when we came home, there were tears as the day had passed too quickly. We are asking her to focus on Math and Spanish learning.
We have submitted our visas to the Department of Internal Affairs, and hope to get a call this week to submit our finger prints and signatures. We appreciate prayer for this continuing process to receive our temporary resident visas. :)

Awakening The Prayers of God's People

I was really struck by something that our friend and colleague said the other day after hearing about some of the difficulties we have gone through this year, especially in regards to our visas...."I am convinced that sometimes the difficult things we encounter are for the purpose of awakening the prayers of God's people." To all of you who are praying for us, thank you. Thank you for loving us enough to take us before the Father. We are humbled to think that God chooses to use us and our difficulties to raise the prayers of His saints. We are completely unworthy and completely in need of His grace and strength and your prayers. Thank you for praying for us.