saturdays

The house has been kind of quiet since the medical team left earlier this week. We said good-bye to them on Wednesday morning. It was wonderful to have them and we hope they all come back! They even helped Grant celebrate his birthday on Wednesday before taking off (by dumping a glass of water on his head at the breakfast table).

So yes... Grant turned 23 on Wednesday. We celebrated by going to bed semi-early because we were exhausted! :) But we did have banana bars before that. Since then, we've been trying to remember what real life is like around here... laundry and dishes do still exist, unfortunately! It was a good week at school and I have Monday off, which will be really nice. 

There's not a whole lot unusual going on... so I thought I might explain a little bit about typical Saturdays around here. For a couple of Saturday mornings, now, Grant has been using woodworking as a way to reach out to a young boy here who really needs positive role  models in his life. He's living with his mom and grandma (who is a member of the church), and his biological father is not really in the picture. He attends Jovenes, our Saturday night youth group, fairly regularly. So Grant has been taking him up to the lot on Saturday mornings and working on a little project with him. Grant was really encouraged this morning because he (Roberto) was so excited to come again. You can pray for his heart and that he would be able to resist the negative temptations and influences around him. You can also pray for wisdom for Grant and for safety for both of them as they work with tools together! :)

Saturdays I usually work on laundry, go to the market, etc... this morning Ruth went to the dentist so Caleb tagged along on my errands and helped me pick out my apples and stuff. That was fun. :)

Saturday evenings is Jovenes. This group originally consisted of older, more young-group age individuals and it was basically the young group get-together. But the young group is pretty small and scattered right now - a lot of them are attending school in other places and there's just not very many of them. So they started inviting some of the younger, 10-12 year old kids that are in church and sometimes they bring friends along with them too. We get together at 5, sing for half an hour, and then have a Bible study for half an hour to 45 minutes. After that, we play volleyball or dodgeball or something with them. If its raining, we stay inside and play Uno (a new favorite) or sometimes Dutch Blitz with the giant cards. Around 7ish, we serve pop and popcorn and then send them on their way. The kids generally seem enthusiastic, so its a great opportunity to have them and we're glad they all come. It definitely takes a lot of energy to keep up with them, though. :) So that's what we did tonight.

Tomorrow is Mexico's independence day. Really the only aspect of the celebration that we are a part of is enjoying the many fireworks. Unfortunately, the fireworks down here are usually nothing but noise. They started this morning at 6:15 and we have been getting random explosions above us all day. It's 11:00 p.m. now and they still are going, so it could be a pretty long night.

Hopefully everybody will enjoy their Sunday tomorrow! Have a great week!