A nice day.

Well this time next week we will be on the long trip home and by now we should be in Chile waiting for our next plane - oh how I don't look forward to that! However I do look forward to what is at the end of it - a great big hug from Aaron and Amanda. Ryan tells me he won't be able to meet us at the airport - we will have to wait another week to see him. I guess I can forgive him - it's his last weekend with the boys from Bethel so we understand.
Today I took Michele to meet Luz and her children - I started the study with her 3 weeks ago and Michele is going to look after her for me. She is a sweet lady with lots of problems and so hopefully she takes what she is learning from the bible on. Today she was saying that she believed God had given her a sick son (he seems to be a little retarded but not quite sure if that is his only problem) to see how she would cope - what a terrible way to think about God! Her other son Jonathan is about 7 and the whole time we were there he was cleaning up the kitchen and helping his mother with Pedro - sweet kid. I took them a bible stories book each and Jonathan was so excited to receive it - he went a got a plastic bag to put them in to protect them, which was so cute.
Luz made a funny comment about Mark that has given us a laugh all day - she said to Michele that he translates for me - not that I am wanting to toot my own horn or anything - but that is so not the case - if anything it is the other way around! Anyway Mark loved it!
It is 10.30pm now and we have just arrived home from a very nice Gringo Party where we were the guests of honour. Chad and Michele made Pennsylvanian chili and mashed potatoes - and it was delicious. I feel like bursting - especially after the chocolate cake Kelly brought to the party.
We are very fortunate to have made such wonderful friends here - even if they do get on my case about our accent and kiwi idioms. New word for them tonight was Dozy! No I didn't use it in the context of " You dozy Americans" - we might not be welcomed back if I did that! We sure will miss them all while we are at home, even that dozy guy Goober!
Anyway it's bed time now - that's if I can sleep - I am so excited!

Catherine & Wayne - it's your turn!

This video in no way suggests you two
are a couple of old fossils!

A glimpse of the weather here!

How much do you reckon we could sell this stuff for???

Dawgone - or in espanol - "Perro No Bravo" is a real hit here. Doug came up with the idea and it really is brilliant. Mark of course has had to add his own touch to the stuff and has ideas of finding horseradish back home, to improve the potency even more. Unfortunately I have missed getting really good footage of the stuff working but you will get the picture from this video. We really needed it the other day when we were walking past some dogs and one jumped up and attacked us. Thankfully he only got the bookbag of our friend and not my leg that was very close to his mouth at the time.
Because the mixture is made of natural ingredients and when squirted with it, the dogs just don't like it so run away, so it is much more humane than throwing stones or sticks at them, which can of course do permanent harm to the animal. It is not mean to spray dogs behind fences either because there have been many witnesses bitten by a dog poking his head out through the bars.The amazing thing too is once they have been shot once or twice, they may bark at you but will stay as far away from you as possible as the second short video shows. So it really is ALL GOOD!

Poor Hos won't be coming home with us to eat Te Puna grass and get fat. Sadly but thankfully he died during the night - we had to watch all day yesterday as he got weaker and weaker - and there was nothing we could do.

Mud Skis time again!

I know I have harped on about this before but we have had quite a few weeks of beautiful weather and now we are back to rain and mud everyday. It gets pretty slippery too so it is a wonder I have not ended up sitting in it!

This morning we trudged over to my new study, Señora Luz. She has 3 sons and the youngest seemed just a little odd. I was saying how if a son is on drugs and ruins his health - it is not the father's fault, when Luz started crying and said that was the problem with her youngest boy - his father took drugs. Poor lady - she was so upset. She let Mark say a prayer for her and we arranged to go back next week and study chapter 11 - Why does God Permit Suffering. It is a real privilege to be able to share the truth with these people.

Tonight's excitement

Just as we walked into the hall tonight - there was a blackout and they are obviously used to this sort of thing occurring here, as before we knew it - candles were handed around. Thankfully though the lights came back on before Mark had the Bible Highlights (his 1st). It would have been interesting had he had to read by candlelight but I guess no worse than if we had had to sing without music!