Written by Jenny

If it's ok with you all, I'm just gonna whimper for a bit on this post- please feel free to leave an encouraging comment if you like!!

Last week, we started school, tried out a new Hope/ house helper, and started a great new schedule! :) (Can you hear the hammer fixin' to drop???)

Monday started with Hope throwing up all over her crib, her "Elly" (her lovey- a stuffed elephant), and the other 4,000 stuffed animals in her crib.  No worries, I took it in stride, smiling confidently in the face of Satan as I knew to expect some efforts from him to thwart our new week (and my optimistic outlook).

Well, it pretty much went horribly down hill from there:

• we had no gas for hot showers or the clothes dryer for about 3 days- although, the gas truck ALWAYS passes by our house every day!! (except for suddenly these 3 days)!
• Caleb missed BOTH swim classes last week :( because of truck trouble! (It won't start and they can't figure out why)
• the house helper criticized a ton of what we do and asked me a 1,000 times what could she do to help as I answered a 1,000 times- could you please look after Hope?????? She is an AMAZING CLEANER, but is just annoyed by little Hope!!  She actually caused a great deal of stress last week! And Hope would scream her head off as we did school each day!!
  
• I got a nasty stomach thing on Thursday which left me crazy weak on Friday!!
• Friday night we got the call that our truck was fixed- YEAH! We all 6 headed to Oaxaca in a taxi, picked up the truck, all spiffy and cleaned up!!! Headed to buy a couple things and then, . . . THE TRUCK DIDN'T START! And, oh sorry, Chevy was all closed, and oh sorry, you can't leave your truck here, said the store authorities!! Ugh! Elijah, Hope and I paid an arm and a leg to get a taxi to take us to our village, to our house and we got home around 9:30! John and the big boys waited forever for the tow truck to tow them to Chevy and leave it there (keys with the security guard) and got a taxi for only an arm to our house and got here at 11:30!!!
• John's back went out on Wednesday and he is just now starting to be able to walk a bit normally!
• The pump on our well got submerged in water and John has had to wrestle the heavy-tail thing, leaning over the edge of the well a few different times (hence the back going out).
• We fired our house helper on Friday, explaining we would love to call her occasionally to clean, but we would look for someone with some experience as a nanny- she was definitely disappointed to lose the money, but really understood- Hope is definitely a challenging little kid!!
  
• Maria told me her sister, with experience as a nanny in California, might want work- I told her to pass by- never came!! 2 days after, Maria stopped by (when she knew I was at English class) to say no, her sister had to help with some weavings! ???
  
• Internet was out yesterday and this morning.
• Printer wouldn't print for my school stuff that I need
• And this is so small and insignificant, but I have been without Coke Zero for days!! With no truck to go to town! And that just stinks!!
  

OK, that's enough complaining!

PRAISE GOD:

• We have Internet!!!!!
• Printer is working!!!!
• I'm better from my sickness!!!!!
• John is almost better with his back!!!
• We got a whole week of school done last week- glory to God!!

Please pray for a helper for us as I have NO IDEA how we will do this week with nobody to help with Hope during school!!
Please pray for our truck to be fixed soon, too!

I am so discouraged today!! I actually feel a physical weight around me.  Let me reiterate: Your "Love for the People" is NOT what keeps you on the field! The people are LOST, they will hurt you and disappoint you! They don't know Christ! I am disobedient and selfish and on and on and I DO know Christ- how could I expect any different from someone apart from Him???? It is our call to missions and our commitment to GOD to serve Him in this way that keeps me here and keeps me from packing up to head home! 

Thanks for letting me be myself here: the good, the bad and the ugly!!