I found this entry in my devotional journal. It is dated August 16, two days before labor.

It all starts here, really, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” This isn’t mythological or allegorical to me; it’s raw truth. He gave and we partook…we are still partaking, for that matter.

What do I say after a long hiatus? Hello. Yeah, I’m doing fine. Wish you were here. It’s hard to get communication going after so much time away. It feels funny, a bit forced. But here I am with an afternoon that seems less rushed, and I don’t want to waste it by only doing lesson plans in advance. I want to say something although I’m not sure what that is.

My Spanish learning opportunities have just gotten smaller, thus making my word lists here even more important. I am now a full time teacher. It’s odd that my first experience with having my own classroom would be a multi-grade, elementary one. My training is the one subject, high school variety. That said, I am really looking forward to it.

You always hear stories of people learning new languages who unknowingly use the wrong word, which just happens to be a really wrong word, an embarrassing word. Well, thankfully I haven’t yet had an experience like that…unless you count the times I’ve used dolor (to have pain) instead of dolar (dollar $). This faux pas usually gets a few laughs.

This blog entry is coming embarrassingly after the fact. But I wanted to tell, just briefly, of the miracle that God performed to get Raquel back to the Hogar. Thinking about it makes me smile with wonder.

Sometimes you have stories that you want to tell just right or not at all. Unless you can paint the picture in the same hues you first saw it, then why try? I feel this way about Raquel. What happened on Sunday, though, can’t be allowed to leave my memory. She’s too important for that.

It's been a difficult past two weeks. Adam's job as Jefe of the Plantel began in all its confusing glory. Who's supposed to be working? Do they really have to work...because they sure don't want to? When your afternoon crew is between the ages of eight and twelve, you’re in for a battle, especially when work consists of two hours of raking leaves in the hot sun.

Well, here we are at another Sabbath, a day I always look forward to despite the long meetings in a language I can‘t understand. Something about getting up with the sun, showering and shaving, playing some music…the relaxed routine has always quieted me. I can’t say it was like that when I was a child.

You go through moments where you question, and then moments that are the answer. I wish that when you had the question you could remember that an answer was on its way, and when you had the answer you could hold it in your pocket for the next time you needed it. This lack of memory is a constant for me.