June and July in a Whirlwind Post

Got your seat belt buckled?  Let's just say that the last couple months have been crazy, and I haven't exactly kept up with this blog.  So lemme fill you in as quickly and succinctly as possible.

A THIEF ARRIVED.  Someone broke into the garage of our apartment building and somehow got our hood opened (no signs of entry, all still locked when we got down there).  When we turned the key the next morning, alas, nothing.  No battery.  We decided it was time to give in and get the chirpy alarm thing.

WHITNEY LEFT.  You remember the sweet gal who spent five weeks with us starting in May, including several days in the hospital for a serious bacterial infection?  Well, her departure was equally exciting.  We left our town with plenty of extra hours so that we could give her a mini-tour of our favorite cultural hot-spots on the normally 5-hour car ride to the capital city.  We had several things go wrong, and then a bit more than halfway there, the car died.  Caroline, Whitney, and I grabbed Whitney's luggage and hopped a bus as quickly as possible and then grabbed a taxi as we got closer, making it to the airport with a few minutes to spare before her flight left, then spinning around to take the midnight bus back to Encarnación.


THE CAR REBELLED.  After a few weeks in the repair shop and $1500 worth of loving care, our car came back home, but still with a pesky noise that didn't seem it should be there.  We drove it a few miles out of town to get it at road speed, and it died again.  This time, the wrecker driver said the girls and I could stay inside it as he towed it back to our we-see-you-way-too-often mechanic.  It was pretty exciting (and slightly scary) to be towed that way, but we watched Ken and the driver converse as we pretended to be in a parade behind them.

MY FOOT HEALED.  The foot fracture I sustained from twisting my ankle on uneven sidewalk finally healed, and I can walk on it fully again without feeling pain.  My leg is still unstable and the knee often gives out while walking, so I constantly have to be aware of what's around me, so I can grab ahold of something in a pinch.  I wiped out a week and a half ago in the bedroom, breaking the fall with my outstretched hand.  A bruise showed up behind my elbow, supposedly from the impact my bone had with the muscles back there, even the only part to touch the floor was my open palm.  Needless to say, I'm still having lots of pain in my arm and can't use it for much of anything, but it should heal up soon enough.  The weird thing is that when I fell, I felt my knee twist up behind me in an awkward angle.  I just lay there a while, nervous to move it or get up because it was such an odd fall.  But since then, the pain in my knee is GREATLY reduced.  I think that something that was out of place was put back where it should be during the twisty fall, so I can't really complain about the arm.

I hope you're still with me at this point, because I've saved the best for last.  Yeah, there is some really GOOD NEWS!

THE BRIDGE IS OPEN!  After years of dreaming, searching for a place, raising funds, making connections, praying, and praying some more, the youth center we feel God sent us to Encarnación to open is up and running!  We hosted a couple of pre-opening events with a few invited guests to test everything out, then flung wide the doors on July 4 for a night full of music, samples of our baked goods and coffee, games, door prizes, giveaways, and a whole lot of explaining what this place is about.  A month or so later, we're meeting new people almost every day.  The regulars are bringing friends, people see us on Facebook, folks come in because they saw our flashing sign.  And we are thrilled every time we see connections happening and God's love flowing as we'd envisioned it could be.  We're working the kinks out about the schedule, the baking, the legalities, and all sorts of fine details, but we have been thrilled with the response.