A Quick update regarding the seminary

Exciting things are happening here at Hebron Seminary. The second term started this week and the student population has grown some more. Many of my fellow professors are moving forward with their own education, and making progress in their own preparation to train others for decades to come. The seminary is reaching out and partnering with a wider variety of like minded churches and institutions both in Bolivia and beyond.


I am very excited about the focus on the fact that depth of love and depth of knowledge are not contradictory, and knowing Christ’s Word and lovingly serving His people never have to be pitted against each other. I sat in on the first Masters of Arts in Theology class, a two week modular on the History of Theology. It was informative, entertaining and great for my Spanish progress. These same men will be my students for several classes next year, along with the MA in Bible students and everyone taking Hebrew.


Molly and I are continuing to learn Spanish. I plan to teach Greek III in August. Next year I know I will be teaching Hebrew I, II, and III, an MA course on the writings of John and the book of Amos. Please pray for us in the next couple of months as we hope to finish our Spanish tutoring and pass our proficiency exams.

Same planet. Different Worlds.

An oft-quoted phrase regarding our son, Elias. Today I decided to see if he could answer some basic anatomy questions.

Me: "Elias, what do you smell with?

E: "A DRAGON!"

*hmmm...let's try this again.*

Me: "Elias, what do you use to smell?

E: "A nose."

*phew!*

E (now getting the hang of our Socratic game): "What do you pick the boogers with? .....Say 'a pinky.' A pinky."

*uh, yeah. Thanks for the demonstration with that one, bud.*

A makeover

So, the ol' blog is about to be revamped, spiced up and pretty-fied. Well, not pretty-fied since Adam sees it as representative of himself and he doesn't like to look all girly.

I am layout shopping this week. I don't like what I'm finding though. After cruising around and reading blogs and blogging for awhile, I have an idea of what I like and don't like--but no clue on how to make it all myself. So, I'm left tweaking something that is as close to what I want...which takes a lot more time than the kids want to give me. It may be awhile in the making, but I'll get there.

In the meantime, does anyone have suggestions on where to find free layouts? I've checked with Pyzam, blogger and Lena.

I would also love (when there is time) to put in links to friends' etsy shops. I'm just so impressed with everyone's creativity. If you'd like to be included, send me your info. and I'll see what I can do.

Chau for now.

What would you do?

I compulsively bought an 8 oz package of cream cheese a few weeks ago. It was the first I'd seen it since our move down and I couldn't help myself. I won't even tell you what I paid for the imported goodness of Philadelphia.

Now, nothing seems quite "worthy" of such a purchase and I need your ideas.

What is your favorite, tastiest, most scrumptious way to use cream cheese?

I'm going to talk honestly about...

Diapers.

So, that's fair warning for anyone not interested in that kind of potty talk, or has too much of it in their lives already to waste precious free time on the computer to read about it too.

When we headed down to Bolivia with a five month old in tow, I was stocked and almost mentally prepared to cloth diaper her little hiney. After we settled in, I realized that I didn't have a good way to wash all that cloth goodness. EVERY laundry detergent here contains perfumes and additives which will eventually cause the cloth to stop absorbing--not a result I was going for! So, I was relegated to hand washing them in very hot water with laundry bar soap. This worked well enough but was obviously time-consuming, back-breaking work. Which is fine, but there was a better way.

We ended up returning to the states for a couple months last fall. While it wasn't our primary purpose for returning (those pesky visa requirements and a potential political coup are responsible there), I saw it as a prime opportunity to stock up on homemade laundry soap ingredients. (I won't go into a "how to" post here, it's all been done very well by my friend Jeana at "Frugally Green".) already.) I'm sure Adam loved that we ended up bringing back an entire suitcase of Fels Naptha soap, Borax and washing Soda! But it has been truly a blessing and the cloth diapering fell into full swing upon our return.



Until...I just got tired of it. It was frustrating.

But not for the reasons you might think. Once I figured out how to fold and "pin" (which you don't do these days because we have snappies.) the actual changing of the diaper wasn't any harder than a disposable. It wasn't a big deal to take the diaper into the bathroom, rinse it out and put it in our diaper bucket. I loved the satisfaction of knowing I wasn't putting *another* diaper in the trash! It smelled a lot better than several dirty disposable sitting in the garbage too. Plus it was kind of therapeutic to see all those white diapers hanging out on the line.

Relaxing and energizing almost.



No, the worst part of all was that I was the only person who would use them. I guess I forgot, as I told Adam about my beautifully environmentally friendly plan, to ask him if he'd like to join my on my cloth diapering journey.

So, we've had a few weeks of disposables recently. But now I'm ready to go back to cloth. I'm looking forward to that next freshly laundered load of whites!

My brain is running circles around me today. (Not that the two cups of coffee had anything to do with that!) I have thought of quite a few things to write about, but mostly my thoughts keep returning to two things:

1. My parents are coming to visit!! We've been trying, literally, for months to figure out how to get our homeschool curriculum here from the States. Well, Mom and Dad decided they'd just bring it down and stay a couple weeks. A great air fare from Miami to Santa Cruz and free tickets to Miami helped a lot with that decision. God bless air miles! So we are super excited. Now we just have to figure out how they will pack everything since they graciously gave us their larger suitcases when we moved down last summer. Anyone have an old duffle lying around they can borrow? We'll throw in some Bolivian gift and send it back to you!!

2. We have prayer meeting tonight. Every other Monday a group of missionaries "of like mind" meet and pray together. Tonight it is at a home across town from us. I've been there before, but Adam was with us and gave directions. I'm a bit nervous going solo this time, especially since I do not know the landmarks (or their Spanish names!) very well. So, I'm off to find the place on my map, translate my directions into Spanish and look for cab fare (oh, and the kids would appreciate being fed somewhere in there, I'm sure!) Chau!

more pics

And some more fall photos from November in Kansas City.