We have a friend from Mexico here who was a bit down the other day. She was commenting on how much it rains and how cold it’s been here in Tacoma. We looked at each other and said, “It hasn’t rained THAT much!” And January was a month of record-high temperatures. So we’ve apparently adapted pretty well back to the Northwest for this year.

We’re thankful for our churches. We’ve been blessed by warm responses and some amazing generosity. Drew, Gavin and Fiona are getting along well. So we want to say thank you to those who have been so hospitable and kind to us. And we’re thankful that we’re not constantly on the road. It’s good to have consistency for the kids. Drew’s doing well in school and we’ve been able to do swimming and climbing classes at the YMCA. We’re thankful for some of those opportunities.

Tim is advancing on his thesis, hopefully getting approval to go ahead and do the actual writing. Barbara-Lee is doing well. She’s been able to spend some quality time with our friend that we mentioned above. And it’s been good to spend time with Tim’s family. This week, weather permitting, Barbara-Lee’s parents will come out for a short visit and then we’re off to Idaho for a two-week conference there.

That’s a bit of a summary of things. There’s not much more to say about what we’re doing right now; instead, we’d like to talk some more about what we’re hoping to do.

Help Wanted

In “Help wanted” we want to highlight some of the opportunities for service in Puebla. We want to go back to Pueblo Nuevo, where we lived for five years and begin serving the community in Jesus’ name in very practical ways, meeting educational, health, and family needs. Out of these relationships we hope to see a church begin in an area that has traditionally been very resistant to the gospel.

Recently we spoke with a lady who is an LPN with experience in home care giving. One of the ideas we talked about would be for her to come to Pueblo Nuevo and give a class in basic care for the elderly in the home. A one week class with a few hours of daily instruction could be very effective. It would be a very practical class for many people in our area and would potentially open the door to many contacts. In the context of a class like that language wouldn’t be much of a problem because we can translate effectively.

This is the sort of thing we want to encourage you to think about: a practical skill that can be used (or even taught) to better people’s lives. What skills do you have that could be passed on to others that could improve their lives?