i live with two teenage boys.

i never realize how long it has been since my last blog post. i seriously thought i had done one two days ago. but no, it has been a week. and since i am sure that everyone back home is dying to know what is happening in my life, here i am again.

yes, i do live with two teenage boys. and i wanted to take the opportunity to talk a little more about my host family: the rodriguez family. my host dad, miguel, is mexican and my host mom, vivian, is nicaraguan. vivian actually used to hate mexicans due to a certain incident she had when traveling, but her parents forced her to study in mexico because they wanted to break up her and her current boyfriend at the time. so vivian studied in mexico and met a friend of her sister´s named miguel. they got married and lived in mexico city for a while, and then they moved to honduras and had their four kids: guillermo, rebecca, timmy, and sammy. later on, they felt called to move to el salvador as missionaries. they´ve only been here about 7 months, i believe. miguel is the head pastor at the church here in jucuapa: centro cristiano familiar. vivian is a vivacious, fireball of a lady. she talks a mile a minute, but she truly has one of the sweetest hearts. her english is understandable, but she does have trouble speaking it sometimes. miguel is, oh my, a wonderful man full of happiness. that´s a good way to describe him. he loves his family and God very much. and his sermons are always very powerful...even though i can´t get everything he says at the time. miguel taught english for a while, so his english is very good.

now for the two teenage boys. timmy is 16 and sammy is 17. the other rodriguez kids still live in honduras. timmy is one of the sweetest teenage boys i have ever met. he is respectful, and, well, he washes my dishes sometimes. that´s just how he is. he loves to sing all the time, and he has a great voice. for some reason, though, whenever timmy really gets into singing, sammy says, ¨timmy, why are you crying?¨ it´s become a big joke between all of us. timmy has a girlfriend back in honduras that he is loves an awful lot, but he hasn´t seen here for about 7 months. he wants to be an esl teacher and probably teach either here or somewhere abroad. timmy´s and sammy´s english is pretty much flawless because they grew up in a bilingual school and a bilingual home because of their dad. sammy is the cutie of the family. he is completely the youngest child in every way. he knows how to pout so that he gets his way, but he doesn´t do that often. he is actually a pretty mature fifteen year old. i spend a lot of time around him, and he is a sweetheart as well. i told him the other day that i really do feel like he is my brother. sammy wants to be an architect someday. i was worried about what it would be like living with two teenage boys, but i pretty much think they are amazing. i look forward to seeing them and hanging out with them everyday. they are two very special boys. and they are both ridiculously smart.

so that is the family i´ve been living with for the past three weeks. after about a week here, i realized that i was going to be crying when i left. you grow attached to people very quickly. it´s just the way that it is. and that´s okay too. many people go to lots of different places to do mission work. but for me, i think i want to just focus on one or two areas. i would love to be involved in this ministry in jucuapa for the rest of my life. i don´t mean that i want to move down here. but when i do take trips, i would like to return here. i would like to partner with this church and the schools. i just feel like if i am going to invest in something, i want it to be something that i know well. we´ll have to see how that all pans out in my life.

what else is happening? english classes are going on right now. overall, they have been going well, but there have been a few snares. one of the computers isn´t working very well. and scheduling has been a nightmare. mostly that´s just culture, but it can be really frustrating for us. school is cancelled next week as well. so we will only be in the schools one week before we go. keri is leaving not next week but the following week. fun stuff that we are doing: tomorrow we are going to the beach for the day. then next week we are going to a resort for about three days. i am very excited! there should be lots of pictures up in the next week.

prayer requests....umm...that the english classes would continue going well. that erica and i would be okay with the workload once keri leaves. that i would get all of my graphic design work done. for timmy and sammy because they really want to go on this pastor kid´s retreat, and they aren´t sure that they will be able to do so. and also, just for me that i would have the right heart and attitude. it is easy to get distracted. and i have been struggling with relating to one person in particular here. i want to be above reproach in all that i do, but i also want to be able to relax and have a good time. so yes. i think that is it for now. there will probably be two or three more updates before i come home. gasp. thanks to all of you for praying and loving me. i appreciate it very much!
beth