April plans (audio)
I was on my way home from paying Hannah’s tuition at the bank when I recorded this little update about our plans for April – travel, doctors, and more…
Practical matters
Curtains!
Unlike our house in Cuernavaca, this house has a lot of windows. And when we moved in, it had no curtains or blinds.
Also unlike our home in Cuernavaca, there are a lot of windows of other houses facing ours – some a few feet away, others a few yards away.
So, we need curtains. But, as you know – time and expense! 🙂
But we’re getting started! Two rooms now have a complete set of curtains. Hannah’s room, and our room. We also have a blind in our dining room window, thanks to the help of Shari’s Dad. 🙂
 Before: Hannah’s carefully constructed garbage bag curtains |
 After: Hannah’s new curtains, made by Mom! |
Before: Master bedroom curtain, made of cardboard.
This is the only curtain that was here when we moved in. 😉
After: Real curtains at last!
But then God Provided (again)
It was really all God’s fault. After all, He’s the one that makes them grow. If it hadn’t been for that, we wouldn’t have been so concerned.
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Shari and I were having a conversation two or three months ago. The problem was that Hannah and Nathanael didn’t have enough clothes. Sure, sometimes clothes get wrecked, but frankly kids of 4 and 7 tend to grow quickly, and pretty soon the pants that used to fit Hannah were shorts, and Nathanael’s long sleeve sweater had become short sleeve (which was tight enough to show his rippling muscles).
So what were we going to do about it? Well, we didn’t have a lot of extra cash. We planned to make some adjustments to the budget so that in months ahead we could save up extra for some clothes. That might not help right away, but hopefully it would help in 2009. But would it be enough?
And God watched our conversation. Was He chuckling? Frustrated? Waving His hands, trying to get our attention so He could tell us to go read Luke 12:22-34?
Well, whatever He was doing, He had a plan. Suddenly, over December and January, we started to get covered by an avalanche of clothes. Hand-me-downs from family in Canada. Gifts from friends and family. Then someone came down from the USA, after doing some bargain-hunting, with yet more clothes. And I understand there are more clothes that someone sent that are on their way.
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Unbelievable (at least to those of us with little faith).
So thank you to all of you who were so thoughtful! You have no idea how perfect the timing was. Thanks!
We’ll still need our “budget tweaks” to buy a few specific things we’re still missing, but we’re sure a lot better off than we thought we would be a couple of months ago. And Hannah and Nathanael are really enjoying their new clothes that actually fit (who said kids don’t like getting clothes as gifts?).
So, note to self. Don’t worry about clothes. Do you think God doesn’t care? Do you think He’s not paying attention?
Really, now. Time to get a proper perspective.
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At the Mall on December 26
I thought my Canadian friends might be interested in this. I went to the mall – actually, two malls, here in town on the 26th of December. They were open. But they were dead. Not too many people around. Nice and peaceful, actually. Never seen them so quiet.
As I walked out in a parking lot, thinking how different things probably were in Canada, I glanced down and saw a licence plate that said Beautiful British Columbia (I don’t think I’ve ever seen another Canadian plate here in Ixtapaluca, except people we know)!
I guess old habits die hard – that mall has probably never seen such a high percentage of Canadians!
I wasn’t at the mall looking for deals, I was actually getting what I hope will be the last prescribed drugs I need for a while. I’ve been fighting some kind of stomach thing since before conference (at the end of November). I was actually quite sick at conference, then got a little better, then worse again.
Anyway, after several doctor’s visits, I think I’m on the mend. The doctor things I’m probably somewhat undernourished after all that time, so he’s got me on some super-vitamins for a while. Between that and the turkey, I should do fine… 😉
Report on the 16th of December (audio blog)
A quick update on what’s happening with the Cottrill family, and also news of the team from Michigan. By the way, if you want to read some of what the team is writing, if you’re reading this in time you should check out the Lighthouse Collective website. Great stuff!
Leak of the Week?
All right, so it’s been more than a week since I was last talking about leaks. But "leak of the week" is much more catchy than "leak of the month", don’t you agree?
It was yesterday that we made the grisly discovery in Nathanael’s closet. Here it is:
That’s not all of it, but it gives you an idea. Now, this was in the back of the closet, so we didn’t see it right away. But we don’t think it’s been there for ages and ages – we’ve just started noticing some extra wet in the bathroom (right behind this wall) and on the ceiling downstairs (under this wall).
Water isn’t dribbling out like it was last time, but we think it may be a trickier problem to solve. It may either have to do with pipes in the wall, or perhaps a tiling issue in the bathroom.
But what do we know? We need to call Mario again. At the moment he’s busy in the church meeting place (remember the construction there?), but once the team from Michigan arrives he’ll take a break – and no better place to spend it than at the Cottrill house, right?
Meanwhile, I’ve carefully cleaned Nathanael’s wall (a temporary fix of course) so that he can use the room without the fear of a super-fungus monster creeping out of his closet at night!). Lord willing Saturday or Monday Mario can come and take a look. We may have people staying here next week – hopefully they won’t mind a little extra construction dust!