A Day in the Life…

We’ve just finished a busy time here at the mission home. I kept a record of some of the main events that kept our days interesting. Here is one day’s record to give you a sample. (Note: sorry this makes this e-mail longer than usual. If some of you don’t have time to read it all, please just skip the “diary” part and read the last couple paragraphs, where the prayer requests are. 🙂 Thanks!)

January 11, 2007
6:15 AM–Rise and shine. The lady who works here at the mission home, is already in the kitchen starting preparations for breakfast. She lives right here on the property, so the work day starts early for her when we have a full house. She and I make pancakes and bacon for 14 people.
7:00–Everyone crowds into the dining room for breakfast. The two new families who arrived from the States yesterday still have jet lag, so they’ve all been up for a while.
8:30–We spend time visiting with guests in the front room. Try to answer their questions about life here.
10:15–DJ leaves for the travel agent’s office to pay for airline tickets that have been ordered by one of the missionaries in a different part of the country.
12:00–We serve enchiladas and salad for lunch.
12:15–DJ leaves for the airport for the second day in a row to meet another new missionary arriving from the States. The drive to the airport takes between 1 and 2 hours, depending on traffic.
1:00–Areli and Galilee don’t take afternoon naps anymore, but we still put them in their room to play quietly (theoretically, at least) for a while in the afternoon. While they’re doing that, I have my own quiet time.
2:00–As I’m on my way to get the girls up from their quiet time, one of our guests meets me with the news that we’ll need to wash a couple extra loads of sheets from their room–one of her kids got sick during their nap time.
We start the laundry first, and then I go back to Areli and Galilee. I guess I shouldn’t have enjoyed my quiet time so much and should have checked on them better. They have been in the potty training process for at least 6 months, but they still have quite a ways to go. I’ll spare you the gory details. Suffice it to say that there is a huge mess on the bedding, the girls’ clothing and hair, and other places in the room. I spend the next hour or so cleaning that up.
4:00–DJ and our new guest arrive from the airport :).
5:00–Sandwiches for supper for 15 people.
7:00–Areli and Galilee’s bed time.
8:00–Meet with the new families again to answer questions.
9:30–Off to bed.

Well, there you have it. We enjoy our busy times here, as well as our quieter times. On the 13th, we had another family come on their way back to their home country, so we had a total of 9 adults here, and also 10 children under the age of 5! It was interesting figuring out how to fit all the high chairs around the tables. The last of our guests left yesterday, and the girls and I are now trying to recover from a stomach flu we picked up.

We appreciate your prayers for our family’s health. Please pray also for wisdom for DJ. He has a lot of details to keep track of right now. For various reasons we’ve had a flood of people wanting to apply for visas and process other government paperwork in the last few weeks. DJ is responsible for getting together all the necessary paperwork for these kinds of things.
He’d definitely appreciate prayer that he doesn’t forget anything important, and that he can get it all done in a timely manner!