long time, surgery and brasil

Sorry it’s been a really long time since I’ve last written, but my life has been rather hectic and I haven’t had a chance to sit down and type a blog entry. I am in my last stage of a long fight with my insurance company. I finally have all the paper in that they need and am now waiting what they called a “review” of my case. I am hoping it’s a formality, but I’ll believe it when I see it. About two weeks ago a team of 14 students came down for the summer, 11 girls and 3 guys, not bad considering the big flu scare. It is a good team and I’m looking forward to a great summer with them. I have spent the last few weeks visiting families and churches as we prepared for the Spearheaders to come and now am revisiting them to make sure all is going smoothly with their North American house guests. We also are teaching them about Mexican culture and history and taking Spanish classes as well. I am enjoying the summer program and the cross cultural mentoring I am doing, just frustrated by the pain and limitations of my back. I am hoping to have surgery by the end of this week, but I have been hoping that for a few weeks. This weekend I went to Puebla to visit my Brasilian missionary friend who is heading to Brasil for a few months and I wanted to see him before he left. I left for Puebla on Friday afternoon after our meetings and made it there in a few hours, stopped by to see my old neighbors who are crusade staff workers and just had a baby which was nice. As I arrived near Robson’s house I couldn’t remember which was his and called his son who came out of a different house and I was really happy to see Emmanuel and Rosanna who were one of my families in Puebla, she is pregnant and it was so good to see them. I walked into the house and it turned out everyone was speaking Portuguese as Robson has some Brasilian neighbors and it was really cool to walk in there and just speak to them in Portuguese and really feel welcomed by these people I had never met. Shortly after I arrived Emmanuel and Rosanna left and so did Robson’s son and I was left with a bunch of Brasilians I had never met before but were so warm. They brought me some dinner and we talked about Brasilian football as though we had known each other for a long time. Those kind of moments are just really sweet to me as I feel the warmth of the Latin American culture and just being accepted and becoming part of the family. I am praying that I can have surgery this week and begin my recovery. Thanks for all your prayers and support.