Fourth Week

First day of school-Christian and Daniela's daughters

As you may recall, there was a general strike starting as we were leaving the country last September. The strike included all public school teachers. It lasted four months. By the way, nothing was accomplish by the strike. The legislature voted to curtail expenses across the board to balance the budget; otherwise, the country was going broke.
Since the school year runs from February to December here, students lost half a year. We thought that they would go back to school at the end of the strike to make up the time lost, but no, they had to have their summer vacation (Dec - Jan)! They just promoted everybody to the next grade, graduated all students who had a passing average before the strike, and went on to their summer vacation. Amazing! The new school year just started on Wednesday. I think that they will have to teach what they missed. Teachers said that students will have extra homework. A lot of kids will fall further behind. As a teacher, I am alarmed. I see a whole generation at a disadvantage.

We started bible studies at Walter and Yesenia's. They are just little sponges. Everything is new and interesting for them. Last week we talked about giving your testimony, and this week we talked about the ordinances. The lights went on when they realized that, if baptism is a symbol of the new life in Christ, baptizing babies does not make any sense, since they cannot make a decision for Christ. We just love spending time with them around the Word because they are so enthusiastic and receptive; however, it looks like this will be the only individual bible study that we will have on this trip, since I was sick and couldn't get the schedule going.

Tonight Ricardo and Miguelina are coming over for dinner and fellowship, and tomorrow we will have the couples bible study. We will organize a Valentine Day's outing for next Saturday.

Prayer requests:

• Continue to pray for good health and strength
• Pray for the couples' commitment to the Lord and each other
• Wisdom as we teach and counsel
• Protection for our family

Until next time...from the beach...