Blessings

Wow... what a great day this has been! We have literally had emails and phone calls pouring in from about the time we woke up this morning, offering support and condolences after our "Struggles" that we posted yesterday.

People have literally-- less than 24 hours after that post-- offered to replace, piece by piece and person by person, every item that we mentioned was missing. Thank you, thank you, thank you all for helping to restore our faith in humanity in such a beautiful and tangible way. This whole experience has served to remind us of many things, the most important of which is that God is still Good. We are also reminded that "stuff" is just "stuff", and that we often have way too much of it to begin with, anyway. (Check out the link to Katie Eleiott's blog for her most recent post, which speaks to this in a powerful way...) And, most importantly, good friends and family are good to have. We are truly blessed, rich, and lucky.

Today has been another wonderful day for playing "catch up" on emails, finances, and all kinds of beginning-of-the-year stuff. We also got some house-cleaning (much needed!) done, and were just able to spend some nice time together. Next week we will start our new schedule in full force, it looks like. We are trying to really appreciate the few days off we have had here lately, since we will have about three days off each month after Heidi starts working at the Buen Samaritano hospital!

Please pray for the Ficker family as they try to travel home through Mexico with several newly purchased vehicles and lots of great medical supplies this week. After recent experiences with landings, we're pretty glad to have Duane and the boys on the ground this week!

Also please pray for one of our clinic patients from San Andres this weekend-- her name is Yendi Blanco Reyes, and she is 16 years old. She has been to see us several times with her mom over the last few months, and we are truly stumped as to what her problem is. Apparently, for about two years now she throws up after every time she eats! She is not terribly malnourished, does not have any signs of bulemia, is not pregnant, and has not responded to several different attempts of medicine to help her problem.

She and her family have never set foot in a Church, and we are very worried about what might be stressing her out at home. There is a strong sense that her problem is really more spiritual/emotional than physical, but we are having a hard time to get her to open up to us. We did get a chance to talk to her with her mother out of the room this week, and she often looked like she was about to cry when asked about problems at home-- but then she would smile really big to cover it up and say everything was fine.

We prayed with her and her mom, and gave her our cell phone number in case she decides she wants to talk. Please pray for wisdom on our parts to ascertain what is truly the problem, and for God to open her heart on her part, so that she might know His love, peace, and salvation.

Tomorrow we will attend to some business at the hospital, and continue cleaning and organizing and getting ready for the week to get a lot busier starting Wednesday!