Somehow my last post was already two months ago. Writing about grief always kind of sucks all my public writing juices for awhile. I say public because I am writing quietly here on the side when I get a chance. One project is basically completed, I am just praying about what to do with it. The other is a long way from being finished but if you think to pray for it, I would so appreciate it. It is stretching me in a whole new way that is good and hard.

For those of you who prayed for my surgery and recovery, again I thank you. I’m fully recovered and grateful to be back at all our different activities. Just before I found out about the tumor, we had begun a get-together every other Friday for young people. After only once, we decided to put it on hold until I could be there and functioning again. It has been wonderful to start up again and see renewed interest. The older two go around town and invite their friends and a couple of the believers’ kids invite their friends at school during the week. They normally come in groups, meeting up along the sandy roads and walking the rest of the way together. We sit in a circle under our palapa and pray and sing and memorize verses, read some Narnia and have a Bible lesson. Then they play sports or table games (or take selfies) and we end with a snack. Of course. And not snacks like pbj’s and grapes. We’re talking snacks like pork rinds and popcorn drenched in hot sauce. It reminds me on a much smaller scale of the days we had a cottage school when classes were shut down for covid: kids just everywhere, filling our yard with laughter and fun. Many who come went to kindergarten with our kids and while we have lived here for almost 10 years, it is still incredible to see the once four year olds suddenly turning 14 and soon heading to high school. In a world anxious to see young people swallowed by sin, it is an enormous joy to have this opportunity.

Sundays and Wednesdays are spent in Atasta. We’ve been working with them to evangelize and invite others, so Wednesdays has sort of converted into a study/gospel presentation, depending on who is there. If there is anything about church planting that has been an impactful lesson is that of flexibility. Local churches are not cookie cutters, despite whatever we may have been told about a blueprint. The New Testament, in many, many ways is actually incredibly silent or vague on how a group meets and how they carry out their activities. It’s freeing to realize that. It’s freeing to lean into the local needs and culture and how that translates to their gatherings. We’ve taught them hymns at a much slower pace than usual, about 8 at a time on a sheet of paper. Meanwhile, we’ve been working on a hymn book which is finally ready and printed. We decided to choose only 160 hymns–short and sweet–though for the christians, even 160 seems like an enormous amount. When you haven’t grown up singing old hymns, learning every one from scratch as an adult is definitely daunting. After Sunday school they invited us for a meal: whole fish cooked over a wood fire. Crunchy, smoky skin, flaky white meat….truly delicious. But then they pulled out another dish. “Try it first, then we’ll tell you what it is” they said, eyes twinkling with fun. So we ate the flat pieces of meat, too, kind of porky with a slight fish flavor, dense but tender and honestly very good. Then out came the picture, an alligator that their nephew had bumped into behind their house in the canal. I can’t say now that I want to eat more…I mean, at this point it’s more a psychological battle because in the moment of ignorance, it really was enjoyable. That is the Achille’s heel to certain upbringings and lifestyles. Our hygienic perfections of plastic wrapped chicken breasts is a terrible prelude to the real world of eating.

But now that we’re on to food….I’ve got four jars of sauerkraut fermenting on the counter. A few months ago I made it for the first time and we flew through the two jars sooo…doubled it up this time so hopefully it lasts a little longer! We are sour junkies over here (land of limes people) and we put it on almost everything. I always keep a jar of pickled purple onions in the fridge for the same reason….it is insane how much onion and cabbage children will consume when it’s soggy and sour. On the other end of the culinary spectrum, it’s the time of year for homemade ice cream and bolis…little plastic bags filled and frozen: chocolate milk, chai, peach yogurt, mango juice–you name it. They’re a great afternoon snack when the sun is beating and the bees are buzzing and everyone’s got a sugar low.

In Farm news, the hens are sitting on their eggs. The kids have been checking on their development every night, shining a flashlight on the eggs to see through the shells. We’re hoping our sheep are pregnant but that is yet to be seen. Nance and mango are flowering so fruit is on its way. Our son is growing tomatoes and chilis, so hoping they do well for him.

The monkeys are hanging around (literally and metaphorically) our land these days. They’ve got babies again which is always so so incredibly special to see. There are mot-mots (birds) that have recently come and they make a pretty cool sighting. Found a sting ray washed up on the shore a couple weeks ago and now I am slightly nervous about the kids swimming at our beach! It’s pretty murky around here (thanks oil rigs) so they’d be hard to see and avoid out in the water.

We started our last term of school a couple weeks ago. Revolutionary war, Wagner, Tennyson, physics, Arundel, O Canada and Vermeer and what feels like a hundred other delightful books and subjects. Teaching is not really my thing, my passion or obsession, but that’s exactly why we homeschool the way we do. Guide, philosopher and friend as Charlotte Mason says. Add in some good books and we’re doing ok. I think. I guess that remains to be seen.

I know this quiet life of gospel work and books and farming and tropical countryside isn’t maybe the norm or what most people enjoy but I hope that was a sweet little insight into our life these days. Hope you’re having a wonderful Spring, wherever you are. And if you’ve ever eaten alligator, let me know!!!