These past few days have been very busy! We are in our new house now, but still have no furniture and luggage everywhere. We have had a series of delivery guys here to install internet, deliver our stove and fridge, etc. When you rent a place here in El Salvador you still have to bring your own fridge and oven so now we have them. Our landlords are a great couple who live right down the road. They are very active in their church as youth leaders and have been so kind to us. Their daughter just moved to the U.S. and they said they wanted to show us the same kindness their daughter has been shown. Very nice and great people to work with.

We hope that all of you are having a great holiday weekend. We spent Thanksgiving by having dinner with a group of American missionaries who are working all over San Salvador. It was hosted by a couple, Sam and Julie Hawkins, who have been operating a home called LoveLink for orphaned , abused, and abandoned babies for around 25 years.  The very first Discovery team volunteered with their ministry. They were such a great couple and we felt so blessed to be included in the group. It’s exciting to see all of the ministries going on in El Salvador right now…God has defnitely been at work and we are so grateful to have the opportunity to be a part of it!

I was slightly terrified while we were getting ready for dinner because there was an earthquake! Earthquakes and earth tremors happen a lot here but it still made my stomach drop because I’ve never experienced anything like that. It actually was bigger and longer than they normally are. It was a 6.0 magnitude. Many of the missionaries there said it was the strongest one that they ever experienced. El Salvador is very prone to these…there are around 2,000 tremors a year in this country so I need to get used to the earth-moving feeling! Tori was a little scared to but we explained everything was okay and she accepted that.

It’s been very frustrating  trying to communicate. Setting up all of these logistics has been so exhausting for us. Jon has done most of it while I have tried to keep the kids entertained and we’ve been getting settled in our house. It’s just tiring to have to use our brains constantly and we get laughed at a lot! We are planning on starting our official language learning this week so now that we are more settled that will become our main focus for the coming months. We’ve already been in language learning mode, but now we will get into more of a schedule with it. We are hoping to get into some routine soon and hopefully some of the busy-ness will calm down!