Esthela

We ask for your prayers as Eddie and I find ourselves in the middle of having to make an important decision that will change our lives and the life of the little girl we’ve been helping for two years. Esthela has been living in an unhealthy situation with her mother, who has to be taken care of like a young child. Over the course of the time we’ve been with Esthela we’ve only seen the situation become worse and worse. Esthela has suffered verbal and emotional abuse living with her mother. Esthela’s mom has basically said that Esthela could stay in an orphanage while she returns to her family down south. This has put Eddie and me in an interesting situation. Do we place Esthela in an orphanage? Do we adopt? If we adopt how can we afford it if we don’t even have enough support for ourselves? What about Eddie’s green card, would adopting a Mexican in Mexico affect the visa situation? What does this look like for us as a couple? What does it look like for Esthela? We do not want to make a decision out of emotion but really want to find God’s will for Esthela and for us as well. As we are praying we are researching both sides trying to find out the steps to take whether or not she is put into an orphanage adopted by us. So we ask for prayer. We ask that you join with us as we continue to find out what God wants

Living on the edge of water....Tsunami warning!

I'm sure we've all thought about what'd we'd grab if our house was burning down. I thought about it a lot too thinking that I'd grab pictures (memories) and my Bible (what else would a Christian want?) and other small sentimental things...well Saturday morning Eddie and I got a chance to experience this and find out what we'd REALLY bring.

Around 10:30 we were awoken (sleepy Saturday off) by a hard rushed knock on our door. The first thought that jumped into both of our heads was that there was some sort of accident and they needed Eddie as the nurse. When the door was opened we saw one of our fellow YWAMers there looking panicked.

"There is a Tsunami Warning for here, we are all evacuating. You need to grab your passports and leave NOW!"

We ran back into our rooms to get dressed. I ran down a few doors down to where my sister, Aliza and Eddie's brother, Bobby, live (yes, brothers married sisters and are neighbors. It's great). Because they aren't YWAMers YWAM hadn't contacted them. They too started the hustle of grabbing a few things and running to their car. Bobby's response was "well, we gotta go!"

What did we bring? Eddie first grabbed our little file box of legal papers then started getting the cat's stuff (food and litter) and our laptops while I run around like crazy trying to figure out what to do. My first thought was "clothes" but when I went to grab a suitcase I thought "WHAT AM I DOING" and grabbed a plastic bag and ran for the bathroom. I grabbed our toothbrushes (who wants to be stranded without a home and no toothbrush?) and a few other toiletries. We jumped in the car and drove off to my mother-in-law who lives up in the hills.

While driving away my mind rushed back to all the things we had left. Eddie forgot his wedding rings and my mind wanders to our wedding albums and my Bible - the things I always said I'd grab first.

Obviously nothing happened, no Tsunami praise God. We had a bit of an exciting experience finding out what our reaction would be to an immediate evacuation!