April 2nd and all is well

It has been a fast 3 weeks. Everything is going really well. I teach 5 hours of English a week. One hour with each of the 5 Secondary School grades. It has been interesting. I am strengthening my Spanish a lot by teaching them. I have been amazed at how much the kids know. They are just scared to use it. Which I completely understand. Speaking a strange language is scary. Next week we are going to start doing short dramas (sketches) to better their pronunciation. Things are also going well at Milagro. The services on Thursday evening and Sunday morning are both well attended. I have been sharing the preaching duties with the pastor from the main church. The people are very gracious and help me when I'm stumbling with a word. It's interesting, because most analogies that I would normally use don't make sense to the people in this village. It is something I've never thought of before. I started sharing a story about a lamp that isn't plugged in being useless and then realized that 90% of them had no idea that there were lamps that could be plugged in. Milagro is one of the more remote villages and they use kerosene lanterns. I love the work out there. i have also been spending quite a bit of time in the office seeing as how Ken is in the States for this month to be with his dad. I have had some responsibilities that I didn't expect, but nothing that has gone awry.
Yesterday was my birthday. I wasn't expecting to do anything but sleep in and stay home and rest (we didn't have classes yesterday or today), but I was pleasantly surprised by the Ruth and the teachers with a big lunch. Then I was surprised again when one of the elders in the church came knocking on my door and told me that they needed me at the church. We walked over and they had the people of the church there with gifts, cake, coffee. Way more than I ever expected. We just had a nice little time of worship and fellowship. Since their kids are in my English classes they were asking a lot of questions about English and the States and my daily life when I'm in the States. It was a lot of fun.