Hmmm....It's been a busy month....

Hey all!

So, July and August were really busy....Here's a blistering rundown of the events...not in chronological order...

After Dan and I went camping with the boys and nearly burned down the campus (last post), Joel Leman and some boys and summer help and I climbed the nearby mountain you see in the photo below (but up the left side, not the cliff you see in the picture...).

We had a puzzle competition night that was really fun, where we split up into 6 teams, made 6 stations with 3 puzzles (easy, medium, and hard) at each station, and gave the teams 10 minutes to get as far as they could. The team with the most points at the end got Cheerios!

I traveled home and got to see almost all the family at one point or another, including a quick trip out to Leo and a fly-by of Dallas.

Jeff Beer came for a visit, as you can see in the photo above.

School started, and the first week is over, with only minor mishaps, but still with a lot of prayer and work to go. We have 13 in primaria, 8 in secundaria, 1 in an online preparatoria program, and 3 in a special education type setup. Part of the new school setup has meant turning the computer room into a mini-classroom, with new walls and everything to separate a space and avoid distractions. Joel Rinkenberger has been working on that project for us, along with Candi (see photo), Aaron, Marcos (Poncho), and Diego, so if he could only get one more helper (maybe Eduardo), he'd easily finish in only 10 years!

The new house was ready enough to move in, so Dan and Tami Coughlin now have 6 kids...Alexia, Ramses, Nereida, Jose, Gloria, and Kaeb. Speaking of which, keep writing, all those of you who have a pen pal!

We've had multiple pool parties at Duane and Ann Wulfe's pool, a 4H fair that included everything from insects to bikes to dog training to acting and singing, and lots of soccer and food. We also had a reading program for the kids in the computer room where they could earn prizes for time spent reading.

Oh, did I mention Vacation Bible School? Jonathan Aupperle, Dan Coughlin, and I had 9-11 year old boys, and the last day we had almost 60 boys in our class alone. We were well over 300, probably 350 or 400 total, on Friday, but I never did hear a final number. If I recall correctly, there were 41 kids piled into one 15 passenger van (the dashboard does in fact double as a seat if the child is small enough) and around 160 kids in a 66 passenger bus.

There are new pictures on photobucket, too.

Prayer Requests:

We've had some openness to following Christ over the last few months, especially among our girls, so please pray that those who are making tentative steps forward, whether here on campus or in the community, could stand strong, find the support they need, and above all, submit to the Spirit's direction and conviction in their lives. It can be very difficult for convicted souls to stick it out after the initial emotional wave passes. May the Spirit make himself known!

The school still has lots of new kids, lots of new routines, and lots of new teachers, so keep us in your prayers as we find our normal, gain some balance, and settle in for the long hall. Pray that we will have the wisdom to discern when to have mercy, when to discipline, how to teach, etc., and the strength to carry it through.

As I mentioned before, Dan and Tami went from 1 to 6 kids, so pray for the adjustments that are going on with both kids and adults in that new house.

In conjunction with Dan and Tami, the sibling house went from 12 kids to 7 kids being cared for by CVE, so there's a lot of adjustment there as well.

I think that's all for now! Please keep praying for me, CVE in general, the kids, especially the boys, and anything else you can think of!

Thanks,

Todd