Here in Antigua

Just so you know, Antigua is the most wonderful city I've ever been to! My host home is GORGEOUS! Seriously it's amazing by any standards...we have a cook and a housekeeper and a woman who takes care of the grandma (who's 90 and crazy...so fun). We even have hot showers and some of the best food in Antigua! It's not like a family, which was a surprise to me, but it's so cool. There's this crazy rich couple who are from the United States but just built a house on an uninhabited island in Belize (Rusty and Tanya), a crazy man that is a compulsive liar (Chris), another man who's sweet (Stevie), a cute 16 year old girl (Gocci)who's learning english (she's from Guatemala). We eat all our meals together and we went for a walk tonight, they're the coolest people. The owner of the house is dona Elvira, and she's so sweet. Very polite, very formal, but just the sweetest thing! We've just been doing orientation stuff so far but the city is sweet. Oh and guess what? My friend Matt Hanson (from Minnesota) is studying down here independently and he is in the same host family as some of my best friends down here so we've all been hanging out a lot! How wierd is that? I'll get pictures of everything on as soon as I can. Things are going really well with my spanish and with my roommate, we're having a blast. We don't want to start classes! I don't get to go to my ministry site for another 3 weeks, but tomorrow we're going to see all the sites. I think some of the girls and I might do this pilates class at the gym right by my house...it's a really cool open air Antigua-style gym! We're also gonna take salsa classes. We have so much we want to do I'm so glad we have 4 months! My body is exhausted from all the walking and early mornings (you can imagine I love those), but I'm muy contenta!

Prayer requests: my health (of course)...it's fine now but I'm already getting worn out and I think we might climb the volcano this weekend!

That I will be able to get to know my roommate on a deeper level and learn from and with her.

That God will continue to teach me new things every day. I'm sometimes not patient enough to listen to him, if you can believe that!

That I will see God working in a way I haven't seen before.

That I will be able to understand and do what God has in store for me.

That I won't ever get mugged on the street. Not to freak you out or anything, but it happens. Fortunately Rusty's looking out for me (he's an ex-Marine who goes to the gym every day...not bad looking for a 35 year old!) and we're very careful.

Love you all and miss you!!!!! Thanks for keeping up with me...feel free to send emails too, johcria@bethel.edu I check that pretty frequently.

Moksta