A Time Out and a BIG Thank You!

We just finished the women's retreat here in Esperanza.  It was a beautiful weekend of singing, praying, sharing, playing and laughing.  For most people, it was just what was needed -


a time out.

a time off.

a time to just be.

It was nice.

Quiet on the Blog Front

I know we've been silent in terms of updating here.  It's been a few weeks of too-busy-to-spend-on-the-computer-time. But we have missed the dialogue between all of you who support us emotionally, spiritually, and financially.  We need you and we hope you have missed us too.  (grin)

Graduation Day in Esperanza

Dawn in Esperanza

We celebrated grad day yesterday here in Esperanza.  Grad day is a well-deserved little piece of heaven after sludging through the trenches of past hurts and learning to put aside old coping mechanisms. It's an exciting time as participants invite their extended families here and get a chance tointroduce them to a little piece of what they experienced in their time in Esperanza.  In the four sessions I have been a part of, it never ceases to amaze me how we as people have the capacity to change.  A visitor to the graduation ceremony asked yesterday what the graduation was from.  Our fearless leader Tim smiled, laughed a little and said "You'll have to ask the people."  - and I really believe he is right.  It is difficult to say what exactly people are graduating from.  For each person who comes it is something different.  To quote from the Esperanza prayer letter that went out yesterday -

A New Kind of Normal

Sometimes I forget that we live in the middle of nowhere. (I guess our little world is so busy with kids, schooling, neighbours, meetings, and chores that it really could almost be the same as living anywhere.)  But then there are a couple of unique things that we deal with here.

By The Way...

Merry Christmas
from the Boys

How Not to Spend Your Days Leading Up to Christmas

We had really great plans for Christmas this year. We were excited to be hosting it at home for this year but I'll save you the details seeing as they definitely aren't happening.  In light of all the prayer-power on our behalf I thought I would give you an update on how I am doing and what happened.

Connection.

Every so often I go onto the "stats" page for this blog and check out the traffic to this site.  Last month there were almost 400 views of this blog and they came from all over the world!  With cool things like Skype and so many other new technological communication tools, I feel like we are starting to live in the age of the Jetsons.   I wonder if flying cars will be able to fly over water?  I can't see why not?  That would make us feel so much more connected - but really, with the new computers, high speed connections via satellite and such we are much more connected that ever.  By the time I press "Publish" you will all be able to view this post within seconds.  Amazing.  And the cost is so reasonable.