New Community

Last Wednesday was the big moving day and just as Rey predicted; it was much easier than I anticipated. We had a lot of help. A friend lent his flatbed truck. All of the young men from AFE showed up to lend a hand. The teachers of AFE spent a day cleaning our house in the Miller in preparation for the move. The Ordonez family helped us unpack and Jessi took charge of the movers and directed them where to put the furniture. Although we only began the moving process that afternoon, Rey, Elijah and I were able to sleep in a well-arranged house and clean sheets in our beds that evening. The next morning we awoke to a knock on our door. The neighborhood kids had already staked out the house and the possibility of a new place to play. Two little boys in particular have not left our front porch since we moved in – William and Lester. Jessi warned me that they are the buggers of the neighborhood, but I am so far delighted by their antics. They remind me of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer – complete with Spanish freckles and falling apart shoes. Elijah too has grown to like them, as long as he gets a break every once and a while. Our other fast friends are Lisy and Evelyn, who come to the Amor y Vida church. Lisy is a skinny little girl that reminds me of myself and her friend Evelyn is a nine-year-old teenager. Yesterday we went on a walk around the community on a fruitless search for ice cream. Although ice cream was impossible to find, the girls invited me to see a dead body in a neighbor’s house. (He died of natural causes. Not sure why they were storing the body there instead of in a funeral home). I declined the invitation.

Not only have the neighborhood kids staked out our place, but also some of the AFE kids have already dropped by. We have had such a constant stream of visitors, in fact, that Rey advised me to set up some boundaries. When he lived in the inner city during his time of ministry in “Gainsville Outreach,” he learned to strike a balance between serving the community and preserving his time alone with God. Thus, when the gate is open, come in to play! When it is closed, our family needs some quiet time together. From the isolation of where we were living before, what a delightful change!