Random Picture Time

Just wanted to put up a quick post, because there are a few pictures of the kids that I wanted you to see. We leave for El Salvador today, for a missionary retreat, so I'm sure when we get back, I'll have more to post.


This is a picture of the kids last Sunday morning - they are both getting HUGE! Can't wait 'til you all can see them. I think Elijah is in a growth spurt - yesterday, we went to Burger King for lunch, and he ate 1 1/2 cheeseburgers...already walking in his father's steps! :)
This was space day at school. I didn't have a lot of time to create a "space helmet" so I covered their firefighter hats with foil. Sydney was confused all day - she didn't know if she was an astronaut or a firefighter!
About 2 weeks ago, we sold some stuff in a huge garage sale. While I was there, the people next to me had some little girl clothes that they were selling. This little sailor dress caught my eye - it was only Q10 ($1.25) - I thought it was a good purchase, every little girl needs a sailor dress at least once in her life. This picture was taken with my mom in mind - I knew she would love it.
This is a picture of the kids with their straight "excellent" report cards. Sydney looks hilarious in this picture - that's what happens with a shirt that too long, hair that's not combed and a funny "smile". As you can see, Elijah is just ECSTATIC that he's gotten perfect marks.

Well, we'll post some pictures and probably an album when we get back from El Salvador. Hope that you all have a GREAT day. Looking forward to seeing some of you in a few days! :)

Sydney's Singing Again

Just wanted to add a post, so that you all could check out Sydney's latest performance - singing Apple Red Happiness. It's on the video bar to the left of the screen - obviously click on the picture of Sydney, not the other kids... :)

Just a little bit of daily life

As you all can see, Sydney's been dressing herself lately! About a month ago, we started cutting out afternoon naps for the kids, and instituting 1 hour of afternoon "rest". The rest is more for me, than the kids on my afternoons! Anyway, both of the kids are confined to their bedroom until the alarm clock beeps, and they've found quite a few interesting things to do with their new found "alone time". About a week ago, Sydney came out of the room wearing this wonderful outfit (don't forget to notice the mismatched sandals) - I asked her why she put on 2 swimsuits, and she said it was because she was Jasmine, from Disney's Aladdin. I didn't ask any more. :) This will definitely be a picture she hates when she gets older...
This is just a funny picture of Elijah - we were at a birthday party that was outdoors, and by the time he was done drinking his drink, and collecting dirt on his upper lip, it looked like he had the beginning of a mustache. We laughed so much - I took the picture, so Elijah could see himself. He thought he looked cool. Basketball has become a favorite past-time in our home. You can see that Scott plays pure defense with Elijah - although, when Elijah's shooting, Scott doesn't block him (yet). Elijah's passion for the sport has been sparked because of our avid interest in the NCAA tournament this year, and we are SUPER excited to watch the Jayhawks in the final game tonight. Scott returns from Mexico this evening at 6:30PM, and the game starts at 7:20PM our time - we hope that he makes all of his flight connections and comes in on-time (if not early!), so that we can see the whole thing. Rock Chalk Jayhawk.

Just wanted to take a few minutes to update you all on our "daily" life. We've been praying for Oma and Grandpa Duecker - they've both had heart related surgeries in this past week, and we are so happy to hear that they are both recovering well. We are looking forward to our time in Florida and Indy in May - it's gonna be here in no time!

Time for Swimming!

It's March, which means that we have our swimming pool out, and our brackets filled in. Elijah and Sydney have been off school since Friday - so we've had quite a bit of time to fill up the wading pool and splash around. We've been enjoying our summer temperatures of 85 for the past few days.


Scott's been traveling with our Regional Director and our General Superintendent for the past week, and surprised us last night by coming home a day early! It was awesome to have him home, and the kids were SO surprised when they woke up this morning, and daddy came out of the bedroom! He leaves again on Saturday for another week in El Salvador and Honduras.

We've all officially filled out our brackets - Elijah and Sydney even filled theirs out. Elijah has KU winning the whole thing, and Sydney put her faith in Villanova (she can't even pronounce it, but that's who she wanted!) We have tomorrow and Friday as vacation days from work, so we are excited to watch the first rounds together. We've invited a few friends over to watch with us tomorrow afternoon - we are going to order Dominoes pizza (they have 2x1 on thursdays) and glue ourselves to college basketball.

I know it's been awhile since I've had a funny Elijah saying, but here's one for you all:
"Sydney, you better sit down and eat your cereal before it gets massagy" (instead of soggy)

Happy Easter to everybody!

PS - by the way, I changed the video bar - it's a classic. The first "box" is the original posting, but the second "box" is the funniest (I think)

Subscription Help

I figured out the subscription link...

1. click on the "Subscribe to the Armstrongs" link in the upper Left corner
2. it will take you to a screen that has you choose which format you want to receive the subscription in (Yahoo, AOL, etc.)
3. Choose one of these (I chose Yahoo, because that is what we use)
4. it will take you to a page that says "add to My Yahoo" - instead of clicking on this box, look at the bottom right hand corner. Here is where it has the option of having an e-mail sent to you when there are major changes (updates) to the blog.
5. Hope this clears it up - sorry it was so hard to figure out.

Sydney's 3!

I posted Sydney's birthday pictures to Ofoto, but I wanted to just put a few on the blog for those of you that didn't want to sit and look at 45 pictures! We had so much fun, and felt like we celebrated all day!

We went to her pre-school at 9AM and celebrated with her Cinderella Piñata and homemade cupcakes. She said that it was a lot of fun - it was so much easier for me to have her "party" at her school for 1/2 hour, instead of inviting lots of 3 year olds to the house for a 2 hour party. It was also the first time that Scott and I got to meet her classmates. Of course, we sang Happy Birthday to her (in English, so it was more like "oppy bear day to jew") (Elijah sings the english with a spanish accent perfectly - it's hilarious)

At lunch time, we let her open her presents and have the afternoon to play with them. She loved them all and is looking forward to spending her birthday money from Nana this weekend. Who knows what she'll come back with!

For dinner, we let her pick out what restaurant she wanted to go to, and she chose Pizza Hut. She ate 2 pieces of cheese pizza and shared a "Hut Sundae" with mom. She had lots of fun playing in the playplace with Elijah as well. Needless to say, after a full day of "Sydney celebration", Elijah wants to know how many more days until his birthday (3 months, for those of you that are wondering as well)

Even though it doesn't have to do with Sydney's birthday, I want to take the opportunity to say Happy Valentines Day to everyone. We love you all and are excited to see most if not all of you this fall (or sooner, for the Indy people!) when we are on home assignment. Have a SUPER day.

emily

Subscribe to the Blog

Hey Family! I just figured out how to add a link to this blog to "subscribe to this blog" - check it out in the upper left hand corner (there are no bells and whistles - it's just a plain text link). PLEASE sign up to get the subscription - then every time I update, you will get an e-mail from feedburner, instead of me. Add the website so that the notification doesn't go to your SPAM. Here are a few pictures of the kids, while we are here. :)




Also wanted to point out that today is Ash Wednesday. Scott and I always made a pretty big deal out of it with our youth group in the United States, and I woke up thinking about Ashlynn today. Ashlynn was a 13 year old girl in our group, and when we had an Ash Wednesday service that she was a part of, she decided to give up candy for the Lenten season. One of her friends told her "Ashlynn, how can you give up candy? You eat it everyday all the time!" And Ashlynn, with all the simplicity in the world said "If Jesus can give up his life for me, I can give up candy for him for 40 days." Her simple words have stuck with me to this day, and I'm always challenged to give up something that means a lot to me - because Jesus gave up his life for me. Maybe this year you are challenged to observe Ash Wednesday and the Lenten season in a different or new light.

Hairdos, Backpacks and Argentina

Hello once again! We are finally back into the swing of life here in Guatemala, after what proved to be a VERY eventful January. SO, without further ado, let's get going.

I'm sure you noticed by the title of this blog that a new hairdo was in store for someone - that someone turned out to be Sydney a little over 3 1/2 weeks ago, on a Sunday morning. It was on that fateful Sunday morning that we battled our first case of lice since arriving in Guatemala. I was combing her hair, getting ready for Sunday church, and I found a culprit. She'd been itching her head for about a week (in fact, when my mom was here for Christmas, she mentioned something about maybe it being lice), but I had checked and never found anything. So I went downstairs and told Scott that Sydney and I would NOT be going to church that morning, and that he needed to go buy some lice shampoo. The instant that I told him that, he started itching his head - it's amazing the psychological nature of lice! I spent the morning combing through Sydney's hair, and just could not get rid of all the eggs, so a hair cut was necessary. Sufficed to say, I went through the "I'm such a bad mother" phase for about 4 or 5 days, when I figured that she'd probably had it for about 10 - 14 days before we found it. After battling for another few days, we decided that we REALLY needed to cut her hair, because we kept finding more eggs that we were missing. So, the day before our Argentina trip, I cut her hair with a razor, and left some hair up front, so we could at least pull it back in a barrette. Amazingly enough, I got TONS of compliments on her cute hair cut while we were in Argentina - if they only knew... :) So, for now the saga of lice in our home is over, and we hope to not to to battle again for quite a few years, if ever. (By the way, we have gotten her hair cut by a professional since we got back home, so it does look better now! All of these pictures are from our time in Argentina, when she had the "mom cut")

Our trip to Argentina was great, but we are exhausted. The schedule that we were keeping with the kids was ridiculous - they were going to bed around 10:30 PM and getting up in the morning at 8AM (and this was sleeping in - we would have had to wake them at 6:30AM, if we had gotten them to breakfast). The kids really enjoyed going out to ministry sites, and they got to help us with doing the Vacation Bible School - the material they used for the VBS is material that we produced here in our Region, so the kids already knew all the songs and motions. They really enjoyed being with the other kids. Elijah also helped up run sound - he loved pushing the buttons on the CD player. Maybe we have a future sound man in the family? Scott and I were used heavily for our ability to translate - highlights of translating for Scott would be translating for Steven Manley in a prayer breakfast, and highlights for me would be translating 3 times for Lona Vonpat, former Mrs. Idaho with a powerful testimony of how God saved her from abuse, alcohol and drugs. We were really glad to be a part of this trip with 6 other people from our region - many of whom said that they felt the Lord continuing to call them into mission service. It was such a unique opportunity to serve alongside our people in missions - we don't regret doing it for one minute.

Finally, it's back to school time. On Monday of this week, Elijah started Kindergarten at Soñadores and Sydney is in the 3 year old nursery class. Elijah had a rough first day, because he didn't know his teacher, but since then he's been doing great. Sydney has continued to cry when left, but we had victory this morning - she walked in and said goodbye without a tear in her eyes. It makes me feel good to know that they are making the transition yet again.

Well, this is quite a long post. Hope you enjoyed the information and some details of what going on in our family life. We are looking forward to Sydney's birthday in 2 weeks - I'm sure I'll post something again when that comes around. Have a great week.

PS - I added a video bar to our blogspot - if you need a quick pick-me-up laugh, click on the first YouTube video, and watch one of our favorite, guaranteed-to-laugh, videos.

Gobblin' Good Time

Here are a few pictures of our Guatemalan Thanksgiving! Yep, we actually had turkey with all the trimmings. Albeit, the trimmings sometimes took on a Guatemalan "substitution" flare, but Scott said it was one of the best Thanksgiving spreads he'd had in quite a while. I felt pretty good about my first turkey - thankfully I was able to buy a Reynolds turkey bag to bake it in. I think that was my salvation. I almost had a bad mishap - I didn't realize that you could stuff the turkey from both ends, which means I didn't realize that there were 2 bags of "stuff" inside the turkey to remove before cooking. Thankfully, I called Rhonda, who made the stuffing, and when I asked her if there would be a lot of stuffing left over (that didn't fit inside the turkey to bake). She asked me if I stuffed both ends, and I casually said that I was getting ready to do that, but was just checking! Much to my surprise, there was the other bag of giblets in the other side! SO - what could have been a very embarrassing, yet memorable first turkey experience, resolved itself in time :). Along with turkey, we were able to purchase canned cranberry sauce and some canned pumpkin, rounding out our traditional meal. I was able to get some french fried green onions for the green bean casserole from the states about a month ago, so we were all set. The meal was great, and we enjoyed spending it with other missionaries from the States.

Obviously, since we cooked the turkey, it was our job to carve it and save all the leftovers. I carved and carved, knowing that a goal of mine was to find the wishbone. I've never known exactly where it was located - I just knew that dad would save it, dry it out, and then we would break it the next day. Well, thankfully, I found it - and carved it out without breaking it! I wanted to preserve the tradition of breaking it with the kids. They thought it was funny - Elijah was victorious. We will start the scoreboard now - Elijah (1)/Sydney (0). We'll see if Sydney can even things up next year...


Well, just wanted to get a few pictures out. We have a really crazy 2 weeks in front of us with the Maxima Mision coming up. We have 5 days until 200-300 people invade Guatemala, and we are in charge of them! Please keep us in your prayers - pray specifically for our heath, that Scott and I stay healthy during the stressful week, and that the kids stay healthy during the week with a babysitter. This last picture is apparently a classic "retake" in the Armstrong family - Scott remembers posing for this exact same picture with his dad, Tim and a Royals Cabbage Patch doll (sorry, I can't remember his name, and Scott's not around). Hope that it gives warm fuzzies to the Armstrong boys! :)

emily

Fun School Days

The kids are officially done with school, but since Nov. 2, have been involved in a vacation course. They get to do lots of fun things like cooking, drama and gymnasium. Yesterday they brought home 2 cups of purple and red jello that they made themselves. They were pretty proud! They are having a ton of fun! A few of the days have been "theme" days - like last week, they searched for buried treasure as pirates.
And today - they got to go to school dressed in their pajamas, because they are having a pajama party!
I'm interested to hear what they got to do today for their pajama party - I'm sure it involved some type of candy - every party here in Guatemala includes candy!

We've also had lots of fun in the house - I've been staying at home with them during the afternoons since they started school last spring. Although it's had it's challenging times, I've enjoyed the extra time that I've gotten to spend with them. A few weeks ago, we went grocery shopping and brought home a few boxes - of course, the kids found uses for them...

We are on the countdown until our huge Maxima Mision project takes off - only 17 days from today. Scott and I are super busy coordinating lots of details. Please pray for us as we coordinate 500 people planting 10 churches in 1 week. It's going to be awesome, but right now feels very overwhelming. We need our prayer warriors to be on overdrive for us. The actual event in Dec. 2-9.

Well, with that I'll end this blog. As I just mentioned, there is lots of work to be done. I'll leave you with a funny quote from Elijah - now that he's 4 1/2, something funny comes out of his mouth almost daily!

Overheard at the dinner table a few nights ago:
Scott: Em - should I save room for dessert, did you make anything?
Elijah: Mommy - what did you make for dessert?
Emily: I made zippo.
Elijah: Zippo? Can I see it?

Hugs to everyone - happy thanksgiving a week early!

The Armstrongs

Things are NORMAL

I knew when I started a blog, that i would never be able to maintain it faithfully. Sorry to those of you that are on pins and needles, just waiting for the next post! :)

Not too much new news going on in good 'ole Guatemala - one of the most exciting things was obviously vacation in Honduras. Elijah has also started swimming lessons, and although very jittery the first few times in the water, he's doing great now (6 weeks later). At his lesson yesterday, he swam about 5 feet from his teacher to the ladder. He's so proud of himself. We bought him a pair of goggles to encourage him to go underwater, and now we can hardly keep him on top!

Our vacation to Honduras was great - we really enjoyed the family time together and doing NOTHING! It was awesome to have the condo where the kids had their own room, we could make our own food and follow our own schedules. We will definitely look to keep a condo on the radar as a necessity for a wonderful Armstrong family vacation!



The kids are finishing up with their last few weeks of school - they both are doing really well. The school has a "summer vacation class" that we've enrolled them in for the month of November - it's not school at all, but lots of fun activities like cooking, gymnasium, music and arts. I think they are going to love it. Once December comes, they will have 6 weeks of real "vacation" - I think they are going to miss going to school everyday. We have a babysitter hired that is going to help us part time (4 hours a day) during their vacation weeks, so that I can still work at the office part time.



Well, that's about it for now. Scott started getting sick yesterday (fever, sore throat, fatigue), and we'd appreciate your prayers for him. We take him to the doctor this afternoon, because this is the 3rd time he's been sick in 3 months. Dengue Fever has reared it's ugly head here in the capital in the past few weeks - we are praying that it has nothing to do with that. We'll keep you updated, if we find anything out worthy of sharing. Love to you all.

Emily

Just Because

Long time, no post. We've finally made it through a whirlwind summer with Youth in Mission, and we are gearing up for our next 2 weeks of missionary training. Life doesn't seem to stop here! BUT, I did want to get you a few pictures of the kids. We are looking forward to a vacation in Honduras in September - we found a condo that was just built that is on the Carribean coast. It is a 2 bedroom, 2 bath and only $600 for 8 nights. It has a pool, and it just a small trip to the beaches. It's about 10 minutes from the closest "metropolis":). I asked the owner if there was a grocery store in the town, and he told me the biggest one was inside WALMART! I'm excited to see if it measures up to the Walmarts in the States - I'll keep you updated. If you want to check out the link to the condo, its

http://www.villasbocavieja.com

Well, we'll update it later. Love to you all.

School Time Fun

We have had lots of exciting "school related" fun in the past few weeks, and I wanted to share the fun with you all. A few weeks ago, Elijah and Sydney were learning about public servants - policemen, firemen, doctors, etc. In order to celebrate this theme, they had a dress up day, and Elijah had to go to school as a soldier and Sydney went as a nurse. When I got the note that Sydney was going to be a nurse, I thought to myself "God, are you going to continue the tradition of nursing in our home?" We'll see what he has in mind as they get older!

Yesterday (May 10) was Mother's Day in Guatemala, and in the kid's school, they had a special program for the moms. Sydney's class "sang" - more like lipsynced - a song, and Elijah's class recited a poem and danced the "Baile de la Ranita" (Dance of the little frog).

Sydney came out in true drama form, and cried through her whole song :). We were told by her teacher that she did really well in the rehearsals, but apparently she couldn't get up enough courage for the big stage.

On the other hand - we've found our drama king in Elijah! He LOVED the stage! He did great job with the poem and the frog dance. He had a smile on his face the whole time, and was so proud of himself when he was done! I have to admit, to see him doing so well brought a few tears to my eyes!

As you all know, Elijah's 4th birthday is coming up shortly - we are planning a party for him, and going to invite his friends from his class. In his class there are 7 other boys (no girls!) - so we are going to invite them for a pizzy party after school is over and a piñata. Elijah wants a Quincy piñata (a character from the Little Einstiens) - they don't have Little Einsteins here, so we are going to have to see if we can find a piñata shop to make one special. If they can't well have to improvise! I'm sure his party and pictures will be the next post on the blog!

A few things you can pray about - We have a SUPER full schedule for the next 4 months.

• May 13-May 16 - Scott in Houston for Border Initiative meetings (please pray for safety, but also for us as we mobilize a lot of people to make this project a success)
• May 27 - June 2 - Project Isaiah and Caleb training - our 7 volunteer missionaries who are going to Spain and the Middle East will be arriving in Guatemala City for a week of training with us. Also pray that the Lord continues to provide financially for their trips (they are all raising $7,000)
• June 3 - July 26 - Youth in Mission time
• During Youth in Mission, we are hosting to Maximum Mission groups - one from Nall Avenue Church of the Nazarene in Kansas (55 people - 29 June to 8 July) and the other is the women's soccer team from Olivet (21 people - 15 July - 25 July)
• August 5 - August 18 - Formal Missionary Training. We have 6 people arriving to Guatemala City that are being put on a Regional Missionary Contract, and we are training them in the scholastic and practical sides of missions.
• After all that is over, we are planning a vacation (much needed by that time!) We will be gone from Sept 8 - Sept 16. We are looking at going to Belize, because we can drive there, and we've always wanted to check it out.

As you can see, we've got lots on our plates. We appreciate all the prayers that you send our way.

Elijah's Funny Quote: I debated about posting this quote, because it's a little brash, but it was SO funny, I just had to put it! "Mom, can you help me open my graham crappers, I'm ready for my snack." (said when he was trying to open is package of graham CRACKERS!

We love you all very much. Hope that these pictures and thoughts help you feel a little closer to us, even though we are far away. Lots of hugs and kisses!

Emily, Scott, Elijah and Sydney

Easter Fun

It's been quite awhile since we've updated this blogspot. It's happening today, because I can't get our pictures uploaded to Kodak Gallery, and I wanted to send you all some Easter pictures.

Before I get into Easter, I wanted to update you on Scott's travels. He was with an MNU Maxima Mision group for a week in Teculutan and Morales, Guatemala, and after that he was in Amsterdam for a week, for a theological conference. He really enjoyed his time in Holland - it was his first time there. He fell in love with the stroop vaffels, a cookie that they eat with tea or coffee. He brought home 5 bags of them! He talks about them everyday, and how much he loves them. When they are gone, I don't know what he's going to do!

On Easter week, we had vacation days on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. It was great to be able to spend some family time together, after Scott's absence from home. We bought a swingset on Thursday, and put it together on Friday. We are getting more handy as the years go by. On Friday, we also invited the Slingerland girls over so that we could color easter eggs. Elijah and Sydney had a lot of fun doing it, but didn't have much patience for leaving it in they dye too long! On Saturday, we took a family day and went to the Auto Safari Chapin (if you want to see a web page in Spanish, you can look it up at www.autosafarichapin.com) We were able to drive around the "safari" and see all sorts of animals like a lions, zebra and Sydney's favorites - giraffe and monkeys. Elijah was disappointed they didn't have elephants. At the end of the safari, they have a nice public pool that we stayed about for about 2 hours. There were a TON of people there, since it was a holiday, but luckily for us, lots of Guatemalans like to stay on the side of the pool (I think it's lack of swimming skills, but don't know for sure) - so we had a lot of free reign in the center of the pool! The kids loved it.

On Easter morning, we woke up at an early 4:30AM, in order to be at church for the 5:30AM sunrise service. Most of the churches here in Guatemala have a sunrise service on Easter Sunday. It was great to celebrate the resurrection of our risen Savior with our local church. Even though we didn't get home until 11:15AM (after 2 complete services and a breakfast in the middle), we were really glad that we made the effort to go. The kids crashed for their naps, and slept most of the afternoon. There were no evening services, so we just hung around the house. The pictures here are of the kids after the services - 5AM was a little TOO early to get smiles out of them! :) (It's also a way that you can see the handy work of the new swingset!)

We are currently getting mentally and physically prepared for our summer with our Youth in Mission team. They arrive on June 3 and are here in ministry until July 26. We are trying to get all of the details in place, as far as schedule, housing , food - the list goes on and on. We'd appreciate your prayers for our sanity. We did have a great answer to prayer - Julie Bird, a senior higher from our church in Kansas is coming to be a nanny for the kids for 5 weeks this summer! She is going to be here from June 3 - July 8. Please pray that she can get enough financial support to buy the airline ticket.

We'd like to bring back the Funny Saying from Elijah: This time, there are 2.

1. Dear Jesus, please protect Daddy since he's in HAMPSTERDAMSTER (instead of Amsterdam)

2. When choosing his NCAA Brackets (which didn't fair so well this year...) - Elijah, do you want Holy Cross or the Jayhawks? Hmmm, I guess the Jayhawks, but I really like Holy Cross. This was so funny, because for those of you that remember, he is ENAMORED with Jesus dying on the cross for our sins. I thought that he would take Holy Cross to the end - the only thing that stopped him was his Jayhawk upbringing... :)

We love you all. Hope that your weeks have been just as great as ours. Thanks for always thinking about us and keeping us in your prayers!

All Dressed Up and Everywhere to Go!

Well, we had a GREAT weekend! Yaneth (our previous nanny) got married on Friday, so that afternoon the kids and Emily went out to her home town and got to watch. It was great for the kids to get to see Yaneth again, they really miss her. They had a good time visiting with her, even though we had to leave early, so that we wouldn't be driving home too much after dark. As many of you know, she's also 6 months pregnant, and she's feeling well. She is due in the middle of January. We asked if we could come visit when we get back home in March, and she said that would be great, so we'll look forward to meeting her new baby then!

On Saturday night, we went to a Harvest Party, at the private school that some of the missionary kids go to. Emily was going to make costumes for Elijah and Sydney, but when she went to the store to look for "craft supplies" she found costumes for only $8 - it would have cost about that to make them, so she took the easy way out, and bought the adorable costumes. Elijah had a blast at all of the games and activities that they had, and pigged out on the candy that he won. Sydney had her share of candy, too, but wasn't too impressed by the games (although she did like the one that you got to choose a sucker!) By the time we got home, they were ready to fall into bed.

Sunday was our last night without Scott. The kids were REALLY missing him after this long 10 day trip to Mexico. To make them feel better, we made a poster (well, mom and Elijah did) - Elijah had so much fun making it. His favorite part was gluing the foam cutouts onto the letters with the glue stick.

Scott walked in the door at 6:45AM this morning after taking a Red-eye flight from San Diego to Guatemala. The kids were ECSTATIC to see him. They ran to the door as fast as their little legs could carry them (which is pretty funny for Sydney to do, since her coordination isn't quite up to par, yet!) They tackled him with hugs and kisses, then we ate breakfast together. It's nice to have dad home.

Please pray for Scott - he has a missiology paper that he is working on in the next 1 1/2 days. It is due on Nov. 1. We are looking forward to spending Nov. 1 together as a family day, since it's a holiday here in Guatemala. Maybe we'll go to the zoo, or something (if anything's open?)

Here is the Funny Elijah saying of the week: "Old MacDonald had a MOM, e-i-e-i-o" (to the tune of Old MacDonald had a farm).

We love you all. Can't wait to see most of you within the next few weeks! YEAH!

Scott, Emily, Elijah and Sydney

General Board...Here we Come!

Congratulations on your invitation to attend the General Board meetings in February 2007. It is because of your service and dedication to ministry that you are able to take this next step in your missionary career.

YEP...Those are the words that graced our Inbox just a few days ago. We've officially been invited to General Board in February. For those of you that don't know exactly what that means, let me explain.

For the past 3 years (almost) we've been under an intern missionary contract with the Church of the Nazarene. These 3 years were a "trial" period, both for us and the church. We had an interview with the "mero meros" (Spanish for the head honchos) in September, and we were recommended to go before the General Board in Kansas City. During the 3rd week of February, we will have a time of leadership training, as well as a HUGE interview with the World Mission division and the Board the General Superintendents. After this interview, we'll know if we are recommended for a Global Missionary assignment (99% of the time, it is a yes!) So as you can see, this is a VERY important time for us. We are super excited.

Here is some "important info" for family members that will want to make plans to attend our commissioning service at the end of that week.

Monday, February 26 Sending Service –Kansas City Marriott Downtown
(Evening) Closing business session of the General Board. A
special service will recognize your appointment to global
missionary status and will honor retiring missionaries.

The service will be held at the Kansas City Marriott
Downtown, 200 West 12th Street, Kansas City, Missouri.
We will provide a map at your request. Please let me know if your family or friends will attend this service so seats can be reserved.

OK - what else have we been up to? We just finished a 10 day period of Missionary Training with 2 new Regional Missionary families - the Baños and the Sorias. It was a good time to get to know them, but it was stressful as well. We are getting ready for a team from Lafayette, IN to come tomorrow to start a week of Maxima Mision with them. We are planting a new church with them, and it will be a lot of work. Scott leaves for Mexico on the 20th of October, and will be gone for 10 days. By the time he gets back, we'll only have 2 1/2 more weeks until we come back to the States for our home assignment - isn't that crazy!

Bringing back the ever popular "Crazy things Elijah said" - we leave you with this comment "Hello Uncle Daddy!" - said to Scott after returning from the States and getting to know his family again. He was in a slight identity crisis himself.

Sorry there are no pictures - can't get them to upload today. Love to you all.

Scott, Emily, Elijah and Sydney

Whirlwind Trip to the States

Here it is! The family picture that you've all been waiting for. We realized that with a 3 year old and a 1 1/2 year old, that a good picture is characterized by everybody looking at the camera at the same time! We hope to have prayer cards made in the near future from this picture, so that we can leave them with the churches that we visit for deputation starting in December.

We had a great trip to the States - time FLEW! We were so busy. We started in Oklahoma City for the Work and Witness conference, and we had a great time. Clark and Connie came down to stay with the kids while we were at the conference. They spoiled the kids as much as they could in the 3 days they had with them, even including a trip to Chuck E. Cheese for dinner the first night. They had a great time together.

We had 2 services in the Kansas City area on Sunday, and then we headed to Candy and Dan's house to spend some time with them. Dan is currently in a nursing home, and we went to visit him on Tuesday, and took him with us to Crown Center to visit the Crayola store. It was nice to be with our KC family for a few days, before we had to leave for Indy on Wednesday.

Elijah at the Crayola Store

We had a great flight to Indy, and a wonderful service on Wednesday. On Thursday, we got to see Peyton, Paige, Uncle Josh and Aunt Kris. We had so much fun - Peyton practically lived at gramma's house with us! Elijah had a blast playing with his cousins. Sydney didn't know where she fit in, because she's too small to play with the big boys, but she's too big to play with Paige. We'll figure that out later in life!

We went to Columbus on Friday and Saturday for the second work and witness conference, and enjoyed being with many Nazarenes that believe in Work and Witness. We hope to have made a few new contacts for our projects in Maxima Mision.

We had great services on Sunday, and couldn't believe that our time had come to an end, when Monday morning arrived. Elijah LOVED being on all of the airplanes that we took during this trip. In Dallas, they have a SKYLINK that is like a train, and he thought that his day was PERFECT, since he got to ride on a plane and a train on the same day. The kids were so good on the way and on the way back.

Sydney playing with the toys in the

Children's area at the Dallas airport

We are glad to be back in our own house, and playing with our own toys. Scott and Emily are deep into a missionary training, and we appreciate your prayers. We will have a busy 2 1/2 months to finish up lots of projects before we head back to the States for our real home assignment. Also, Sydney and Elijah have started on an antibiotic for sinus infections - please pray that they get better soon - it's starting to affect their sleeping patterns. Love to you all.

Elijah, Sydney and Rosa Alba (our new nanny)

Thanks for your prayers and encouragement.

Scott, Emily, Elijah and Sydney