free dinners, doctor appointments.

Well, this is a quick update as Marieke and I are going to start watching Meet Me In St. Louis [the first time for her!!!] but I wanted to quickly update people since my ability to call is still lacking...[right now I am on her computer :) ]

Today I went to the doctor and was met with a quizzical expression as to what is exactly wrong with me, so I was referred to another doctor who I will see on March 13th.  Please pray for me!
I also found out that the "heat rash" that I've had under my arms since last term is actually a fungus.  Awesome.  NOT.
I'm so glad I remembered to ask the doc about it [thank you, Lord] since I forgot to ask about it last time I went in December.  Anyway, I got some topical cream, but needless to say...I WANT TO COME HOME!!!!!

I think I also mentioned the free dinner that I won at Dodgy Dock.  Well, me and my boo have a reservation tomorrow night at 7pm and both of us are SO excited!  Dinner includes a starter, dinner AND desert!!! YES!!! I will bring my camera and post a blog post afterwards [hopefully].

Anyway, that is about the extent of what is going on.  I am playing phone tag with my littlest sister [sorry, Liv!] and I have two other people that I am due to call sometime in the next few days [K. Money and Beth - I haven't forgotten you!!!]

If you all could also be praying for job opportunities to open up for me and Marieke over the summer, or otherwise, a lot of other things that we can serve in to use our time well :)  J is also having a harder time this term in knowing exactly what to study in his classes...apparently they have a lot of scattered info and he feels scattered while he studies, too [we've heard this from many of our 2nd term friends as well...so...that's good??? Not really, but at least this isn't an isolated problem, I guess].  Please pray that he would focus well and be able to study and understand - he is such a hard worker :)  We really are doing well - I know these updates sometimes seem crazy, but it's just to note the "big things" I guess.  We both feel as though the Lord has given us much growth in marriage and in love for one another even in this crazy time.

Hope all is well state-side!  Much love to all :)

eager.

This has been one lonnnggg week. 
I don't think any week has felt so long in a long time...I hope this isn't how this semester is going to continue to go...this week I seem to have a lot more going on, so hopefully it will go faster :)

The Bake Sale that I wrote about is going to be on Tuesday [Happy Velentine's Day, by the way, just in case I don't get on here to write anything about it...] but we are no longer attempting to raise money for that little girl.  Turns out the doctor in Florid backed out of doing it for free - hence, there was no need to raise money for her to travel to Florida.  The good news, however, is that a fellow SO's mom came to visit and was able to fit the little girl with an eye and will be shipping it down to have it put in by another professional on the island.  Apparently, it wasn't the crazy procedures everyone was thinking she might need, which is a huge praise to the Lord.

Instead, we will be raising funds for a disabled home here on the island. They are always in dire need of adult diapers and other supplies, so I am just as happy to help them.  Sadly, 25 of the 35 current residents in that home were abandoned.  Grenada has yet to learn how to care for its disabled - this is a relatively new endeavor, and it is sad to know that so much misunderstanding still exists regarding disabilities. It is a hard thing.  The home also has no formal funding, so I am hoping that the bake sale will have a good turn out [which, from what I hear from random people talking about baking things, it should be good :) ] and we are able to help them a lot.

Tomorrow I am going to attempt to go back to the health clinic on campus for an appointment, get the rest of our "new" [used] tires on the car, and help J pick up flowers that his organization is selling for V-day to benefit the local elderly home.  And then I need to bake all MY things for the bake sale :) BUSY!

Our Valentine's Day plans [other than the bake sale and Marieke and I going to see our girls at Bel Air] are another walk on the beach with ice cream - we love it :)  I actually won a dinner for two at a nice local restaurant called Dodgy Dock [Mom, Dad, Tim and Jessi have all been there...it's right on the water - great view, beautiful setting] but we aren't allowed to use it for holidays, so I think we are going to use it on Friday instead :)  What another wonderful provision from the Lord of a free experience that is fun for the two of us to share together :)


This Wednesday will be our 4th week of leading the women's Bible study on campus.  It has been an encouragement to me to be studying in 1 Peter, and it has been a great blessing to get to know women that I did not know last term.  I love it!

Thursday probably has something going on, but I can't remember at the moment ;)

I am still greatly looking forward to coming home in roughly 3 months.  It is safe to say that I am longing to be back with our Immanuel church family, even if it is only for a few short weeks.  I am so eager to be fed from the Word.  It has been a difficult time here with no formal teaching/anyone older and wiser to learn from.  J and I have listened to sermons and such, but we are both really really wanting to be in fellowship with our dear, dear church back home :)  We are so excited to be staying with TWO sets of wonderful friends, and being able to meet up/see face-to-face our other friends who live in the Ville :)  It will be a great joy to be back in town...and so weird that summer will have longer days!!!  I was commenting tonight on how strange it will feel if the sun goes down at 9pm+ in the states since sunset here is consistently 6pm ;)  Weird to think about.

Anyway, continue to pray for us and our plans for this week - there is a lot going on :)  We miss everyone!  Much love from Grenada.

surprise super bowl party.

Some of you may know [if you talked with me recently] that Marieke and I had been planning a surprise Super Bowl party since she came up with the idea over Christmas break as a surprise for Ryan for Valentine's Day.  As everyone knows, J loves football and the Super Bowl as well, so it seemed perfect...except for the fact that my husband is the hardest person to surprise ever! He is always asking clarifying questions, gets suspicious if I don't provide satisfactory answers, and usually figures out any surprises I have in store before they happen - arg!  But not this time!  Although it was all rather ridiculous the day of, and I felt horrible for leading him so astray - he had NO idea that we had a party up our sleeves :)  Here are some pictures with captions to explain it all :)  It was a ton of fun and both of the guys were so excited/appreciative that we pulled it off :)  All the girls involved ended up leaving and going to a new restaurant across the street until the after the Half Time Show, at which point we all ventured home.  Thanks to everyone for keeping this so secret and helping contribute to the goods we served up! :)

The spread!  LOTS of carrots, Devil's Food cake cupcakes, broccoli/celery, chips, ginger root beer, amazing stove top popcorn via our neighbors, and the best Buffalo Wing Dip ever, a-la my Aunt Trish :)  This is J's favorite snack food for football ;) 

 Super cute sign via Marieke

 See how it's being thrown?? Haha :)

Mini flags courtesy of Miss Becca :)

 1/2 of Party Planners Extraordinaire...

 Big flags, also courtesy of the talented Miss Becca :)

Wait for it... [this was hilarious to watch - everyone stands up at the same time]

 There it is!!!  [Fact: one of my neighbor friends asked me the next day if I had heard "all that yelling at the game last night"...I sheepishly admitted that it was our apartment.  Oops.]

 :) So happy he got a good guys' night :)

Fact: they didn't even notice the decorations until we pointed them out.  We figured that would happen, but almost doubted it would...never doubt ;)

 Almost GONE! [we froze the rest...]

It was a great time for the guys - great food [I forgot to take a picture of the AWESOME chili that Natalie made] and a lot of fun feeling like good ol' Americans for a while [although we could have done without most of the ads...what happened to the hilarious CLEAN ones?? Come on, media...be creative, not dumb.  Ok, I'm done :) ]  Thank you to all who made this a success!

work boat regatta.

On Saturday afternoon, the hus and I ventured down to the work boat regatta that was being held on Grand Anse Beach.  We were only there for a half hour or so, but I did get some great pictures :)  The most I can say about it was there were a ton of boats...and chaos :)  The poor woman who was organizing it seemed to be having quite a time of it - haha!  Timeliness and organization are not strengths here, and her standards might have been a little high...

 Loved this boat!

 A lot of the masts were made from bamboo poles...

 Poor woman.

 Annddd they're off!

 Score board.

 Map.

track meets.

Yesterday, Becca and I ventured to find the track meet we were invited to come to by some of the girls at Bel Air.  After showing up at the wrong field and watching some other kids practice for the Grenadian Independence Day Parade [Febrauary 7th - its going to be crazy here, EVERYTHING has been decorated since mid-January and people are walking around wearing the Grenadian colors - red, yellow, green - to everything].  It was very entertaining and fun to watch/hear since some of the girls were playing drums, however, it wasn't the right group.  So when we figured THAT out, we realized that we were just on the wrong side of the street -ha!  So we went over to the REAL thing, and this is what we found...

Little ones doing any opening march with the national flag.

 Out of the four schools competing for glory [literally said in one of the opening speeches...there were three, by the way...] this costume was my favorite!

 Check out the capes! And they had so much attitude, too :)

 Check out the blue mohawks!

 There is J...looking tough as always.  I don't think she really cared that we came, but oh well.

 G was more excited to see us and came and sat with us a couple of times :) She is a sweet girl.

 Some little ones watching the events.

 There they are...discussing strategy...maybe... Oh! And by the way, almost everyone [with the exception of maybe a handful of kids] competed barefoot!

Watching and cheering!  Everyone was VERY excited.

 Check out the girl in the yellow...so much attitude all the time here! Haha...

The scoreboard...our girls competed for Phillip.

It was fun, but we didn't stay the whole time, mostly because we were unprepared for how long it was going to go...why we didn't just assume this from the beginning is beyond me - I mean, it was SUPPOSED to start at 11, and the races didn't begin until noon.  Oh well :)  Glad the girls got to see us support them, even for a little while :)

Today we are going to a regata on Grand Anse Beach - apparently, there is a huge sailboat festival going on, so we are going to stop by.  I'm sure I'll have a blog post about it today/tomorrow with pictures :)

Much love.

new weekend of weekends.

What a great weekend!  It has been so nice for the guys to have such a light load recently! 

Friday night we had a wine tasting at our house - with about 17 people over here total!  It was a ton of fun, and I will do a seperate post on it entirely...later :)  I took pictures...

Saturday night was the opening social for the SO's, so I had to be there to set up/hang out/take down.  Perks of being on the board ;) Haha...but it really is great to meet people and reassure them about things on the island/provide info about various things...I really feel like I have ownership this term - it's a great feeling to no longer be the "new ones"!!!

Today  - J preached at CSA and the Lord really blessed him with great clarity in sharing the gospel from Mark.  It was a blessing to hear/see my husband used that way - I love my man :)  All of us then came home, had lunch, and then the guys went cliff jumping with some of our neighbors who have two boys ages 13 and 11.  They had a great time, and Marieke and I were able to get homework done and read Pride and Prejudice, respectively :)  Then we ate dinner and J and I headed over to Prickly Bay for their free movie night.  Tonight they were showing War Horse.  It was good, but it was better that it was free, if you get what I'm saying :)  

It has been a GREAT weekend, but I think the fun with the hus [for now] stops here - everything takes off this week with school, and I will also be busy planning the upcoming SO fundraisers, including a Bake Sale coming up on February 14th!  However, Becca [a new fellow SO, neighbor, and sister in Christ] offered to do publicity for me!!! And so I want to share some of her creations really quick - I was blown away with what she came up with!!!! It looks GREAT and I can't wait to get this stuff up on campus this week [and after our board meeting tomorrow]...I don't want to give away too much in case other people stumble upon this site who should be surprised :)  But the bake sale is going to benefit a little girl here who was born without an eye, and found a doctor in Florida willing to operate pro bono...but she and her family will need to stay in the states for a while - hence the fundraising.  Anyway, here are some of Becca's creations:

I'm excited to get these up and running!!!

More updates/photos to come :) Much love from Grenada.

tires & the continuing adventures of E & M.

Today we had to get a new tire for the car. 

When J and I came walking home from our ice cream milkshake/ walk on the beach, we noticed that one of our back tires was flat. Well, it was COMPLETELY flat by this morning. In the middle of a load of laundry, Marieke and I took it to the local gas station where we filled it back up only to hear a fairly loud " pfffff" the minute we were done. Three different guys were very eager to help us, and even offered to put a plug in since "the tire is still good" (it has NO tread left to it, by the way) but we declined and went to our car rental friend across the street, Devon. He told us that he would call around and try to find us a good deal on new tires, but there were none to be found. He said our next best option was to get a used tire to replace the one that was quickly becoming flat again, so that is what we did (after he pumped air into it AGAIN - only about 20 minutes after the first time.) 

So we headed on down Maurice Bishop Highway to Broado's tires where we were able to get a new used tire. We had to walk to the bank while the guy put it on though, because (of course) they didn't take cards. And really, that should have been a no-brainer to me - the place is literally a shack with a storage bin full of tires in the back. But the guy was very nice, and we were also able to buy some local oil down from one of his friends that showed up with some to sell in the back of his van (anywhere other than here would deem that "sketchy," but that is honestly how a lot of businesses operate...) 

Once home, I finished up laundry, made lunch for J (who was very excited about oil down), and then worked on my 1 Peter "mini lesson" for tonight. I made some chocolate chip cookies as well and then the cleaning crew arrived. I made dinner, took a shower and hung out with Marieke for a while before the girls came over. It was fun to see some new faces and a good time to have some fellowship, cookies, and the Word :) I'm really looking forward to what this term will hold! 

All in all, it was a very full day and I am beat now. But just to follow up on last night's post: we had a really wonderful date last night - great milkshakes, a walk on the beach looking up at the amazing canopy of stars, and then home for Pride &Prejudice:) My husband is so obliging (and he likes it, even if it isn't Braveheart :) ) I don't really have anything planned for tomorrow, but then again, I didn't have much planned for today besides laundry and look how that turned out :) I need to make some phone calls and send some emails, and beyond that we shall see :) Hope all is well state-side....much love.