it's been awhile...

so, we're still alive and well. we're just lazy about updating and keeping in touch with people. we really do love you all, i promise.

life has been going. we don't have many exciting stories or crazy adventures. it's mostly just real life. we work, we eat, we sleep, we hang out with friends. it's kind of nice. i don't feel like a tourist as much anymore. it's not always as fun as it was at first, but it's also less frustrating a lot of times.

work is going as well. there have been a few bumps in the road lately, but things are smoother now. we had three people go to the hospital in three days, which added quite a bit of stress. the worst was baraa, who fell of the slide and hit her head. she fell about six and a half feet. but the good news is she is fine. she probably had a concussion (i say probably because the hospital was awful and didn't really tell us anything helpful, but that's another story) and a broken nose, but nothing else. no one actually saw her fall, but the way she landed it looked like she hit her head first. i still don't know how she didn't shatter her skull. or her legs or elbows or whatever absorbed the blow. i know angels were all around her. anyway, ismael also broke his hand from a fall and it's unclear how it happened. that was two days after baraa, so it brought even more stress. but...God is good and things are getting back to normal and the accidents forced us to talk about issues that needed to be talked about. so it's smoother now. not smooth, but smoother.

last weekend, the kids went home for their monthly break. it was needed, i think by all of us, but defiantly by me and jason. we got to just lay low for a few days and on sunday and monday spent some time at the dead sea and ein gedi national park. it was really fun to float in the dead sea. we just floated. we also found a mud pit and got to have mud baths for free, which was much better than paying a bunch of money for them. i'm not convinced that i'd pay tons and tons of money for dead sea products, but my skin is very soft and exfoliated, so maybe it's not a big hoax. ein gedi was beautiful. it's a wildlife preserve in the desert, but there are a few spring and a few waterfalls, so there's lots of greenery in certain places. we took a three-and-a-half hour hike with some girls we met at the hostel we stayed at. we saw lots of rocks, lots of sand, some ibex, some hyrax, two springs, some flowers, wadi david, and david's waterfall. ein gedi is the place where david hid from saul when saul was trying to kill him. it's a good place to hang out if you're in the desert. the waterfall area looks like a tropical paradise. it's really green and has tons of plants and obviously water, and then you walk a few hundred meters and you're back to the dry, dry desert. it was a good little vacation and i'm excited to know that it's close by for when weekend getaways next year.

we are now in the process of raising support for next year. it's kind of stressful. sometimes i don't think i'm cut out for this missionary stuff. please pray for us that we will have faith that God will provide for our needs and that it won't be a huge distraction for us (especially me). if you are not on our support list and want to know about our support raising, email us and we'll let you know how you can help.

well, that's our life in a nutshell. we'll try to start posting again. also, we forgot our camera this weekend, so no pictures of ein gedi. but rachel, one of the girls we hiked with, is supposed to email me some when she's done traveling in a month or so. don't hold your breath or anything, but we'll have pictures one day.