Settling back in at home (edited)

We are settling in again at home here in Guatemala.  Routine is a comfort to me.  I love vacations and adventure... but getting back to routine makes me feel purposeful and comforted.  I'm trying to build a real schedule - when I will go in the ministry, when I will be home, as well as what I want to accomplish while I'm home.  Not every moment has to be an 'accomplishment', but it's really easy to lose sight of what's important and allow leisure to overtake me.

Along with my (rather loose) schedule, my constant priority is trying to do daily deep study of the Bible and Bible reading.  There are some other goals, like learning to play an electronic keyboard that my niece Jessica allowed me to bring down, and translating into Spanish a Bible game that someone else had made in English, and metatagging my rather overwhelming library of photos.

We have an frenemy here, American TV. We get the major TV stations from New York, as well as lots of the syndication (?) channels like TNT, History, etc.  I say "frenemy" because it's a friend (nice to get news and some TV programs in English, but also an enemy because...  it's so easy to sit down to relax and turn on the eternal reruns of Law and Order, or Pawn Stars or other seemingly innocuous but time-wasting shows. I don't mind a bit of that, but like in the US, we have to fight against wasting precious life and brain cells with drivel.

On another subject, I've had some insomnia.  It has come in waves for years now.  A friend recommended a white-noise program to be soothing and help sleep.  I have enjoyed it - but when listening to one of the channels, it had Noises of Nature or something like that - and I realized it sounded exactly like outside my own window!  What a blessing to live here.  However, I still am hoping for better sleep!

Andy and Rachel, our friends here, told us that they got some portable beach chairs, and grabbed a beer and a yogurt, and sat by the lake the other night.  They laughed and joked about the life of 'self-sacrifice' they were suffering!

Another side note, the air has been really hazy the last few weeks.  I've heard it is the humidity prior to the rainy season. I've heard also it might be the farmers burning their crops to get ready to plant again.  But we can't even see the volcanoes, we can barely see much of the lake, and the nearby mountains are a hazy grey.  I'm looking forward to the air clearing out.

We've had a delightful family visiting here from Mexico, the family Rico.  We're going across the lake tomorrow to a town we haven't seen before, so we'll try to post some pictures then!

We also had dinner with the Ricos and with Josias Tomás.  (see below).  Josias' wife is in the US being treated for advanced breast cancer, and our prayers are that he can join her soon.

Yesterday it took forever to upload photos, so today I'm adding a few:

Josias Tomás, Carlos, Carlos and Rossi Rico,
Bev Shockley, and Bill. The Rico family are visiting from
Mexico for 2 weeks, and we are SO enjoying having them here! 

The service group that went to a nearby town, Sololá, looking
for English-speaking folks.  We had a blast! 

A candy store.  They had lots of local concoctions. 

It's impossible to really appreciate how steep this hill was
(in Solalá)!  We let the younger ones take the hill! 

hazy view