The Waiting Game

It's been 4 1/2 weeks since we submitted our visa applications and we still haven't heard any further news about them. In the meantime, we have continued on with life as usual. We've even started an Arabic class. It's just once a week for 6 weeks, but I'm so glad we're at least getting some tools to help us learn. And Josh & Doug are also taking the class as well as another girl we know, so it's fun for all of us to be learning together. Eric & I had checked out several different courses that were just to expensive for us. We really don't have any extra money for things other than our bills and groceries, but this class is just 290 shekels for the 6 weeks plus our book. That's about $77.60 (US dollars) each. I started tutoring last Saturday. I tutored a girl in Math and made 60 shekels. If Eric & I tutor a total of 10 times then there's the money for the class. Pretty sweet!

We've been staying pretty busy lately. Our Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays are full from morning til night. Thursdays we go to Bethlehem in the evening for a bible study. Josh is leading it tonight. Fridays are completely free. Saturday nights we have our weekend service. Sundays are suppose to be our traveling day that we go somewhere and learn about it's Biblical significance. That hasn't happened in a while, so Sundays for Eric & I are usually spent preparing for the coming week's English class lessons. Usually on Thursday & Saturday mornings, I get caught up on laundry and cleaning our room and keeping the downstairs community areas clean- which is most often the kitchen since it is the most used area.

Please keep us in your prayers. I know it's just a matter of time before we get a call from the Ministry of the Interior that says we must leave, but we would really like to be able to stay long enough to finish out the programs we have started. March 24 will finish out the program commitments. That's just under 8 weeks.

Though I've found a renewed love for being here and volunteering here and learning about the people here, I can't help but wonder what the Lord has in store for our return to America. We have some general plans of what we would like to do and where we would like to go- Eric will probably go back to school- but it's just the beginning part that may prove to be rough. We're coming back with no savings, no place of our own, no transportation. I can't help but laugh at that! We're starting from nothing basically. I'm so glad we have God as our provider.

So, it's just another season of this journey with our God. He's already taken us both on such an incredible adventure. But the best is yet to come! Please keep us in your prayers!