Phamily of Seven

What's new on the Pham front???

Still battling fleas! What else? :)

A friend is going to let me use her BMW while I am in Florida so I don't have to rent a car after all and will save money. I'm very happy about that.

John's mom is going to help us with the rental van in California unless God provides another alternative. That is a blessing too.

The baby has gone #2 at least 3 times this week on his own. That is such an improvement from zero and we are thankful for that.

John and I have been running a lot recently. John is up to 9 miles and I am up to 14 and will run 16 next week in preparation for the Disney Marathon. We signed up for a half-marathon in December that we are going to run together. It is in Lima and starts at 9 a.m. Should be nice and toasty for us. I am enjoying running with him. I am very proud of his progress. When each one of us comes home from a run we immediately share our average pace, average heart rate and distance. It's so fun!! We also talk "race" strategies. I LOVE having a fellow runner in the house.

Well, I have something shocking to tell you. I actually LOVE living here now. If the IMB told us we had to leave Lima, I can honestly say that I would be very sad. We have a lot of friends in our neighborhood, ministry is progressing, we found a church that we love, and we are extremely settled. Our life is here now and I am so thankful! Boy, it was a rough start, but I am so glad to feel like this is home.

On other good news, we found out that we will be able to live in St. Cloud, FL when we return to the states in September of next year. Originally, we were going to have to live in Orlando about 30 minutes away. Our home church now has a house that we can use in the center of town. We could not be more excited (especially me).

Please pray for my house helper's brother. He was in the hospital for like 10 days and needed an operation on his stomache. They sent him home to take antiobiotics before the surgery. He went in on Nov. 10th for the surgery, but he needed to pay $100 before they would do it. He didn't have the money and had to postpone the surgery. Now he is working really hard, WHILE he is sick and infected, to try to come up with the money. We have been having our empleada work extra so she can earn more money to help him, plus John gave her a cash advance, but her financial situation isn't very good either. She lives in a dirt shack and barely had enough money to get by (with 6 kids). If you could pray for their situation (her name is Maria and I don't know her brother's name), that would be wonderful. Can you imagine not being able to have a very NEEDED operation b/c of a lousy $100? That is like $1,000.00 or more to them. It breaks our hearts. We want to just give them the money, but we have been told countless times that it is not a good idea. UGH!