Birthday blessings...

“What you have done is wonderful…all the days planned for me were written in Your book before I was one day old.” Psalm 139.14,16 NCV
14,244.75 days later I am still in awe at where I am and what the Lord has done in my life. Some people asked me if I did something special for my birthday yesterday and I realized that the WHOLE day was full of blessings. I am blessed with a family. I have three boys and a wonderful husband. My kids are my friends…we can laugh at or talk about anything. We can sing together, pray together and even hug each other. We can tell secrets and even write notes to each other. That’s a blessing! Edson is a great baby, he smiles and laughs, sleeps well, loves people and doesn’t even mess his diapers much. That’s a blessing. My husband is the only guy I know who can clean, cook, do gardening, take care of the kids, change and bathe the baby, worry about and fix the car problems, run around town doing paper work for us, for school, and for others; clean the bathroom, work at school, counsel after hours, and even have time to bring me flowers and take me out for my birthday! What a blessing!
More blessings…Vivi and Ben invited us over for a taco dinner, Mariela and Nancy embroidered hand made gifts, Blanca prepared a meal for our whole family, Ellen bought me shoes, Roger called and talked for a 1 ½ hours, Mom, Martha, Dianne, Amy, Aunt Kath and Linda sent me emails, Liz sent a box, a pile of boxes from Tremont came at perfect timing…even one box full of Doritos from Mark, a card/letter from Emilia, phone calls from some friends at church and hugs and kisses from teachers and students at school…what wonderful blessings!
Dear God… What you have done is wonderful! Thanks for planning all these beautiful days of my life and filling them with such amazing blessings, especially those big hugs from you…from family…and friends. Could tomorrow be even better?

Thanks to all of you for being a blessing to me!

P.S. Late at night Oscar and I realized that I didn’t eat any birthday cake or ice cream and no one sang Happy Birthday to me…oh, except Mom and Dad on the answering machine after we got home!

Brandon and Gabriel

Gaby joined the Praise and Worship team at school playing the guitar. They practice an hour after school on Mondays. At his first day of practice he said it was a disaster. Hopefully during Chapel the Lord will take the lead and beautiful melodies will flow out of this Jr. High group. At least their hearts are willing! Brandon studied drums for a year, so he took his drum sticks undecided about what to do (join Praise and Worship or just wait outside for Gaby)…he decided to sit out and watch (or dream about) soccer practice. He also knows how to play guitar a little bit. He has been working with the sound system at church. And now, he’s kind of dreaming about playing the bass guitar. He’s at that age where he doesn’t quite know what he’s best at or what he looks best doing.
Both Brandon and Gabriel have been more enthused about school and raising their grades after a lecture on repeating the grade, but in a Spanish school. Three weeks into this semester have proven to be challenging, but I think they’re going to make it. Oscar will be taking a conversational English class at their school on Mondays and Wednesdays.
One great hurdle they jumped over is reading. They now enjoy reading English books. They aren’t into big novels, yet, but at least they have books in their hands and not game boys.
For English class, Brandon wrote a short, mystery story the other day. He got done with three pages, took the rough draft to school, brought it home and started rewriting it. I asked him why he was changing everything and he said that his teacher didn’t want anything bloody or gory. Thanks Mrs. Ortiz! This time it is a mystery about a gorilla lost from the zoo.
Brandon is studying 1 Corinthians 13…the Love Chapter. It does us all so much good to hear those verses being repeated over and over again. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs…WOW!

Everyday Life in Paraguay

Many times, here in Paraguay, when something goes wrong, it takes about 20 people to check the problem out, a couple more days to think about how to fix it, then, (if you’re lucky) one of the solutions may really work. That is what we are experimenting right now. Our phone line has been out of service for four days. We call in to the phone company and they say, “We’re sending someone out…right now!” Well, four days, and several calls later…they’re still not here. One good thing about it (since we should look at the good in every situation) is that we can eat in peace without hopping up at every ring and even sleep a siesta without the constant ringing. Oh well, that’s life in Paraguay!
An amazing thing happened the other day. Sunday morning we woke up to 60◦ weather. (I couldn’t write about this sooner because we didn’t have internet.) Things had been pretty humid and muggy, and all of a sudden a cool southern wind had us digging out sweaters and blankets from our closets. It’s a cool break from the summer heat.
Unfortunately the mosquitoes became worse than ever. We even thought that Gaby had dengue last week. He came home from school with a very high fever and his body hurt all over. He was crying and asking me to rub his back and neck. I gave him paracetamol (Tylenol?) every 6 hours and since he didn’t want to miss chapel the next day, he went to school anyway (good Schley trait…never miss a day of school!). When he came home he was still feeling kind of sick, but didn’t have a fever. If it was dengue, it was only 24 hours. Thank God! Later on that day he said…Mom, can I go swimming? That’s how I KNEW he was feeling better.
While I’m writing this everyone’s taking a SIESTA, but it’s time to start STUDYING! I think I’ll wake everybody up…everybody but Edson!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!

Edson...music and thumbs

The other day Pablito (7 years old) asked me what kind of Lullabies I sing to Edson. My eyes kind of widened as I hesitated to think about the songs I had recently been singing to him. I realized that most of the songs were the ones my older kids were listening to. I even sang songs from Toby Mac to him! He’ll probably be rapping before he can even walk. I think I even “forgot” those catchy little baby songs. Gaby reminded me of “This Little Piggy”! Any suggestions, Mar?
We got Gaby’s guitar fixed…finally…and Edson just loves to hear us play…cooing all the while. I played the guitar at church until I was like five months pregnant. (I stopped when I thought that it just looked silly holding the guitar out at arms length to play it.) I wonder if it had an effect on him. How much can an unborn baby really perceive? Maybe he’ll be a guitar player.
Edson’s definitely a thumb sucker! (Does that mean he’ll play the clarinet and inherit the wooden clarinet from Grandpa Schley?) Some people at church think he’ll be a little boxer because I put socks on his hands to try to limit the thumb-sucking. It seemed to be working until one afternoon he even figured out how to pull the socks off. Pacifiers become power struggles and surely don’t “pacify” him. We bought every size, shape and texture just to have it be forcefully spit out with disgust! That little thumb just tastes so much better.
He is still an amazing baby, extremely spoiled by his dad, older brothers and people at church. I DO thank God for so many wonderful helpers! Uh ho…he’s about to wake up!

The Lord lives!

These verses have been especially meaningful to me lately…
“I call to the Lord who is worthy of praise, and I am saved from my enemies…in my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears...He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my disaster but the Lord was my support…he rescued me because he delighted in me. The Lord has dealt with me according to my righteousness: according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me. For I have kept the ways of the Lord: I have not done evil by turning from my God. All his laws are before me; I have not turned away from his decrees. I have been blameless before him and have kept myself from sin. The Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight…You, O Lord, keep my lamp burning: my God turns my darkness into light. With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall…He is a shield for all who take refuge in him…The Lord lives! Praise be to my Rock! Exalted be God my Savior...I will praise you among the nations, O Lord, I will sing praises to your name. Psalm 118:3, 6, 16-24, 28-30, 46,49
What a WONDERFUL Father we have!

Summer break is over

Summer break is over! Activities started already in Adonai. TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL. Yesterday was probably one of the busiest days at school for the secretaries. People always wait until the last minute to enrol their kids. They were already closing some grades because they were too full. Last year we had 210 students and this year we might be around 250 or more. Usually by the end of the month things start slowing down.
This year I am a stay at home mom and I already feel like I am missing out on all of the fun. (I mean, all the fun outside of home!) I have always been so active in church and school activities…so active in other places that I haven’t been active at home. I’m even thinking of digging out my cookbooks to do fancy homemade meals again instead of the quick spaghetti dinners, sandwiches and empanadas that we are used to. I do have loads of things to catch up on here at home and am thankful to be spending some extra time with Edson and helping Brandon and Gabriel with homework. Mom brought nuts and mini M & M’s…how ‘bout a batch of cookies?
The other day we spent the whole morning at the U.S. Embassy. Both Brandon and Gabriel had passports that had expired and Edson needed a Certificate of Birth Abroad plus a passport. We had been dragging poor Edson around town getting pictures, his Paraguayan documents, and other paperwork in order. In his Paraguayan identity card he’s sleeping! He finally woke up SCREAMING when they took his finger print. At least now he is a legal Paraguayan AND U.S. citizen.
Brandon and Gabriel started back to second semester at ACA. The came home with exciting news yesterday that the school is going to buy the property next door with plans to build a swimming pool. They are both on academic probation this semester which means that they have to pull their grades up to a 74% GPA or they could be dismissed from the school. Since we changed them a year and a half ago to this ALL ENGLISH program, things have not been easy, but they have improved greatly! Their math teacher just invited them to be in a math club on Wednesdays. Thank God! That’s one area where my tutoring skills aren’t that great! Please keep praying for them. They are struggling, but prayers and lots of effort, I think they’ll make it.
We are battling thunderstorms! Things have been sooooo hot lately. Sometimes the only way it cools down is with a storm. Yesterday was one of those days. Oscar left for his bible study and I was at home with the boys. The thunder and lightning was terrible and then very hard southern winds with rain. Things cooled off almost instantly. I went upstairs to get Edson ready for been and saw huge puddles on the floors. Edson’s bed, blankets and towels were soaked. Oscar had left all the windows wide open for air and I didn’t realize that they were opened. I started mopping up when I got a call from Oscar. He told me that he left the windows open to get some fresh air! I thanked him for the warning, but told him that everything was already wet and I was wiping up the traces of the storm…well, that’s life in Paraguay.