Well I haven't been good about updating this and for that I apoligize. We are still in the "settling" in process and it seems that time/days slip away. Dana has been good about sending out email updates so if you would like to be added to that list, please just drop a quick note to
mgrathome@yahoo.com. Below are the last two updates that we sent, including an incredible praise for what God did regarding our vehicle.
A few prayer requests:
--Reagan's right eye is still turning in. We will probably get him looked at next week, so please pray for healing and straightening of his right eye.
--Our continue adjustment to life here. Overall I think we are adapting very well and God certainly is looking out for us. There are still some things like the house issues that would make life a little easier. But then again, we feel so blessed and humbled when we drive around and see the situations that others here live in daily.
--Please pray that God continues to raise up supporters and provide for our needs. We are still a little behind what is considered the minimum we need, but God has always been faithful to provide. Our Lord and Savior hears your faithful prayers for us and provides in perfect sufficiency. Thank you for your love and prayers.
Praises:
--Our van, read the story of God's divine work below
--The kids, for the most part, seem to be adjusting very well. AJ has met a couple of friends and Jordan has also. There is a good community of believers right around here that have kids that match up in age with all of ours.
Below are the last two email updates. We hope to get out our newsletter by the end of next week. If you want to be included in the emails, join our newsletter list, or support us (or all three :-) , please drop us a line at
mgrathome@yahoo.com and let us know.
June 10th update
Hello everyone! We hope you are all doing well. Thank you so much for all of your prayers. It has been a crazy week, we are very much in culture shock. We are just trying to get used to life here, where to shop, what to eat and what not to eat and how to go about eating it.... and so on. We now have internet access but we won't have a phone to call the states for about 3 more weeks.
Life is a bit crazy right now. I am learning that my biggest problem is that I have no patience. When I get an idea in my head that I want to do something or something needs to be done, I usually want it done yesterday. That just doesn't work here so I'm trying to adapt and not get frustrated. There are many things that don't work and that need to be fixed at our house. We are very blessed to have a large house that we are comfortable in but it has not been lived in for about 6 years so we are finding out many things that need repair (it was never equiped with a dryer and it takes about 3 days for clothes to dry on a line because of the rain and humidity here... so that has been interesting to work around).
The kids are all fine and learning new Spanish words daily. They have made friends with some of the neighbors and are enjoying all of the new bugs, flowers and critters here... we have bats in our attic and it's been fun watching them fly out at dawn. We were told that it was a good thing to have them around since they eat a lot of insects. We are being careful not to get too close.
I had to have a tooth pulled last Saturday, that was an experience. This was because I broke part of a my tooth from eating a very hard cookie (a welcome gift from one of our new neighbors). I had a deep filling on this tooth but after the dentist looked at it, I had a deeper cavity that I did not know about. She said that it would not be a good candidate for a root-canal because a crown would not fit on it very good. This was a very conservative dentist, the dentist that works here with WGO (if you have watched the WGO dvd, it was the dentist that called this her "blessing work") so I trusted her opinion. It was not as bad as I had anticipated (Alan had told me that they don't use anesthesia here in Honduras, which is true in some cases, but praise God that they did use some on me).
Please pray for our health it seems like we have all had one issue or another. One of Reagan's eyes is turning in like he is cross eyed. There was a team here this week with an optometrist, he looked at it and said not to worry now but he would be back in August and will look at it then, if it still doing it then we may need to do something about it (like glasses).
Thank you again, we love and miss you.
Alan, Dana and los ninos.
June 11th update
Just wanted to let you all know how God has answered our prayers today. We have had a very hard time trying to find a vehicle we could afford here. We had some very specific needs, the first being a vehicle that was large enough for our family. We also were trying to get one that ran on diesel, it's about .75 less a gallon here and also we needed a vehicle that had enough horse power to get up and down this big hill we live on (it's about a 20 minute, very rough ride). Anyway used vehicles are very hard to come by here, we have been looking ever since we got here.
Today we were on our way to get our drivers license (that was an experience, we spent 3 hours, stood in numerous lines, then in the last line the machine that spits out your drivers license broke... or so it seemed, the person worked on it for a while and then finally left... with a huge line still waiting) and we stopped at a light behind a white van for sale. Terry Mallasch (the COO of WGO, who Alan reports to) was driving. He recognized the phone number on the van and thought it was of a friend of his... sure enough he called and his friend's wife was driving. We all pulled into the McDonald's parking lot (yes, we do have McDonalds in Tegus) and basically struck a deal. This van was exactly what we had been looking for. It was perfect. It is a 2002 Hyundai (I believe). It seats 12, it has 3 rows of 3 seats and the back seat folds up and faces the opposite direction and has 3 more seats. It was in great shape and the best part was that it was way within our budget. It was also a blessing that Terry knew the people selling it and knew they took good care of their cars.
We are so amazed at God's provision. Thank you all so much for praying for our vehicle, today we were blessed in so many ways. Technically we had enough money in our account to purchase a new vehicle but that would have depleted it completely. I'm talking about the account we have with WGO, where you send your support. This as a huge deal because we came here not fully funded. We still don't have enough support to meet our monthly budget so what this means is that now we have a little cushion until we are fully funded. I hope that makes sense. We came here fully expecting God to provide for us and that we would live on what ever provision He had planned for us. Today he has eased our minds and reassured us that He is in complete control. Thank you again for all of your prayers... keep them coming.
Just another quick note... AJ was given a pair of barely worn Adidas running shoes that were exactly his size (a big size 12 at age 14)... we had bought him some "army" boots before we left the states and then the night before we left he said that he wished we had got him some tennis shoes instead, there was no time then. So God has also taken care of that need as well, through another MK.
Well we just couldn't wait to share this news with you, we are going to be picking up the van on Wednesday, there is some paperwork and money transfer to be done.
PRAISE GOD!
The Sims
