Switch-er-roo

On December 30th we welcomed Kathy Miller to our team here in Belize. I am so glad she is willing to give 6 months of her life to interpreting at St. Peter's for Sulmi and helping with our Deaf Ministry.

Kathy is married to Marcus Miller (aka. Mark).  They have 3 college age children...

And she left them all, with the confidence of God's guiding, to come here to interpret for Sulmi.  What an amazing, courageous, faithful woman!  With her children all in college and enjoying various adventures (her oldest just spent several months in Japan), Kathy was encouraged by her church and her self-sacrificing husband to answer God's call to come to Belize.  You can follow her decision and her experiences on her blog "Signing for God".








Kathy is living in the apartment that we just finished building.   The apartment is on the same plot of land where I live.  So Kathy is our new next door neighbor.  It's a good set up as she enjoys being close yet having independence. Kathy brings with her experience as a special education teacher.  This is extremely beneficial to Sulmi who is thankful for a little 1:1 extra explanation beyond what the teacher explains.

So... what happened to Chelsea?   

Wonderful things!  

Chelsea is now finally able to interpret for Morine. This is what she had hoped to be doing when she "signed up" to come to Belize. She is a good fit for 6-year-old Morine who enjoys Chelsea's animated facial expressions.  It's good to have someone interpreting for Morine who can also interpret what the other children in the class are saying, something that I was not able to do.

Chelsea had been living in the apartment next to my house.  When we began to scour the neighborhood to look for an apartment nearby for soon-to-arrive Kathy, we looked at a host family option three houses up from me.  They are an older couple who's daughter (now living in the US) was home for the holiday and expressed an interest in having someone live with her parents just to make sure everything is ok. Chelsea immediately hit it off with the Toledano family and asked to move there and let Kathy have the apartment.  So we did.

So the new year brought a major switch-er-roo.
Kathy is interpreting for Sulmi and in the apartment.  Chelsea is interpreting for Morine and in the Toledano's house.   We have had many changes but through the grace of our loving God we are settling into the new pattern and it fits us all well.  I will close this post with a picture from Sunday night.   Although we are living separately, we get together weeknights for dinner (alternating who cooks) and Sunday nights for popcorn and a game or movie. This photo is from last Sunday's game of Bananagrams.

They are in deep concentration.  Maybe next time the photographer can call a "Time out" for an "all smiles" photo.

Thank you for your prayers for our ministry.  Thank God for sending a team so that we can minister more effectively.  Please continue to pray for our Deaf Church, for the people to be filled with a burning desire to serve our Lord.  Pray that God will raise up men and women as leaders.