I can’t believe I have been in Ixiamas for more than a month. Time is just flying. Everything is going well here. I started my English and computer classes today. I am sure I will learn much more than the kids will. I just pray I will be able to do a good job for them. I am a little nervous, since I have never really been a teacher before, but I am trusting God to give me what I need to instruct the kids of the internado. After the classes get going well, we are going to offer English classes to the kids in town. So, everyone please pray for my teaching abilities.

I wanted to share with everyone about the internado animals today. I’ll start with the dogs. Scotty and Stronger are not really internado dogs any more, since they have chosen to spend more time as town strays.  They show up from time to time when they want a rest. Somehow, they always know when we are in town. The first Sunday I was here we were sitting in church and here comes Scotty. He just walks right in over to Rachel and curls up at her feet for a nap. When any of us are in town, they just always come up to greet us. A couple of weeks ago Sneakers became an adult female dog and Stronger was her protector when several of the male dogs from town came to visit in the middle of the night. We feel like the pups should be arriving around the first of May and that Stronger is the father It is hard to believe that Sneakers–the cute little pup from last summer–is going to have pups.

Then, we have Bolivar the cat. He is a very small cat and always finds a seat by some kind heart at meal time to get a few scraps of food since Sneakers never wants to share her table scraps. Believe me, no food scraps go in the trash around here. We have one pig. Actually, he is a large hog that we hope will sire more pigs now that the new pig house is finished. He sort of wrecked the wooden house he had and now has a nice brick one with a concrete floor.

One of my chores is feeding the rabbits every morning and cleaning out the cages. They get most of the kitchen scraps, and surprisingly, one of their favorites is the red onions. Last summer members of the UMVIM team I was here with helped construct the Bunny Hut. A team that followed us finished, and one of the parents put up the roof. We now have 5 rabbits: 3 females and 2 males; as soon as the females get a little older, we will start breeding. The new male we got last week is part angora, and he looked so hot that Rachel and I decided he needed a haircut yesterday. We did a very good job, and he isn’t too gapped up. I unfortunately nicked him a little trying to cut out a mat in his fur. The rabbits will help add protein to our diet when they start breeding and take a big hunk out of the food bill. I am trying not to name them, but it is really hard because they are so cute.

That just leaves the little frog that sits in my window every night to eat bugs. I hope he really likes mosquitoes because they sure do like me. I told my grandson Miles about him, and he suggested a name for him. Flamerod sometimes just sits and looks at me when I talk to him. Well that’s about it except for the horses, cows and chickens that occasionally wander in for grass that is greener on the other side of the fence, but the dogs don’t allow them to stay very long.

All of us at the Internado send our love and covet your prayers.

Grace, peace and love,

Becky