Spring Time Chores

"Make a joyful shout to Elohim, all the earth!  Sing out the honor of His name; Make His praise glorious.  Say to Elohim, How awesome are Your works!  (Psalm 66:1-3)

We are so glad that spring is here!

Combining the old with the new, Dane breaks new ground with a horse-drawn disk pulled behind the tractor. 

Dane tilled up the gardens and everyone pitched in to lay the plastic mulch.

We started a variety of seeds indoors that we move outside during the day for more sunlight.

And we just finished planting around 7000 onion plants in just a couple of days!

Winter Farm Happenings

"Blessed be the name of Elohim forever and ever, for wisdom and might are His.  And he changes the times and the seasons" (Daniel 2:20, 21)

Despite all the visiting, we did manage to get settled in and stay busy over the winter.

Before the freezing temperatures set in, Dane and the children covered the strawberry plants with straw so that they would stay protected until spring.

The winter was a cold one and Dane had a part-time job staying on top of the firewood.  We really went through it keeping the house nice and warm during weeks of below freezing temperatures.

We enjoyed all the colorful birds that visited the bird feeder this winter!

Dane worked on the van, the tractor, and he replaced the motor twice in a truck that he bought! The original truck motor had a rod knocking in it, so Dane traveled to Ohio and bought a used motor (thankfully with a thirty day refund) to replace it, but that motor ended up having a rod knocking in it too.  So, Dane went to Tennessee and bought another used motor.  The second motor runs great and so now the truck does as well! 

We have also been busy driving our Amish neighbors.  We have enjoyed this job as it has given us the opportunity to meet most of our neighbors and helped us learn much about our community.

We hosted a Zone Products meeting in February.  We are using Zone's programs for growing our fruits and vegetables chemical free.  The meeting was attended by thirteen of our Amish neighbors who are very interested in obtaining healthy soil and more healthy produce.

The children and I have been busy with schoolwork and kitchen duties like making cheese, bread and cereal.

 
Well that's what we've been up to this winter.  Stay tuned for a Spring happenings update!

Visits and Blessings

The Lord has been so merciful to us.  We have been blessed with visitors, help from loved ones, and have had the pleasure of making visits to family, and friends since our return to the states.

My father, John, and step-mother, Frances, traveled to Kentucky with us from Florida.  They showed us to our new home and helped us get set up and settled in. We are so very grateful to them for all the love, help, and care they have shown us.  After we made it to Kentucky, they stayed with us for about a week. It was a wonderful visit!  They also were able to return for nearly a week in January and, Lord willing, will be back again in April.  Sadly, I didn't get a picture of my step-mother since she was doing most of the picture taking when she was with us, but below is a picture of my father and little John. 

Dane's dad came a couple of days after we arrived with a load of things we had left behind in Texas and some donated items from family there.  It was great to see him; although, our visit with him was way too short.  We hope he can come again soon and spend a little more time!

Chris Jones, my step-mother's son-in-law, surprised us that first week with a load of things that he brought to us from Michigan.  We enjoyed meeting him and were so blessed by his kindness! We have put everything that he brought to use and are are anxious to learn to use the loom that his mother, Molly, sent along too.

The children were absolutely thrilled to see their Meme (Sue), Dane's mother, and Pawne (Leonard), Dane's step-father, who came to visit within a week of our arrival.  They brought with them a car load of things from Texas and some beautiful clothes that Sue had sewn for the children.  Sue and Leonard were a great help to us during their visit.  Leonard helped with various projects around the house and Sue sewed, unpacked and helped with the children.  We enjoyed them tremendously and look forward to our next visit with them.

We had planned to attend a wedding in Tennessee the first week in November, but when vehicle problems prevented our going, our friends that we had hoped to see came to our house to see us!!!!  It was great fun to have an unexpected two day visit by four families of friends.  Some of them we had met in person previously and some of them we only had known by way of telephone conversations.  Our guests included Daniel and Suzanne New and two of their grandchildren, Ralph Reed and his daughter, Esther Reed, and Alan and Tammy Cooper and their five children, and Micah and Lisa Kendall and their two children.  What a splendid time we had!

In late November, our family traveled to Pennsylvania to visit our dear friend Pamela.  We had a nice visit and got to see the roof that her husband, Jim, had designed prior to his passing finally coming together.  Pamela's father-in-law, Jim Sr, and a crew were making great progress on it.  Since our visit there, we have been trying to persuade Pamela to come down to Kentucky to see us! 

While we were in Pennsylvania we got to meet and stay with the Piper family (Caleb, Tina, Jaidan, Alicia, Isaac, Janelle, and Micah) for a few days.  They were very gracious to us and we enjoyed our visit with them tremendously!  We look forward to visiting them again soon, as the Lord wills.

We traveled to Missouri to visit our friends, the Coopers, in December.  We had a great three days of fellowship with them.  While there, we had the pleasure of meeting their friends, the Montgomerys, too.

From Missouri, we headed to Texas to visit my step-father, Paul, or Pop, as we like to call him.  We were all so happy to see and spend time with him.  The Lord really knew we needed a Pop because he has been such an integral part of our family and we are very thankful for him.  We had a great time visiting with him and camping out in his living room.  He blessed us tremendously by letting us bring home one of his tractors to use on our farm in Kentucky.  He even bought and fixed up a used trailer for us to haul it home.  We can't wait to have him as a guest at our home in Kentucky.

Our time in Lubbock was very short, but we did get to visit other family and friends there: Dane's dad, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, my mother and sister, and the folks at Brown-McKee. 

As I mentioned before, my father and step-mother returned in January for five days and then my mother came for a nice ten day visit shortly thereafter.

As you can see, our time has been full and we feel that our awesome Lord has blessed us beyond measure.

****I am sorry to say that I did not get pictures of all of our loved ones while they were here or us there.  I will try to do better about the picture taking in the future!

We Made It - Leaving Argentina IV

We were so very thankful to the Lord to finally be on the airplane.  Our first flight was from Paraguay to La Paz, Bolivia.

Once in Bolivia, we had a layover of about two hours.  The children rested on the floor at the gate with their backpacks until it was time to board the plane at midnight.

Since so many in our family were sick, that last flight to Miami was a long and miserable one.  Dane laid on the floor of the plane in front of our row of seats for most of the flight.  The flight attendants never said a word to him about getting into his seat until it was time to land.  Some of the children struggled in the night with their illnesses, and I with my countenance, but the Lord carried us through.

I can't tell you how thankful we were when we finally got off that plane in Florida!!!!!!

I thought we might get quarantined once we passed through immigration and they saw how horrible everyone looked, but, praise the Lord,  no one ever said a word, even when I left my family at the immigration window to take David to the bathroom to be sick.  All the Swine flu hype we had heard so much about was apparently just that, at least on this trip. 

We were greeted by my father and stepmother and it was a wonderful reunion despite how sick everyone felt.  My father had graciously picked up and had had work done on a van that we had found on eBay prior to our arrival.  He and my stepmother brought it to the airport with them, so we would have adequate transportation.  We left the airport and my parents only to meet them at their house that afternoon.

In the meantime, we drove to my mother's home an hour from the airport to visit, have lunch, and pick up some furniture and clothing that she wanted us to have.  We had a nice visit with her and then loaded up a U-haul trailer and headed to my father's house four hours away. 

After a couple of days at Dad and Frances' house recooperating, we headed north to Kentucky and arrived to our new home on the evening of October 25th!

Poem of Thanksgiving

Springtime

The time of spring is here at hand,

With blooms to brighten up the land.

The bluebird has now made its nest;

Our work Yahweh has richly blessed.

The onions stand in long, neat rows,

From the far field the milk cow lows;

The peas are sprouting in their trays,

The sun is shining golden rays.

The strawberries peep through the straw;

Across the field comes the crow’s caw.

Daffodils line the shady roads,

Carrying sweet nectar in loads.

Leaves are returning to the trees,

Grasses are swaying in the breeze;

Give thanks to Yahweh’s mighty Name,

And spread throughout His righteous fame!

      ----Abigail Donaldson

     April 3, 2010

“And through Him let us at all times offer to Elohim the sacrifices of praise, that is, the fruit of the lips which give thanks to His Name.” (Taken from Paul’s letter to the Hebrews)

Our Time in Paraguay - Leaving Argentina III

The driver dropped us off at the bus station in Ciudad del Este and we found a bus that was leaving for Camp 9 very shortly.  The price for eight seats was Guarani $232 mil ($232,000).  Dane was dumbfounded by the figure and went to find out what the exchange rate was since we only had Argentine pesos.  I can't remember what it was, but I think it was just over $200 pesos or around US$65.  Very reasonable in spite of the mind-boggling number of Guaranis Dane was quoted.  We bought tickets and loaded up.

The bus was comfortable and we all had seats for a time.  Like our final bus experience in Argentina, the bus stopped at several stops and picked up more and more people.  We guessed that people didn't usually buy seats for their children because the bus usher asked Dane to show him receipts for our children's seats on two different occasions when our children didn't leave the seats they were in as others entered the bus.  Eventually, entering adults just squeezed themselves beside the children.  A couple of the children gave up their seats when they became uncomfortable with this arrangement and joined Dane and I or one of their other siblings.  Four hours later we arrived at the bus station in Campo 9 and happily met our friend, Jonathan Shrock, who had expected us the night before. 

That night we stayed with the Shrock family, Jonathan, Rebecca, Ethel, and Adriana, so that we could visit with them for a time. Then the next day, we moved over to Matthew and Irene Myers' for the remainder of our stay.  We had a very nice visit with them all!!  We got to visit the Florida colony's community church and school.  We enjoyed a lunch with the elder John Myers family, and then later a dinner with the Samuel Bontrager family from the neighboring Luz y Esperanza colony too.  Our friends were very gracious and hospitable to us. We will have very fond memories of our visit with them and hope the Lord will allow us to see one another again sometime. 

Unfortunately, the day before we were set to head to Asuncion, Dane woke up sick and feverish.  By the end of the day, most of the children were sick as well.  We prayed about what to do and called the airport to see if we could reschedule our flight (this was during the height of the Swine flu scare).  The airline representative told us that if we were well enough to walk on the plane, then we could fly.  So seeing that it would cost us US$250 x 9 ($2250) to change our plane tickets, we made plans to leave the next morning.

Thankfully, the next morning, the Myers' took us in their community van to the airport four hours away so that we would not have to travel by bus.  When we reached Asuncion, it started pouring down rain and a flash flood ensued.  Cars were stranded in the road and water was running into the store fronts.  It was surreal.  Despite this, we were able to reach the airport and were even several hours early.  We said goodbye to our dear friends, Matthew and Irene, and just rested until it was time to board the plane that evening.

The time came to board our plane.  We proceeded to immigration where an officer asked Dane for our passports.  Dane handed them over and the officer took one look at our transitory visas and proceeded to call other officers over to look at them.  Where had we gotten them?  Where was our receipt for them, they wanted to know.  Ohhh.... The receipt.....Apparently the visas were not exactly legit.  And apparently one should always keep their receipt with them to prove a visa's validity. We had a lot of explaining to do and again pulled out all of our papers to be examined.  After much discussion, the immigration officials had pity on us and agreed to let us go if we would pay them for standard tourist visas (US$75/person) and kindly they would deduct the $280 we had already paid for the transitory visas (US$40/person).  The total came to US$245 more, and of course, we could only have them without a receipt!!  Since we didn't have any other options and our plane was soon to leave, Dane did just that and we boarded the plane for the long trip to Miami, FL.

To be continued.......

Crossing Borders - Leaving Argentina Part II

The next morning, after arriving in Iguassu, we went to the bus station to find a bus that would take us across the border, but every driver that pulled up and saw all of our luggage refused to take us.  We ended up hiring a private driver and then proceeded to the Argentine border.

Once there, we stopped at the border station and presented all of our Argentina DNI's (these are identification numbers similar to social security numbers), which should have allowed our whole family to cross the border freely since they proved our Argentina residency.  Our two little Argentine children were given permission to cross; however, for the rest of us, the immigration official wanted to see our passports and original birth certificates for our five children born in the United States.  This was a problem because we had given those birth certificates to the authorities to be put on file in Buenos Aires when we applied for our DNI's.  I presented photocopies of the originals that I had with us, but the official refused to budge.  After Dane pleaded with her for some time, she finally called a supervisor.  Thankfully, he reviewed all of our papers (DNI's for the whole family, U.S. passports for everyone, Argentina passports for Joseph and John, copies of U.S. birth certificates, and our Marriage License) and then allowed us to cross the border into Brazil.

We went right through the Brazil border without having to stop (you have to travel through Brazil for about ten minutes to get to Paraguay by this route).

Then at the Paraguay border, Dane had the driver stop at immigration even though we could have driven by it so that we wouldn't have any problems when it came time to leave the country (we were under the impression that with our Argentina DNI's we obtained MERCOSUR rights that would allow us to cross in and out of MERCOSUR countries without having to buy visas; however, I think someone forgot to tell the people working the borders this :( )  The official at the Paraguayan immigration informed us that despite our DNI's, those of us who were U.S. born would have to have tourist visas (US $75/person) to be in the country and that we could obtain them at a Paraguayan embassy, which happened to be closed that day.  Dane showed the gentleman our plane tickets and explained to him that we were just passing through Paraguay to visit friends and then would be flying out from Asuncion in three days.  With some pleading, the man kindly let Dane buy transitory visas for US$40 a piece that would be good for eight days, but they would come without a receipt (if only we had known what that meant at the time).

To be continued......