Friday morning we ate the French toast that we made on Thursday. It was sort of eggy. (But, I, Mike, think it was excellent and have ordered it again for Sunday morning.)
For work on Friday, the boys straightened up the upstairs of the school room that we have painted all week. Then, all of a sudden, they heard a scream downstairs. It was the girls cleaning the kitchen. Alyssa and Natalie had found the first . . . cockroach. They darted to the door—both the cockroaches and the girls. Joy cautiously approached one of the cabinets and slowly pulled out the tupperware until she found the cockroach. She picked up the first hard object near her and slew the five-inch long beast (Mike here again, it was about 1 1/2 inches if the truth be known). We continued to get out the tupperware pieces until we found two more big ones. The guys finally came to our rescue and Randall was the hero of the day. He helped us and when cleaning out another cabinet down below, he found a gigantic spider (Mike here again—they are not lying. I think it was the biggest spider that I have ever seen—that one may have had a five-inch diameter.) It had an egg sack that broke but fortunately by that time we had gotten it into a garbage can with about five inches of bleach water.
We were interrupted from our cleaning duties by lunch, American tacos. Alyssa and Natalie volunteered to make tacos in the other kitchen to get away from the cockroach kitchen. After lunch, Mr. Schmidt, the other missionary that the Pfaunmillers know here in Puerto Rico, came and made us a second round of Pina Coladas (without alcohol). They were made with pineapple juice, coconuts from his own trees and ice. They are very good. John Wiser used a machete to get the shell of the coconut down to the husk and then opened it to drink the milk and eat the meat.
After lunch we quickly finished cleaning the cockroach kitchen and left. We then travelled to a nearby park. A main attraction of this park is that it has various and sundry types of animals, but mainly iguanas. John tried to feed several of them pieces of his coconut.
After returning home and resting for about an hour, we prepared for the evening youth activity at the church. The games tonight were basketball and volleyball with several different twists. Joy, Zack, Alyssa and Randall beat a team of Puerto Ricans where only the boys could shoot, but they had to stay in one spot the whole game. The girls had to rebound and pass to get the ball to an open guy.
Twelve extra large pizzas were the fare for the refreshment time. Tonight we had 67 people present for the young people's meeting. Mike preached on justification, but because it was in Spanish, I didn't understand it. You'll have to ask him about it. Our group sang our special spanish song, "Solo Hay Paz en el Nombre De Cristo. " After the service, the team and the Puerto Riqueños played volleyball for about an hour. At the end, we had to say goodbye to a lot of new-found friends.
Dictated by the girls on the team and written by Mike (Dad)
Friday, July 7
Thursday
We started out our day by eating eggs, toast, cereal, and ham. We then went to the church and had a devotional from Mr. Pfaunmiller. John, Randall, Nadine, Alyssa, Mikey, and Faith went around the streets passing out invitations to the youth activity. Everyone else stayed and breathed paint fumes while painting the kindergarten class room. The invitation passer-outers ran into a few that knew English. They even ran into some who didn't know Spanish. Lunch consisted of sub sandwiches. After lunch Christy, Carissa, and Mrs. Pfaunmiller joined in passing out invitations. After passing those out we all watched people cement the roof. We had Puerto Rican food. Some found it yummy some thought it otherwise. At the youth activity Mike gave a message on the Righteousness of God. Natalie and Joy played Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee. There were three girls that responded to the invitation and made professions of Faith. After the Youth activity the boys played basketball down the road from the Pfaunmillers with a few neighbors also playing on the court. One of the men had a massive afro. These guys knew English so it was fun. The girls went back and made over-night French toast for Friday morning. It was a great day of fun and activity. Pray for the girls that made professions that they would be genuine.
Given by Nadine
Given by Nadine
Wednesday, July 5
Day Three
hello everybody. We have completed the third day of our missions trip. We started the day off with half the team painting the floors of two of the Sunday school rooms in the church and the other half painting another school room. That took most of the morning. After lunch we cleaned up and passed out invitations for the youth rally this week. I went with Mike and Faith. We had a couple of good responses, but most of the people's children were already grown up. I got to go to the grocery store whith Mrs. Pfaunmiller. It was really exciting getting to see the differences between American and Puerto Rican grocery stores.
At 7:00 PM, we went to the church for a teen rally. There were about 45 people there tonight. We had a lot of neat experiences talking with the other young people. Many of them do not speak much English and most of us do not speak much Spanish, so we do lots of charades. It was fun to try to communicate with them and get to know them better. Mike gave a message on sin and we had snacks and played lots of neat games. One of the games we played tonight was having two teams and one person from each team was blindfolded. As they were blindfolded, there were two water guns that were hid on each half of the court. The teams had to call out to their person where to go to find the water gun. The first person to find it could take off the blindfold and go and shoot the other person. It was hard if the gun was placed close to the opposing line as the other team would shout out wrong directions and try to confuse the blindfoldee. It wasn't bad to be the one who got wet though.
Besides it being very warm, we are having an excellent time. We appreciate all your prayers. I love you, mom and dad.
Oh, by the way. Randall brought in a can today and it had a gigantic spider in it— the size of a tarantula. It almost gave Alyssa and me a heart attack. We almost gave the guys heart attacks when we screamed.
Ok, I'll close this epistle for tonight.
Love,
Natalie
P.S. from Alyssa— I love you mom, dad, Michael and Dave.
At 7:00 PM, we went to the church for a teen rally. There were about 45 people there tonight. We had a lot of neat experiences talking with the other young people. Many of them do not speak much English and most of us do not speak much Spanish, so we do lots of charades. It was fun to try to communicate with them and get to know them better. Mike gave a message on sin and we had snacks and played lots of neat games. One of the games we played tonight was having two teams and one person from each team was blindfolded. As they were blindfolded, there were two water guns that were hid on each half of the court. The teams had to call out to their person where to go to find the water gun. The first person to find it could take off the blindfold and go and shoot the other person. It was hard if the gun was placed close to the opposing line as the other team would shout out wrong directions and try to confuse the blindfoldee. It wasn't bad to be the one who got wet though.
Besides it being very warm, we are having an excellent time. We appreciate all your prayers. I love you, mom and dad.
Oh, by the way. Randall brought in a can today and it had a gigantic spider in it— the size of a tarantula. It almost gave Alyssa and me a heart attack. We almost gave the guys heart attacks when we screamed.
Ok, I'll close this epistle for tonight.
Love,
Natalie
P.S. from Alyssa— I love you mom, dad, Michael and Dave.
Tuesday, July 4
Cuatro de Julio
Happy Fourth of July, or should I say "Cuatro de Julio." We were allowed to sleep in till 8:30 because of our long day. We had a great breakfast of eggs, cereal, toast, and fried ham. It began raining and continued to rain for a few hours even though Mr. Pfaunmiller told us that the south side of the island rarely gets much rain. The clouds that brought the raining covered up the sun making it not too hot out, but the rain added to the humidity. We worked in the upstairs of the church and in some of the school classrooms painting and cleaning up the floors. We all had our own labeled water bottles which we refilled often. As long as we stayed inside the fans kept the rooms cool, but even when we were outside the humidity was fine, I thought. We all survived and got a lot of work done, and that is the important thing.
Having Pastor Goldfuss there really helped because he could show us how to paint the walls and make them nice looking. We all got to paint, and Natalie was the only one that made a real mess. We used light green paint, and she managed to get it on the walls, floor, her hair, clothes, and arms. We all got covered in paint, but Natalie was probably the most skilled at getting the paint on herself. Natalie also got attacked by fire ants, but she was fine after a while. After we got lots of work done, even though we couldn't get all the stains off the toilet bowls, We went back home to the Pfaunmillers where we created a waiting list for the shower. After a few hours of showers, we and the Pfaunmiller family left to have a Fourth of July cookout at the Schmidt's home. The Schmidts are missionaries that live about 15 minutes from the Pfaunmillers and hold church services at their home.
They had a banana tree, and some coconut trees. John and Stephen Pfaunmiller enjoyed climbing up the trees and tossing down old branches and coconuts. After our meal of burgers, hot dogs, and other picnic foods, we went into the inside of the house for more fellowship. Mr. Schmidt made Piña Coladas (non-alcoholic) for us to enjoy.
After talking in their family room for a while, Mr. Schmidt brought us a devotional that turned into a powerful message. He talked about what it means to be a Christian and the success of serving Jesus. He shared his testimony, and as he cried during different parts of his testimony, I'll be honest, I had tears in my eyes as well. He really showed his love for the Lord and his desire to live for and serve him. We then shared testimonies and sang hymns. On the ride home we broke out into various patriotic songs and hymns. We met together before bed to have a time of prayer and discussion.
From Puerto Rico,
Randall J. Flack
Having Pastor Goldfuss there really helped because he could show us how to paint the walls and make them nice looking. We all got to paint, and Natalie was the only one that made a real mess. We used light green paint, and she managed to get it on the walls, floor, her hair, clothes, and arms. We all got covered in paint, but Natalie was probably the most skilled at getting the paint on herself. Natalie also got attacked by fire ants, but she was fine after a while. After we got lots of work done, even though we couldn't get all the stains off the toilet bowls, We went back home to the Pfaunmillers where we created a waiting list for the shower. After a few hours of showers, we and the Pfaunmiller family left to have a Fourth of July cookout at the Schmidt's home. The Schmidts are missionaries that live about 15 minutes from the Pfaunmillers and hold church services at their home.
They had a banana tree, and some coconut trees. John and Stephen Pfaunmiller enjoyed climbing up the trees and tossing down old branches and coconuts. After our meal of burgers, hot dogs, and other picnic foods, we went into the inside of the house for more fellowship. Mr. Schmidt made Piña Coladas (non-alcoholic) for us to enjoy.
After talking in their family room for a while, Mr. Schmidt brought us a devotional that turned into a powerful message. He talked about what it means to be a Christian and the success of serving Jesus. He shared his testimony, and as he cried during different parts of his testimony, I'll be honest, I had tears in my eyes as well. He really showed his love for the Lord and his desire to live for and serve him. We then shared testimonies and sang hymns. On the ride home we broke out into various patriotic songs and hymns. We met together before bed to have a time of prayer and discussion.
From Puerto Rico,
Randall J. Flack
Monday, July 3
Monday Night, 10 pm
Our team has made it to humid Puerto Rico. It seems as though Randall and Nadine got the most sleep last night before leaving. They said they slept a couple of hours. The rest of the team said they slept about 20 minutes. Mike slept for an hour and 15 minutes and Faith didn't go to sleep at all. There was so much to do with getting packed for the team, and youth camp that is coming up right after this week. Our family had a very good meeting yesterday morning in Bellevue, Ohio and then drove home in the afternoon.
After church last night, we left Matthew and Cherith at the McLean home and went home. Mikey, Cristiana and Carissa each slept from about 10 until 2:30 AM. Faith had to finish packing the kids' suitcases and also have Mikey's suitcase all ready for camp. He will leave for camp about 20 minutes after we land in Cleveland next Monday morning at 11:30!
We were all up this morning and left at 2:50 to go to Grace Church in Mentor. They loaned us their 15-passenger van and we all packed up and made it to the airport by 3:20 AM. We had to wait as they said they weren't open for another 20 minutes. Then we easily got checked in, went through security to our gate.
Our plane was scheduled for departure at 6:30 AM, so everyone decided that Cinnabons would make the perfect breakfast. They seemed a little bit doughy but they were very very tasty. That was good as we only received a small bowl of Cheerios on the plane from Cleveland to Houston. We arrived on time in Houston at 8:55 and everyone was feeling tired. Our next flight was supposed to leave Houston at 10:30. However, due to storms in the area we taxied late from the gate and then sat on the runway for 1½ hours with no air circulating in the cabin area. They were trying to get the air conditioning fixed. It was very stuffy and difficult as the plane was full.
It felt very claustrophobic for everyone, but the team did a great job with no complaints. Faith said that at one point she was ready to jump up running and screaming through the aisle because she felt like she couldn't breathe, but she didn't think that would be a good example to the team. We finally took off from Houston for Puerto Rico about 1:15. The flight lasted over 4 hours. We arrived in San Juan around 5:30 and were able to find all of our luggage.
Natalie and Mikey have both been battling with some sinus congestion and the second flight was extremely difficult for both of them. The pain in their ears was excruciating. Praise the Lord that Natalie was fine after some aspirin, but Mikey's did not clear up until we landed. Then tonight Mikey had a pretty serious nose bleed. Pray for that to get cleared up quickly this week so that they both won't have to go through that again on the return trip.
Mr. Pfaunmiller, his son Stephen and another missionary and his wife, met us at the airport and brought us the 1½ hour trip home with all of our luggage. San Juan is on the north of the island and Ponce, where the Pfaunmillers are, is about 75 miles on the southern coast. We had a good meal tonight with both of the families. We were very hungry after not eating too much on the airplanes today.
Tomorrow (Tuesday) we are planning on being at the church to do some cleaning, painting, and anything else that they want us to do. Pray for our strength as we need to sleep well tonight after not sleeping hardly at all last night. Thank you so much for your prayers.
We had several praises! We arrived safely and every single piece of our luggage was accounted for. We just had a wonderful time taking silly pictures and really enjoying each other as we traveled. They are a great bunch of young people!!! They call us "mom and dad"— so I guess we now are parents of seven teenagers!
In Christ,
Mike for the team
======================================
Due to technical difficulties, these updates were not received until Friday.
After church last night, we left Matthew and Cherith at the McLean home and went home. Mikey, Cristiana and Carissa each slept from about 10 until 2:30 AM. Faith had to finish packing the kids' suitcases and also have Mikey's suitcase all ready for camp. He will leave for camp about 20 minutes after we land in Cleveland next Monday morning at 11:30!
We were all up this morning and left at 2:50 to go to Grace Church in Mentor. They loaned us their 15-passenger van and we all packed up and made it to the airport by 3:20 AM. We had to wait as they said they weren't open for another 20 minutes. Then we easily got checked in, went through security to our gate.
Our plane was scheduled for departure at 6:30 AM, so everyone decided that Cinnabons would make the perfect breakfast. They seemed a little bit doughy but they were very very tasty. That was good as we only received a small bowl of Cheerios on the plane from Cleveland to Houston. We arrived on time in Houston at 8:55 and everyone was feeling tired. Our next flight was supposed to leave Houston at 10:30. However, due to storms in the area we taxied late from the gate and then sat on the runway for 1½ hours with no air circulating in the cabin area. They were trying to get the air conditioning fixed. It was very stuffy and difficult as the plane was full.
It felt very claustrophobic for everyone, but the team did a great job with no complaints. Faith said that at one point she was ready to jump up running and screaming through the aisle because she felt like she couldn't breathe, but she didn't think that would be a good example to the team. We finally took off from Houston for Puerto Rico about 1:15. The flight lasted over 4 hours. We arrived in San Juan around 5:30 and were able to find all of our luggage.
Natalie and Mikey have both been battling with some sinus congestion and the second flight was extremely difficult for both of them. The pain in their ears was excruciating. Praise the Lord that Natalie was fine after some aspirin, but Mikey's did not clear up until we landed. Then tonight Mikey had a pretty serious nose bleed. Pray for that to get cleared up quickly this week so that they both won't have to go through that again on the return trip.
Mr. Pfaunmiller, his son Stephen and another missionary and his wife, met us at the airport and brought us the 1½ hour trip home with all of our luggage. San Juan is on the north of the island and Ponce, where the Pfaunmillers are, is about 75 miles on the southern coast. We had a good meal tonight with both of the families. We were very hungry after not eating too much on the airplanes today.
Tomorrow (Tuesday) we are planning on being at the church to do some cleaning, painting, and anything else that they want us to do. Pray for our strength as we need to sleep well tonight after not sleeping hardly at all last night. Thank you so much for your prayers.
We had several praises! We arrived safely and every single piece of our luggage was accounted for. We just had a wonderful time taking silly pictures and really enjoying each other as we traveled. They are a great bunch of young people!!! They call us "mom and dad"— so I guess we now are parents of seven teenagers!
In Christ,
Mike for the team
======================================
Due to technical difficulties, these updates were not received until Friday.
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