if you read that short-lived post....

Well, after laboring over a very honest but rather "Israelite-like" post about the difficulties of living here, I decided to delete it.  If you happened to read it before I pulled it off the blog, you'll know what I mean.  I'm sorry you had to read that.

I can't seem to find a balance between "truly recording" and digressing into self-pity when I speak about the difficulties here.  Perhaps it is enough to say that life here is not what I expected.  It's not what you would expect either.  But not much in this life is.  My biggest trial is probably that I can't really talk about it with anyone here.  "Being understood" is not something any of us has a right to.  Jesus certainly wasn't "understood."

Pray for us as we consider moving to a cheaper rental home.  We really need to find a way to cut back on expenses, and rent is the only thing we can trim.  Our landlords have already cut the rent here by an extra $100 a month.  And that's after cutting it by 25% since Keith does the yardwork.  There is one home that seems to fit our family and the target rent price.  It slipped through our hands before due to timing, but now that we're "on the island" we have a better chance of "jumping on it" when it comes available.

Please pray that we're able to financially (or otherwise) find a way to:

• Get our kids to the dentist (and possibly even acquire braces for one or two)
• Get some routine medical tests run, like a mammogram for Kristin
• Provide music lessons for at least one kiddo
• Either fix our van (the transmission is caput...the estimate is not good...) or replace it
• Bring in an exterminator (for our tarantulas, roaches, and "no see-ums")
• Cut our utilities down as far as possible.  Also pray that things which may be adding to the utility bills (major leaks in the plumbing, etc,) will be fixed by our landlord.

Thanks friends.  God knows.  He sees.  That's really all the "understanding" we need.