Fall Update

It's so wondrously soul-lifting to sing to the Lord! I was reminded of that this evening while visiting a Christian sister. I have been visiting her every week or two, and often I take some strawberry popsicles. We chat, savor the refreshing sweetness, and sing hymns (from the Spanish hymnal) together. Tonight as we were singing such beautiful hymns as Blessed Redeemer, What Shall I Give Thee, Master?, Nearer, My God to Thee, This World Is Not My Home, Day by Day, In the Garden, I could feel my soul being refreshed and encouraged. I also realized that I need to sing more often! It's such an easy thing to forget to do when one's focused on daily cares, but just a few moments of praising the Lord can really change one's perspective and give a thankful heart.

As for this past month or more, mostly I've been working. However, I did enjoy spending a fun, relaxing day at the beach with E and a friend H! We were sort of celebrating E's birthday and also just enjoying the beautiful day. We hope to go again sometime in November--maybe at Thanksgiving!

Something I'm looking forward to in December, Lord willing, is visiting my friend M in the Dominican Republic. She and I graduated from Bible college together, and we both left the continental U.S. and moved to the Caribbean. We live on neighboring islands!!! One of our goals while we are still both here is to see each other at least once. It took a while for us to figure travel plans out, but, Lord willing, I will be seeing her in December over a long weekend. We are both so excited!

Also in previous e-mail updates, I've asked for prayer concerning future plans and direction. This time I would like to be more specific. When I moved to Puerto Rico, fresh out of college and ready for adventure, I was pretty certain my stay would be temporary. In fact, my goal was to stay for a year and see how it went. Well, I've been here over a year (16 months exactly). I've seen God's provision in so many ways--E's willingness to let me live with her temporarily, the provision of a job within a month of arriving, a car, an apartment ideally suited to my needs, a church family, and many opportunities to grow spiritually and stretch myself in ways that I might not have been able to do in the States. However, I am now sensing that my time/adventure here in Puerto Rico is drawing to a close (at least for now) and I am making plans to returns to the States sometime in the spring. One of the biggest reasons, of course, is my family. Including my years at Bible college, I've lived away from home for 4 1/2 years, and I would like to take advantage of the opportunity that I still have to build some really close relationships with my parents and siblings. Of course, there are other reasons as well. I guess one of my biggest prayer requests would be that I would make the most of the time I have left here for the Lord's glory! I find that, now that I've made the decision to leave, it's easy for me to be focused on leaving rather than on living and still reaching out to people here.

As for other prayer requests...

Kids' Club at church--for the children of the community and their families. The kids' club was moved to Sunday mornings and has taken on more of a "children's church" format. The change was for more leaders to be able to help and also, hopefully, to encourage the families to come to church. I teach a lesson this month (Nov. 29).

May God bless! Happy Thanksgiving!
R