I wanted to make a quick note about singing.  It is the best thing ever.  In my family in MI we sing a hymn before we eat dinner.  I remember years ago when we started doing this how we (the kids) would complain and complain and whine and beg not to have to sing a hymn before we ate dinner.  I suppose we were just really hungry, or just whiney kids.  Well, I am so glad my parents stuck to that idea of singing before dinner because now I have bunches of hymns stored up in my head which come to my heart when I need them.  One of the first hymn we would sing together was How Firm a Foundation.  I think this could possibly be the theme song for my exchange year.  God has been so faithful!! (and will continue to be)

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
You, who unto Jesus for refuge have fled?

In every condition, in sickness, in health;
In poverty’s vale, or abounding in wealth;
At home and abroad, on the land, on the sea,
As thy days may demand, shall thy strength ever be.

Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed,
For I am thy God and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen and help thee, and cause thee to stand
Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.

When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow;
For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

When through fiery trials thy pathways shall lie,
My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.

Even down to old age all My people shall prove
My sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love;
And when hoary hairs shall their temples adorn,
Like lambs they shall still in My bosom be borne.

The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.

Other simple song I love are
Let the peace of Christ rule in your heart
I´ve got peace like a river (joy like a fountain and love like an ocean)
and many many more

Hola!

I was thinking about writing my blog in Spanish, but I thought that would kind of defeat the purpose of having a blog because none (or at least few) of you would understand it.  So I decided against it. Today I had a pat yourself on the back moment.  A guy came into the class today and did a presentation on reforestation and then we had to write a one page summary of what he said.  And I did it all by myself!!!!!!!  YEAH!  Not trying to be boastful...just extremely happy.  It made my day !

Nothing too extreme has happened these past couple of weeks.  Just school and school.  I like school though, I like my classmates and it´s not boring.  I can actually do the work too!  The only class I truely don´t don´t don´t like is algoritmica, it´s terrible.  I don´t even think I would understand it if it were in English.  Luckily we only have that a couple times a week.  

Yesterday was Ellies bday.  I love you Ellie.  All I have to say about that is when I get home I really want to have some friends over, sit on the couch, watch a movie, and eat shredded cheese.  

May is filling up pretty quickly.  May 7-9 I am going to the Chaco with group which is organized by AFS.  I am so looking forward to it.  I hardly know anything about the Chaco except it is really dry, Menonites live there, and there is a brand of dairy products which has their headquarters there.  It should be pretty interesting.  I am also looking forward to spending time with the AFSers.  I love our little familia de intercambistas!  Then the next weekend I am going to Asuncion with my classmates to go the concert of Wisin y Yandel, yeah reggaeton music!  I am SOOO excited!  And the ticket wasn´t even that expensive and it looks like we are going to have good seats.  At the end of May I want to visit my missionary friends again.  It´ll be nice to get to see them again and see the progress on their house.  

It´s cooled down alot.  I don´t always have to sleep with the air conditioning.  The weather now is like late spring in MI.  

Only 9 more weeks.  And I am going to enjoy every second of it!  

Love you all!!!!

Erin

I had the most incredible unique Easter break EVER.  I will tell you what happened...

Tuesday. After school I came home, ate lunch, packed my backpack, and went to Asuncion in a bus with Sady.  Sady and I didn´t go together because there wasn´t enough space in the car for all of us to go together.  But the bus we took was really nice and less cramped than the car, so it was fine.  The bus ride was about 5 hours.  This was the first time that Sady or I had traveled to San Lorenzo in a bus by ourselves, so we didn´t know where to get off.  Luckily there were some kids from our school on the bus too and they helped us out.  From where we got off, it was only about a 10 minute drive in the car to get to my grandma´s house.

Once we got there we ate some food, hung out with cousins a bit, and went to bed.  My "uncles´" houses are right next door.  There are actually 3 houses in a row, but they are all the yard are connected.

Wednesday. The rest of my family got there early the next morning.  Once I woke up and got ready for the day I was put to work making chipa.  Chipa is sort of like bread.  We made TONS of it.  Seriously.  Picture your average sized laundry basket, now fill that with chipa dough, that´s how much we made.  It was fun molding it into little edible sculptures.  Chipa is baked in special oven call a "ta ta kua"  I am not sure how you spell it.  It´s like half a sphere made out of clay and bricks.  First they made a big fire in it and then when the coals got super hot they places the cookie sheet of chipa right on top.  The chipa baked super fast, like 7 minutes.  We made SO much chipa.  The rest of the day was spent hanging out with cousins, drinking terere, cocido, and eating chipa.  That night we watched a movie and went to bed.

Thursday.  More cooking and baking.  We made lots and lots of sopa paraguaya.  It is a traditional food of Paraguay made with cheese, corn flour, butter, salt, milk, eggs, and mandioca flour.  They mixed the batter all together in a hug laundry basket type thing with there hands.  You bake sopa in a brownie pan (I don´t know the real name for that type of pan).  I think we must have made about 20 or more pans sopa, and it all got eaten within the week.  We also made lots and lots of chicken.  These things were also baked in the tatakua.

When I say we made chicken and dont mean we threw some frozen chicken legs in the oven.  My cousins brought some chicken when they came.  We kill the chicken and everything.  It was pretty disgusting.  I just walked outside and there were a bunch of dead chicken hanging in the tree from their feet.  Then my uncle came and cut off there heads.  Then I helped my aunts pluck them.  Yes, I plucked a chicken!  I never thougth I´d ever have to do that.  It´s actually pretty fun.  You just put the dead chicken in a pot of boiling water, and stir it around a little.  Then grab the chicken by the leg and, pluck!  It totally grossed me out at first, but once you get into in, I guess it´s not that bad.  It was for sure a new experience.

Good Friday.  Apparently you aren´t supposed to do anything on Good Friday, that is why we did so much cooking and stuff before hand.  We just sort of hung out and watched tv, ate ice cream, drank terere.  Then that evening we prayed.  Well actually they call in reciting.  There little system is really interesting.  The whole family got together in a group and went around to different "stations"  At ever station someone read something  and then said the Lord´s Prayer.  There were 15 stations, but it really didn´t take that long to get through it.  After all that we all sat around and celebrated with popcicles!  Then we all ate dinner together.  Usually my family doesn´t pray before they eat, but I guess because it was Good Friday, someone suggested that we should bless the food.  That was turned down with the excuse that we had already recited enough for one day.

We made a little movie theater outside.  We put the tv in he front yard and everyone just pulled a chair up.  Then we went to bed.

Saturday.  Saturday we took a 30 minute (or so) bus ride to the mall in Asuncion.  We walked into the mall the at the same time that the Cerro soccer team walked in.  It was so funny, it was a big group of guys all wearing matching clothes.  I wonder if they always go everywhere together and wear matching clothing.  We got a picture with them!!  Even though I a really a Olympista, it was still exciting to see someone "famous" Our plan was to go to the movie theater, but they were all playing too late, or we had alread missed them.  That turned out to be just fine though because I got to explore the mall.  We went into a bookstore where I found a Paraguayan cookbook.  I am so excited to have that because I really like eating and making Paraguayan food.  I also bought a "yo <3 PY" shirt. There is this one section of the mall called something like "American Shopping".  It was kind of weird to go there are see "American" brands like Abercrombie and Holister.  I hadn´t even noticed that I never see that stuff here.  Being in a mall was a little like being home, even though I don´t go to the mall that often, neither do I adore shopping.  It was a fun time to hang out with cousins and see more of Asuncion.  I am so glad I got the chance to go.

Sunday.  We ate a lamb, or maybe two.  The system for my family is something like grill an animal, put it in the middle of the table and everyone just sort of cuts off a chunck and starts eating.  It was super yummy.  Of course we also ate sopa paraguaya.  yum yum.  My little sister Milena said that she had never head the Easter story before so I read it with her.  After that we talked a bit and it was really sweet.  I feel bad for her because there is really no one to teach her about God and his truth.  I had always taken the "bed time Bible stories" and "dinner devos"  for granted, but now I appreciate them SO much.  It is really incredible to think how dedicated my parents are to raising their kids in God´s truth.  I can never thank them enough for what they have given me by teaching me about God and his ways.  Later on we watch part of The Passion of the Christ.  It was super sad but also super happy at the same time.  While watching it I was glad that the TV was really fuzzy because it made the goriness of it a little less intense.  So yes, that was my Easter 2010.  And I must say, I have never watched so many movies in 1 week.

"Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; HE HAS RISEN!"-Luke 24:5-6

H A P P Y      E A S T E R!!

Love,
Erin