Learning to Receive

This week I have had the opportunity to learn how to receive instead of give. It is definitely stretching me a bit, but has resulted in an encouraging week. Here are some ways I have been encouraged this week.

I wrote that my hard drive crashed last week and it looked like it would be a month before I would be able to replace it. Jason Walke (an intern here the last two summers) ended up spending three hours on the phone with customer service working out a way to get it here quicker. He convinced them to try to send it so that Walter could bring it in February. To make a long story short, the delivery truck delivered it to Richmond, VA on Monday and Jason drove the hard drive to meet Ember (our new intern) at the airport for her departure. Thanks Jason!

Also, Dan Portnoy in Lynchburg, downloaded some software for me that I had lost when my hard drive crashed and sent it with Ember. This saved me hours of work trying to get the programs reinstalled. Thanks Dan!

While I was gone, Beth had all my furniture moved into the new apartment that she and I are now sharing (an overwhelming task). I was planning on trying to do this yesterday and today. When I returned to Taraz on Thursday morning, I came home to my new apartment with furniture in place. This allowed us to spend today doing some unpacking, decorating, hanging fixtures, etc. It is starting to look like home. Thanks Beth!

I was also able to easily cancel my debit card and a new one will hopefully be coming over with the next guest. Thankfully, Ohio (where I have my driver's license) is able to reissue a new driver's license without the picture (for security reasons). The paperwork for that will be coming over with Walter in early February. With that I will receive a letter allowing me to drive until I get the actual license (hopefully at the beginning of March).

Thanks for all of your prayers. We are having a birthday party for three children (each one gets to bring a friend) from Saramoldaeva orphanage tomorrow. We will play games, eat cake, eat pizza, and watch a movie. I will try to post some pictures from our time together early next week.