God’s given me a nice truck down here…and I’m very thankful.  It’s fun and drives nice and I like it.  I just wanted to state that for the record before I tell you that…it’s often not very clean.  People hassle me a lot about that.  Don’t get me wrong…I like driving it when it’s clean.  I told the guys the other day that I’m pretty convinced that it goes faster when it’s clean.  Or maybe that’s just me.  At any rate, I’m not a guy who likes to drive a dirty truck.  

But here’s the thing…for those of you who’ve been down here and have witnessed my road in all it’s glory, you understand that it’s kind of tough to keep vehicles clean with that road.  Every time it spits a little, our block becomes a veritable mud-hole.  It’s fun mind you…but not condusive to a clean vehicle.

So I washed my truck yesterday…or rather had it washed (that’s how you do it here).  This morning I was driving a couple of the guys to pick up a few things for the house, and they were teasing me about how dirty my truck usually is, and how rare it is for it to be clean.  I was getting a little defensive and was trying to explain all my excuses that I just wrote above, when we drove past a group of random little kids from our neighbourhood, and one kid commented, 

“Hey look, he washed his truck!”

Yea…I’m never going to live that one down.  That was the end of the guys listening to anything I had to say about the subject.  They were still laughing about it this afternoon…

Anyhow, I’m actually writing to ask you to pray for a couple of things here.  First of all, for our pastor, Jorge.  For those of you who’ve been following along here for awhile, you know that he and his wife were in a bad accident in January.  It’s been amazing to see how God’s healed him over these past months (more than a few times the doctors said he wouldn’t live through the night).  His life really is a miracle.  But he’s still been having a few problems.  From the impact of the other vehicle he was thrown across the car and out through the passenger side window (I think I’ve mentioned that).  He can’t hear much out of that ear yet, and recently there’s been another development.  A few times last week he had episodes of extreme dizziness and nausea.  He says it’s a pretty terrible experience when it happens.  It seems there’s some problem with his inner ear.  The doctors are looking at it, and are saying he’ll likely have to have another surgery in June sometime.  So if you could pray for healing, and for peace for Jorge and his family, and for the doctors to have wisdom as they determine what exactly is wrong, that’d be great.  I know Jorge and everyone here would appreciate it.

As well, if you could continue to pray for myself and the guys here.  We’re doing okay, but it definitely feels like we’re coming under some attack from a wide range of different areas.  It’s been a bit crazy really.  I’m working at having patience and I’ve been praying a lot for wisdom, but still…it’s been a challenge.  On the upside, it has brought out some issues in the guys’ lives that needed to be dealt with, and that’s always a good thing.  I can see most of them working to change, with the exception of one guy maybe.  So pray for him as well.  God knows who he is.  That’s been tough too…knowing how to respond to this kid. 

Anyhow…thanks as always for reading and praying…

PS  I’m feeling a bit vindicated at this moment…and just thought I’d share why.  I took the above picture just before I started to write this post.  It’s been hot and sunny all week and all day today too, by the way.  The picture below is of my truck 10 minutes ago…in the rain…

Exactly.