We thank God for beans and rice.

(Linda) Greetings to all our family and friends:

We forgot to mention that we finally finished filing the windows in Casa Patsy on Thursday so to celebrate, we skipped the beans and rice that we usually have and headed off to Fancy's for a special dinner.  Since I've been here (April 18th), we've been to Fancy's four times, had tortillas de harinas one evening and yesterday evening we went to a new place called El Establos (The Stables) restaurant.  Aside from those outings, we've had beans, rice, home-made tortillas, and home-made salsa almost every day.  We had stir fry meat and veggies one evening but weren't real sure what kind of meat it was.  Every time we go to Maxi Despensa's, we cruise the meat counter and after perusing the selection, we lose our nerve and opt for our old standby....beans and rice.  Jeana and the kids have been here since April 4th and tonight for the first time, we started hearing grumblings about the steady diet of beans and rice.  The kids started talking about Taco Bell, Chipotle's, Taco Bueno, La Hacienda, and Christina's.  Sounds like they may be getting homesick for some good old Texas cuisine.  And I have to admit, my mouth started watering just thinking about some of my favorite eating places.  But, we prayed over our beans and rice and thanked God for the opportunity to be here and serve in His name.

Raul, the Korean who lives next door, found a baby hummingbird today and gave it to David and James.  Of course, we were thrilled!!!  So, we've been hand-feeding it sugar water, but it's not looking too healthy.  Earlier, it was able to fly about 4-5 feet, but hasn't attempted to fly in the last several hours.  Not sure it's going to survive.  Raul and Gloria have two parrots who yell and carry on every morning and evening, so Wil has been trying to teach them to say, "tastes like chicken."  They speak a combination of Korean and Spanish, so maybe they can add a little English to their vocabulary by the time we leave.

Early this evening, we started seeing big storm clouds developing and moving in from all around us, so we got all excited thinking it might rain, but they were just tormenting us again.  Zacapa is a desert encircled by mountains, and we can see the mountain rain nearly every day, but it never reaches us.  It did rain here this morning before church for about 60 seconds which just turned the area into a sauna.  Mountain-Pastor Jimmy says it will start raining on May 15th, so we're still hoping.

I'm posting pictures of the baby hummingbird, and hopefully, we can post pictures of a rain storm in the near future.

The baby hummingbird

His nest/bed of leaves.

Storm clouds over the mountains.

More storm clouds and sunset over the other mountains.

Wil's failed attempt at capturing the lightning.  Church in foreground.

Korean birds.  Every morning, they yell, "Hola."