Beware the roaches...

Cockroaches.

Yes, this is a story about a cockroach. I didn't give him a name in real life, but perhaps we can call him Roachie.

Cockroaches, while not any sort of threat to life here in Ixtlan, do exist. Ask Jodi. One interrupted our Skype-chat conversation one night when it went crawling across my desk and I had to wage an impromptu war. I won that one. Raid spray is my favorite, then I don't have to deal with crunching exoskeletons and just sweep up the roach a couple of days later.

Anyway. Roachie.

Today I went to plug my iPod into the speakers I have in the classroom. The textbooks we have use quite a bit of audio and so I use my iPod during class. Well, I had a problem. The speakers weren't getting any juice. No matter how many times I pushed in the power button, nothing happened. No power light. No sound. Nothing. This can be frustrating, especially when you need sound. Thankfully I didn't need it today, although it came close.

Anyway. Speakers.

So I had class and went back to trying to figure out what was wrong. After trying different electric outlets and being generally confused, I shook the speaker to see if any parts were loose.

It sounded like a small etch-a-sketch. This made sense. It's been windy lately and dry. I just didn't think that much dust and sand could have gotten in the speaker while being in the school.

'Ah, well' I thought, 'Time to do surgury.' Of course I didn't have the screwdrive that I needed in the house so after borrowing one from Marshall and Jan, I proceeded to commence operations on my speaker. The operation was pretty typical. They put the screws in the deepest holes so you can never really tell what you are doing. You just have to have a long skinny screwdriver. I think the electonics companies are working with Craftsman.

Well, I got the speaker open and the 'sand' started to fall out. It looked familiar. It looked like the aftermath of a roach. By aftermath, I mean fecal matter. Not cool. So, with greater caution and over the trash can, I continue opening the speaker and, there, scared to death (with good reason I would think), staring back at me was Roachie. Roachie had made home amongst all the wires of my speakers. Considering that we haven't had classes for three weeks. I have no clue how long he had been living there.

I proceeded to do the only logical thing. I knocked Roachie out of the speaker and into the trash can and went for the Raid can.

That took care of Roachie, but what about the speakers. Allowing for the fact that I know nothing about the inter workings of electronics, I feel like I gave things a pretty good looking over, but I don't think Roachie like the way things were organized and had done his damage. Thankfully we didn't pay much for those things.

so I swept things up and and am ready to move on now. Excitement for the day is now over. I think, who knows what else may happen.



Here is Roachie on his way out. Poor guy. Wrong place at the wrong time.


Prayer:

1. We started classes again today. We have six more weeks. Pray that these weeks would be productive academically and in relationships. Pray that God would use this year for His glory and that He would do His work. Pray that we could finish strong leave these kids thinking about more than just English.

*By the way, I'm coming home June 29th and will be home until the 20th of July. Woohoo!

**Oh, it rained last Thursday and Friday night. Yea!!

We had one day of school on Monday before schools, at least what would be elementary and middle schools, were told to shut down again as precautionary measures and to clean the schools. So here I sit again.

I am not blockmaking this week. I have to catch up on some other things. I finished an online course for teaching English and am going to try to get some more things figured out for the next year. Not much going on really.

I will say this. I am looking forward to rain. It's like a game right now. A really bad waiting game. It could rain any day, but you never know when that will be. I miss the peacefulness of a good soft rain and the power in a good storm. So I wait for the rain. Maybe today, maybe not.

Also, Grant Herrmann is coming back for the summer. He will get her the 22 of May, in about a week. So there will be another person around here. The summer will go fast I know and soon I will be teaching again, but that's okay. That's why I am here, no?

Prayers:

1. Pray for the last couple of weeks of English classes and praise God that we have been able to make connections with many kids here in Ixtlan. Pray that we can continue those relationships.

2. Pray for the continued work on the school. We still have a lot of work to do and there are still many things that need to be pulled together. Pray that we would have wisdom as we work through these things.