Update from Baton Rouge!

Greetings friends and family!

We finally got more pictures posted to our site! More still to come, too. It may be difficult to see some of these, so we'll try to explain as we post. Thanks to all for waiting patiently for us to provide some online updates.

We spent all morning today cleaning out, organizing, moving stuff, etc. in the church in order to better prepare it for more construction. Church services are being held right now in a local Baptist church on Sunday afternoons because the church bldg here is still under construction. A team is coming in a few weeks to sheetrock it.

We did a large food distribution on Th (4/19) and it went very well. The people were grateful and kind. We came back feeling great that we'd put in a good day. Even Andrew & Melanie got involved, passing bread from inside the van to us, outside the van. :->

During Melanie's nap time on M & W, Andrew is in home school down the hall, I (Chris) help lead class sessions for a Jobs For Life job training program, and Karen works on researching and writing grant proposals.

We are thrilled with how Andrew's homeschooling is working out. It's every day from 1:30-4 down the hallway with his friend Avery, taught by our friend, Krista, and he loves it. As you can imagine, he's counting down the minutes to 1:30 every day, starting around 1:10! Krista's doing a great job and he's already learning hand-writing. Meanwhile, he's also thriving with our own informal America curriculum, which focuses mostly on the American states. He can already point to and name 20 states!! :-> !!

For Krista, Andrew's participation is also wonderful because he helps get Avery acclimated to schoolwork. We're paying Krista for teaching Andrew, which helps with their adoption costs. Larry & Krista are adopting a 3 year old from Vietnam.

We love hanging out with Larry & Krista too and both A & M love playing with Avery. They had us over for dinner Fri night and then we all went to the Farmer's Market together on Sat. We talk, laugh and have a great time. Larry, Krista, and Avery are avid rock climbers. Larry prefers outdoor climbing, but they also do a lot of indoor climbing at a gym in Lafayette, LA (about an hour from here), where they know and reach out to a lot of the regulars. We have yet to join them for an outing. Chris has warned Larry that he's a walking injury, and prefers to stay on the ground, to prevent self-inflicted wounds. Larry is still pressing hard, so we may join them sometime soon.

Blessings to all our friends and family near and far, and check back often!