that's my boy!

Rachel asked Malachai one recent Sunday afternoon what he had learned in Sunday school.
"in soccer you can only use your feet - - not your hands!" he told her.

(that's right! top-o'-the class!)

apparently I need to make my lesson plans a little more interesting to compete with the after-service soccer games that go on in the Sunday school room with the "big boys"

Rachel complains that she has been telling Malachai that bit of soccer wisdom for months now, and that he credits it to someone else!

beach and bell peppers

up to the beach today (San Sebastian) on our family day off; look! the red peppers - - just like I said!

on becoming Spanish

something I picked up from my neighbor - - roasting red bell peppers; they are then skinned, cleaned, sliced, and fried up with garlic in olive oil.

a very nice Spanish way to serve them is to put them with thinly sliced pork loin and cured sheep's milk cheese on a baguette

Kalamata olives and a dandelion experiment

Sunday was delightful; we had an unexpected lunch guest, and then two more families for an unexpected coffee . . that turned into an unexpected dinner. it's nice that Spaniards don't eat much for dinner - - the fridge was empty but I was able to feed them all with a bunch of tomatoes, some cheese , a few baguettes, and (oh! I'm glad I found this in the back of my cupboard!) a can of olives . I was thankful for this chance to exercise my gifts within the church; its so nice this way!I get a lot of dandelions around here (because of this . . .) and have found with Malachai that if you keep the bright, sunny yellow dandelions in a vase long enough, they turn into the lovely, fluffy, blow-away dandelions!

playing in the backyard

"Hola!"
he stands at windows - - any window - - and yells this at people on the other side

we combined our weekly Saturday frisbee get-together with the Veldts, with a birthday party for Joshua (yes, again!) yesterday afternoon in an attempt to invite unbelievers that we know into the context of the believing community. We are convinced that the power of the gospel is evidenced through the church - - God's "kingdom of priests" . . . his "holy nation", and have been trying to be more purposeful about sharing Christ's gospel through his community
and, well . . . the Veldts showed up!
and we had a lovely time with them, but I am a wee bit discouraged that of the many people we invited, none showed up (most had pretty good reasons . . . but still disappointing!)
ah well, we will keep trying.