The elderly gentleman who said he would come on Thursday to exchange the heifers came yesterday afternoon. I don’t even remember what I was doing, but I stopped it and helped Percy get the heifers taken care of. We were glad to see the heifer that returned is nice and fat.
Before breakfast, the president of the water committee and a helper stopped by. They are canvassing the area by foot to collect the annual payment for water. Because of Covid, they didn’t collect last year, so we had two year’s worth to pay.
They seemed much, much more cheerful than when they had come a year ago, accusing us of irrigating our fields with potable water. This time they said they would be willing to move the cut-off valve down out of the field above us to our house so that the neighbors couldn’t cut us off from water this winter. That would be a great blessing. We now have the president’s number to call whenever we have trouble, he said.
This morning, Shawn and I worked on combining two types of tracts. We stuffed Luz de la Vidas with Para Tis. It was then that I confirmed that I was off in my count from last week. I think I had said we did 1,500 each day, but we did a box of 1,500 that we split between the two days.
China and I had talked about it afterward in amazement that we had seen that many people, but we felt tired enough that it was believable. We shall blame Covid on my inability to do simple math.
Today, there were not nearly as many people out as last week. When we sold bread to Elisabet, she said it has been slow for a few days, and the radio is reporting that so many people are home sick with Covid, businesses are seeing few customers. That’s one way to make social distancing happen.
We handed out only ~500 booklets before deciding to go home. We just weren’t finding people to give the last batch to. It took longer than last week partly because there were fewer people, but mostly because we had planned to try to have more conversations if we had opportunity.
One lady talked to me awhile. She kept saying, “I don’t want to be a Christian. Keep your papers.” But then she went on about how good we are for the town. She wants to make us a quilt. She gave me her number to call her in a week to come get the quilt for our “wahwahs,” that’s babies in Quechua.
Another group of ladies at a restaurant recognized me as Josué. When I cleared that up, they wanted to know how Regina and Josías and the others are. They said they are the ladies who sold on the bridge by the Martin’s house in Izcuchaca. They miss Regina terribly, they said.
China and Dane also had a few conversations that made me laugh to hear. Did the lady actually want two tracts, or was she trying to refuse? We’ll never know, but she got two–whether she wanted them or not! And what did the officer think that had to chase them down in order to get one? Oh, the happy days of first learning a language!
Before leaving town, we did a little bit of shopping. I needed some more injectable vitamin to give the goats as I did the trimming.
We ate a late lunch and took a short breather before changing into chore clothes and heading out to trim hooves. The children took turns bringing goats to me and taking them to be tied in the barn.
We finished up with all the bred does and started on the kids before we stopped for evening chores. While we were working with goats, Percy was making progress on the next wardrobe. It’s shaping up nicely.
Prayer:
- Pray that our interactions when handing out tracts and the content of the material would lead people to Jesus.
- Pray that Rafael and Elisabet would answer God’s call.
- Pray that other families could come to live here.
- Pray that Javier and I can figure out my carnet process.
- Pray that Rafael Roca’s foot can be healed.
Juan David 