From One Rain Forest to Another

As many of you know Alyssa and I recently left Peace Corps Guyana.

Don't worry everything is fine. My leg was not bitten off by a Jaguar, and no Alyssa is not pregnant, sorry Mom.

After experiencing a year of Peace Corps, we decided that coming home is what was best for us. While there are many factors that contributed to this difficult decision, the isolation, lack of village support and things going back home left us overwhelmed and feeling disconnected.

A few weeks ago we moved into the Alyssa's parent's house in Washington State and have hunkered down to attempt to resocialize. Fortunately, we are surrounded by beautiful forests (see photos) and we have not just been thrown back into city life. We have ventured out a few times only to realize that we have to re-learn to drive a car on the right side and walk into a grocery store without our eyes completely popping out of our skulls, but today we were able to walk into a coffee shop and order a drink. Success!

Our plan from here is to spend a few months processing the last year of our life and then to focus on getting jobs and finding a place to live. Alyssa has, of course, decided to get an upper grade teaching position and to go back to school to get her masters in reading, while I have decided to re-pursue junior high ministry at a local church and go to seminary. The prospects seem slim right now, but we are confident that God will provide.

We would love to talk to all of you and share more of our story, but as you can imagine we are a bit overwhelmed. If you want to chat send us an e-mail and we can set up a time to skype or something. 

Thank you all for your support and prayers. Please continue to pray for our sanity, direction and discernment in these next stages of our life.


As always, this blog will document our life adventures, so please keep following us.

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Sunrises and Sunsets

 Our favorite time of day here is the evening when the sun starts to go down and the village begins to quiet for the night.  We make dinner, do dishes, bathe, put the chickens in the coop, and play with the puppy.  The next two hours are spent under the mosquito net, reading or writing, sometimes just listening to the frogs and crickets outside if the village shop’s generator kicks off early enough.

It’s beautiful.  It’s simple.

And it all begins the next day with the sunrise.

Smoothing Our Walls

A few months ago, after enduring the company of numerous centipedes, spiders, and a scorpion, we decided it was time to smooth our walls.  Smoothing our walls is a big process.  The walls are constructed of pure mud which cracks over time, leaving lots of room for critters and crawlers.  To smooth the walls flat, a mixture of sand and mud is placed over top and smoothed over.  We asked for help and were amazed with the help that came!  We had so many people in our house, working all day long, helping us with the walls.  Someone brought local drink, and I cooked up some beans and rice.  The day ended with us feeling both exhausted and loved. :)

Barbados!

Paul and I aren't generally Barbados vacation people.  We usually prefer something with adventure and hiking.  However, after almost one year in the Peace Corps, we were ready for something a little plush and relaxing.  We had the chance, after Christmas, to take a vacation with Paul's best friend Nate and his wife Emily!  It was amazing, to say the least.  They're great people and we had so much fun together.  The perfect couple to spend a week with!

The beaches were so beautiful!  The water was crystal clear and the sand was littered with shells.

Seriously, there were a lot of shells.

Paul was able to get a couple of hours in surfing too.  

I know that I grew up watching the sun set over the ocean, but it was breathtaking anyways.  We caught the sunset every night that we could, and even on the cloudiest day, it did not disappoint us.

The one tourist type thing that we did was take a lunch cruise on a catamaran that took us to two different snorkeling locations.  We swam with sea turtles, plenty of fish, and explored sunken ships.  After the snorkeling, we had lunch, then sailed along the west coast of the island back to port.

It is incredibly difficult to get a picture of two people underwater.  Trying to fit into the frame of a camera held by someone also underwater led to some funny photos.

Look guys!  It's a turtle!

"Hi Mr. Turtle!"

This turtle bit Paul's foot!  Thankfully it was more like a nibble than an actual bite!

I love you!

Paul was brave enough to swim through some of the dark ships.  I swam through one and scraped up my leg.  Go figure.  

We had such a wonderful time!  Words can't even express it.  We enjoyed delicious food, I read three books, we swam in clean water, and spent some much needed time together.