With Love, From Me, To You

Please forgive us for our lack of updates. The last two and a half Weeks flew by before we realized it.

Last week we were at the Jamaica Deaf Village, living with Damion and Felicia Campbell. We took care of their three kids (along with some others), helped with VBS, helped with Speech class, and taught sign language to the missionary family.
This week we are back at the Knockpatrick campus with a team from Rachel's home town as well as a team from GA. We work with Erin in the mornings and then go with the St. Louis team to do Child Evangelism Fellowship at an outlying church in the afternoons.

As probably anyone could tell you who has gone away on a long trip, some of the best things we get are letters from home. We want to say a big "Thank You!" to everyone who has written to us (via snail mail or email), sent us packages, or commented on our blog.

It all started the second week. We were working in the office in Kingston and Ms. Leanora handed Rachel two envelopes! One was from her mom. She opened it to find an expandable letter banner that spelled out "YOU ROCK" - she's kept it in our room ever since. The second was from a family friend that had a picture of Rachel and her friend, as well as a newspaper clipping of important Jamaican news. It's nice to know that things like that trigger people's minds to us and encourages them to let us know!

About two weeks later, Betsy got something in the mail, but it was just a packet of schoolwork that she had requested from a professor. That same day, Rachel got a letter from home that included a couple of pictures. She was happy to see pictures of things that have been going on while she's been away.

We arrived at JDV and Mark White handed Betsy an envelope at dinner. She wasn't expecting any mail yet. But inside was a special "I'm thinking of you" card from her mom. It was exactly what Betsy needed that day.

Then just a couple days ago, here at KP again, we were piling into a van to go to CEF for the afternoon when Erin handed Betsy 2 envelopes! She examined the post marks of each so that she would know which to open first. The first one was another card from her mom, but this one was extra special. Inside were individual notes from the members of her mom's sign language group - all of whom have become good friends with Betsy.
The second card was extra EXTRA special - it was from Betsy's dog! Another "I'm thinking about you" card. Betsy's mom said that Minuette picked it out herself. :)

But the best one of all was the huge care package that came to us through the St. Louis team. With joint gifts from both our mom's and one of Rachel's best friends, we were super excited to find candy, snacks, notes, colored pencils, contact solution, comic strips, and various other things. It was like Christmas wading through all of it!

So thanks again to everyone who has corresponded with us while we've been here. We've only got two more weeks, so don't send any more mail now, but feel free to email! We love you all!