Last week: 13 things I am thankful for...

1.  Cooking spree!  Tracey and I both enjoy cooking, and are usually successful at it, but we are definitely recipe followers!  This week I took a U.S. recipe, converted the measurements into metric, realized we don’t even have measuring cups etc. here, also realized Chileans don’t use brown sugar, OR temperature gauges on the oven :)  It was only by the grace of God (literally) that we were able to share some delicious cookies with our students and family.

2.  Healthy food is cheeeeaaaappp!!!!!!!  Both sides of the table = same price.

3.  The unity of IAM and the incredible people that we work with.  Wednesday night we had a Team dinner at Diego’s house-  It’s hard to describe the amount of gratitude we feel for our teammates and our shared vision.  More to come on this later.

4. Walking to the grocery store!  We seriously love not having a car.

5. Learning more and more what it is to truly live in community.

6.  Quoting “Friends” around the table.  Not only did I discover that Fabián shares my same love for the series, but he actually OWNS all 10 seasons.  AMAZING!!!!

7.  A meal without bread!

8.  Getting to attend Institute classes.  This month’s topic = spiritual warfare.

9.  Date night with Tracey.  This week we went to this cute little pizzeria and then walked to the grocery store for fruit snacks :)  This pic is from our first Chilean date - Gracias a Chile for loving sushi as much as we do!  

10.  Saturday night we had some dancing lessons after Jon and Marcela’s engagement party.  (Next Sunday is Independence Day and apparently we are going to start celebrating and dancing Cueca from Thursday on!)  Thanks to our fabulous instructor, Claudio, we were well prepared to show off our new skills when we were pulled up on stage at church Sunday morning :)

11.  An entire living room full of Chilenos learning the Cupid Shuffle.

12.  Learning and teaching new card games all afternoon Sunday.   

13.  Anticipating a week’s worth of celebrating (and a LOT of meat we hear :) to come!    

  

Exactly one month in

  Every other time I’ve traveled abroad I was always counting down to the day in which I would be back in Charlotte, back with Christine, back to the kids at the church, back with friends and family…  It’s been such a strange and yet freeing feeling to not have a “return date.”   I guess this is what it truly feels like to leave one community and join another.

  Early this morning before heading off for church, I was listening to a podcast from Renovatus, our Charlotte church.  While I still feel very connected to our amazing home church, friends and family, our roots here are spreading and sinking in deeper and deeper.  We’ve had such an incredible month of serving and getting to know the amazing Chileans and yet at the same time, we’ve been served and loved in so many ways that we could never imagine by our new community.

  Almost a week ago, Monday night, we went downtown to help out with a homeless ministry that our church heads up.  It’s a ministry very similar to what Mat, Katie, Patrick, Courtney, the Boydstun family and I, along with so many others did for years in downtown Charlotte.  I had my predispositions and thought that it would be nice to just “check it out.”  At the end, Christine and I were the ones being served in such a fresh way, but I’ll let her tell that story later on.

  This past Friday, Doug/Diego and Shelly Kallestad were given (by their kids) a “weekend off” to celebrate their 29^th Anniversary.   If you only knew how incredibly busy and servant minded Diego and Shelly are, then you could grasp how much they deserve this.  And what did they do with this opportunity? 

  Well, they got some well-deserved R & R and yet blessed us at the same time.  They let us watch the house, which gave Christine and I the unique experience of our first ever vacation that we walked to.  We absolutely love the family we’re living with, but it was incredibly refreshing to spend some quality time alone with Christine.

  Obviously I realize and look forward to the day we will have a “return date” to see our loved ones back in the States, but until then I’ll just keep on counting up.  

Keitt Update - August 2011

Three Things that make me laugh (actually four)

This weekend I had the pleasure to join the men at our church on their annual retreat.  The theme this year was, ¨what does it mean to be a noble man?¨  Diego & Miguel did an amazing job of teaching and renewing us, but I'd like to share some comical/goofy things that happened in the last 48 hours.

1. Me trying to maneuver a spherical object around a muddy field into an incredible annoying net being held up by a metal cage.  They call this sport soccer.  My love of athletic sports combined with my inexperience in soccer is what drives me mad.  Luckily, we're planning on staying down here long term.  Who knows maybe I'll improve :) 
2. Waking up to Mauricio's (my roommate at the retreat) alarm playing the delightful toon "Sexual Healing" Marvin Gaye style.  We listened to some more of his songs and I've got to say, he's got good taste in the oldies genre.  There was just something weird about waking up to that song, in the middle of the mountains, in a cabin, curled up in sleeping bag beside my friend Mauricio.  Oh and just to clarify, Mauricio doesn´t speak English, he just likes the way the songs sound.   
3. As we were listening to a Chilean christian radio station on the drive back to Santiago, O' Happy Day from Sister Act came on. This led to the Chilean worship leader and I belting out this wonderful song bright and early as we rode down the highway.  You just have to love Lauryn Hill.
4. I saw this billboard on our drive back and got really excited since (1) it had my name on it and (2) Chileans always have a hard time pronouncing my name, so I could use this company or brand as a reference point. Well, when I asked Juana what it meant, he informed me that it´s basically a company that is know for its laxicatives.  What can I say to that?

         

Tour de Midwest

So of course this seems a little out of order...  Truth is it's taken us a little longer than expected to figure out the best way to post pictures. 

But we've got it!  We will be creating albums and you can view them by clicking on "Photo Gallery" on the top right side of our blog.  

So this was a blog that I wrote in the end of July, and now you can finally read it and see our photos of our incredible Midwest Tour this summer!  

(taken from July 31)


37 days, 7 states, 10 cities, 5 churches, 19 houses, 12 beds, 13 dogs.

There really aren’t words to describe this kind of gratitude.  Seeing so many close friends - from all phases of my life, and especially in a very short amount of time - is the most tangible reminder of God’s faithfulness to me in the past as well as the present.  It only makes me that much more excited and sure about His faithfulness in our future!

Unfortunately, we didn’t get pictures of everything and everyone.  But we did want to show you as much as we could!  (See "Tour de Midwest" album)

Thank you to all who invited us into their homes, fed our stomachs and our gas tanks, and contributed to an INCREDIBLY joyful 37 days! 

Back to School

And we're back at it! This week we began our ESL classes with the principals and administrative staff of the two elementary schools of IAM: Oriente (also our church) and San Luis. As of now, we have 8 students in our daily classes of an hour each. Since our ultimate goal is helping these two schools to become bilingual, our plan is to start with the principals first, then train the teachers next year (their school year ends in December) and then help facilitate the work with the students.

We absolutely LOVE it. Our students work so hard and are very gracious to these first time ESL teachers :) It's been really cool to see how Tracey's and my experience/training complement each other so well. I am basically teaching reading again, working with phonics and pronunciation. Tracey is taking over grammar and conversation, very similar to how he taught Spanish in the States. I know I'm biased, but it's pretty awesome team-teaching with each other!

AND - because nobody cares about copyright in Chile, we were able to copy our expensive curriculum for everyone!

It's going to be a great school year.

Around the Table

Yesterday our host family made the most amazing lunch for us! It was in honor of our becoming a part of their family- I don’t know how many times they have already gone out of their way to make sure we are comfortable and know that it is our house, but it has been amazing. And then we get all of this! It was a great day.

First, the food. ¡Increible!

Then, the company. Our host family is very close with the Flores family – soon to be in-laws actually as Marcela (our host-sister) is dating Jon (the middle Flores brother.) We sat around the table for literally 6 hours, telling stories, and laughing SO much!

If any of you prayed specifically for us to find good community and friends in Chile, these people are definitely our answer to that :)