Sick Willy and André the English Giant

Well, today was eventful!

Last night, William went to the doctor because he had a bit of a fever. He didn't have enough clear symptoms to diagnose anything, though, so they just told him to do the plenty-of-rest-lots-of-liquids thing. So, he was out of commission all day. No worries about his readers, though; we got in touch with them and rescheduled. Hopefully, he'll feel better tomorrow. (PS- Every time I touch an air conditioner, it stops working. Ask me about that later.) The rest of us went to lunch with Theresa Boyce (that's her and Chris's last name), which was great--it's always good to see more of the city, and she's wonderful company.

I had some repeat readers (Christiane and Giovanni), as well as some new ones (Myriam, Ivanmar, and André). Christiane and Giovanni are both beginning to share more of their personal stories, and I feel like I am getting to know them very quickly. Later this week, Christiane is going to a different state to take a test to qualify for a job. Please pray that she will do her best, and that God will help her see His will for her.

Myriam is great. To be honest, I was a little afraid of her before she came today. She's 79, very small, speaks broken English, and is not afraid to tell you what she thinks in any language. At the information session, she got mad at me because I wouldn't let her sign up for more than one reading--she even told on me to Kensey and William! "Remember my name," she said, "because I want to come more than once a week!" I thought I wouldn't have any time for her later this week when she's available to come, and I wasn't looking forward to telling her that. But all was well, and we had a very good session. She's very sweet, but if we got into a fight, I'm pretty sure she'd win. There are already a couple of stories to tell about Myriam, but we'll save them for later.

André's session was very encouraging to me. When I came to meet him, he was in the process of making fun of Kensey, so I knew he and I would get along well. He is one of the most fluent English speakers I've met here. The amazing thing about that is he taught himself. Not from books or Pimsleur or Rosetta Stone, either. He watched American DVDs with English subtitles. No exaggeration, he speaks better English than some of my U.S. friends (albeit with an accent). We were hardly into our first lesson when he stopped me and asked, "Why are you here?" I told him there were two main reasons: 1.) Many people here want to speak English, but lessons are very expensive, and usually not very good as far as real conversation goes, and 2.) It gives me a way to share my faith in a way that won't turn people off, regardless of beliefs, and actually gives them a good reason to keep coming back to talk to me about it. He told me that he wanted to learn English because he feels like God is calling him to be a missionary in South Africa, and he just wanted to know that other people in the world believe that doing such a thing is worth it. I told him it was, and that God has blessed him greatly. Our sessions will be more like total bible studies (with an explanation of slang words and why there's a "gh" in "through"). Even after our first 45 minutes, I know God is going to use that to bless me, too.

I just ate some leftover Chinese food (don't think too hard about that), and I'm ready to sleep for a long time. By the way, if you've noticed Kensey and I assaulting each other on our blogs, please know that we aren't actually having team drama. You probably picked up on that, but I don't want someone calling LST and demanding she be brought home for making me cry.

If she needs to be sent home for anything, it's stealing babies. They're not souvenirs, Kens!