May 18
Susan Hoover
Dear family and friends,
Hello! Well folks, I'm back to square one. I had been writing for several days in spare moments, and had a pretty decent length letter written already, and yes, it's terrible, but I somehow managed to delete it, by mistake!! So, we'll try again. Maybe this time it will stick. :-)
So, where shall I begin?? I
guess I'll start at the beginning, way back in Waynesboro, PA.
Those last few weeks were full, with decisions, packing,
sorting, and visitors! Yes, we had visitors almost to the end.
Our son Christopher, Maria and their family of six children came
from Minnesota and spent about five days with us. We absolutely
loved having them! Our house full and lively with children
running back and forth, chattering, saying cute things :-) .We
have very sweet, dear grandchildren and it was very special to
have them in our house, day and night, for awhile. We absorbed
all the joy and love!
The very day they left, my brother Peter and his wife Dorothy from Ontario, Canada, came to see us. Our time with them was so precious, too. They came late afternoon on Wednesday and stayed till Thursday afternoon. We got to do a few special things with them yet, like going to High Rock, and to Paul's Market, where the greenhouse is full of flowers and blooming plants ... Dorothy's delight! Dorothy put through a big load of laundry at our house too. I know how laundry piles up when one is traveling!
I was happy for the chance
to give both Maria and Dorothy quite a few things that I had and
knew I could not take along. I told them to look around and take
whatever they thought they could use, and they did.
So, then we had all of
Friday and Saturday to finish packing! Actually those last two
days were fairly relaxed yet, because we had done most of the
packing and sorting beforehand. And there is only so much that
you can take on an airplane. So once the suitcases were full to
capacity, that was it! We each had two big suitcases, a
carry-on, and a personal item. And each of those pieces was
packed to capacity!
Saturday Velina came over yet for a visit and to say good-bye -- we appreciated it! Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, joy, and peace. John and Velina have been a true brother and sister to us, and we will miss them!
Friday evening we took our final walk in Renfrew Park. We will miss this lovely place with its natural beauty and walking trails! As a special gift, we even saw a few deer walking around in the park and grazing. They kind of peered at us through the trees, and decided we were harmless and so kept on grazing ... Saturday evening we took a short walk yet just in Waynesboro -- around a few blocks. Good-bye, Waynesboro! Our home for seven years ...
Sunday morning we left around 7:00 or so, and drove most of the day, heading toward Winchester, Kentucky where we had arranged to spend the night at the home of a dear widow lady named Sheri Goodrich. We had never met her before, but learned about her through friends of ours in Switzerland, of all things! They knew her and when they heard we were traveling through Kentucky, they recommended we stop in and see her. So when we contacted her, she said yes, she would love to have us stay with her for the night, and would even make supper for us that evening. We arrived at her house around 5:00. Her son and family, Caleb and Melissa and their seven children, the oldest age 9, who also live in the area were also there to visit with us. So we got to add several more new friends to our collection! We had a delicious supper, which included Melissa's fresh homemade sourdough bread. We enjoyed the evening of visiting. Isn't it amazing how we find people in the most unlikely places, who also love the Lord and are serving Him to the best of their ability. And the fellowship we can have is precious! These people belong to a small fellowship in the town in which they live.
We had a good night, and in
the morning Sheri made breakfast for us before we got on the
road again. When we got ready to leave, we couldn't find the car
keys! We searched in all the likely places, but with no success.
We prayed, of course, and asked the Lord to help us. I was sure
I had laid it on the dresser in the bedroom we slept in. We kept
on searching, and Peter knelt down to look under the bed. As he
did so, I stooped down as well, and then I saw just the edge of
something showing under the low piece of furniture where we had
put our suitcase for the night. I bent down for a better look,
and sure enough, there were the keys!! Thank You, Lord!! The
keys must have slipped down behind the furniture at some point.
So then we were soon on the
road. Since we had extra time that day, we stopped at a museum
at Abraham Lincoln's birth place. It was a state park kind of
thing, so everything was free. It was good to get out of the car
and walk around for a bit anyway, and the place was kind of
interesting. We watched a 15-minute video, depicting Abraham
Lincoln's early life and on to the presidency. "Great" men live
and die, just like everybody else!
Around mid-afternoon we arrived at Dennis and Loretta Miller's home near Murray, Kentucky. Here it was good to relax and rest for awhile, and unwind. We didn't see Marc and Cindy this time, as they were in Indiana, leading another Christianity Arising conference like the one we attended last year in October. But the Millers' hospitality was impeccable, too! We had a delicious supper. After supper more friends of theirs (and ours, whom we learned to know last year) came over to visit as well. Kevin and Juanita Martin and two small children. We had fresh strawberry pie with whipped cream -- yum!
In the morning we had an
early breakfast, and by 7:00 we were leaving for the airport,
with Dennis taking us. (We said good-bye to our faithful car and
left it there, to be taken back to Missouri where its former
owner agreed to buy it back).We flew from Nashville, TN and the
trip from Murray to Nashville is usually two hours. But it is
good we left in plenty of time, because we had some delays!
First we ran into road construction and were stopped in a line
of traffic for a time. Then some time later we were stopped
again, and didn't move for at least half an hour or more. After
we got going again, we saw that there had been an accident. We
still got to the airport in plenty of time. Thanks to Dennis, he
dropped us off at the curb, then went to park his vehicle and
came back and helped us haul all our luggage in to the check-in
desk. We appreciated it! We had some overweight bags, so we
reshuffled some stuff so that only one bag was overweight,
because we had to pay an extra 100 dollars for each overweight
bag. :-( But when we considered what we paid for the ticket to
begin with, we still felt we got a good deal. (Delta Airlines,
and LATAM from Peru to Paraguay.)
So we got all our big suitcases checked in, then went through security without incident, and found our gate with still an hour till boarding time. The first flight was very short -- just a hop of about 45 minutes, to Atlanta. In Atlanta though, we only had one hour till our next flight left. I checked the departures screen when we came in and saw that our gate was F1, in the international part of the airport. It was far from where we were now, so we followed signs and began walking. Down a couple of escalators, then aboard a subway. We rode clear to the end of the line, then got off and did some more walking. When we found our gate, passengers were already lined up for boarding. Once again, THANK YOU LORD! We made it. We never even sat down in that airport.
The next flight was 5 hours 45 minutes long, to Lima, Peru. I have often wished I could sleep soundly for hours on a plane, like some people do, but I cannot. I snooze a bit at times, and catch a few winks here and there, but it is not very restful sleep!
In Lima, we had three hours' layover. Our flight to Asuncion left after midnight. This flight was 3 hours and fifteen minutes long. There are two hours of time difference between Peru and Paraguay, making it 6:15 a.m. when we landed. We wearily went through immigration, collected our luggage (it ALL came!!) and passed through customs. Erdmann Giesbrecht and his wife, Gertrude, came to pick us up. Erdmann is the president of the committee of directors here for the Home. They came with a two-seater pick-up, and loaded our luggage onto the back. Partway to Campo 9, we stopped for a break and got toasted sandwiches and coffee for breakfast. Farther on down the road, we joined a long line of traffic, waiting on protesters who had the road blocked! Farmers, protesting something or another. When we finally got going again we passed a LONG line of tractors, parked beside the highway!
I must admit I dozed a few times on the way to Campo 9, after missing a whole night of sleep. In the front seat, Peter and Erdmann talked a mile a minute! Discovering much common ground in Christ. When we got to Campo 9, it was noon. Erdmann and Gertrude took us to a new Mennonite restaurant for lunch -- delicious, homestyle food and plenty of it! Their three sons also came to join us there.
Then, at last, we were headed for the Hogar Esperanza! The first people we met there were Hein Hildebrand and his wife, Tina. They were still busily getting our room set up for us, as the other people had just moved out that morning. Our "house" is a little building apart from the main Home buildings, and consists of a fairly good-sized bedroom, and a bathroom. It's pretty simple and basic, but we are working at making improvements to make it more homey! It even has air conditioning, which at this time of year we are not using much. It is fall here, and the nights are chilly, even though the days get nice and warm.
Hein is also one of the directors of the Home. He is here nearly every day, and his wife comes along at least three days a week. She is always on the go! Hein and Tina have raised a family of 14 children, all grown and almost all married, and are still very active in spite of the fact that Hein has had serious health issues. God's healing hand on his life has been phenomonal. He is 73 years old, his wife is 67.
And now, I am going to send this before I lose everything again!! And I will soon send chapter 2 :-) At least you all know we are still alive! And thanks to the goodness of our God, we are doing well. We are enjoying it here, and feel totally at peace that this is exactly where God wants us to be at the present. We have an excellent opportunity to serve "the least of these" that Jesus talked about!
Serving with joy,
Susan