No, we didn't just get back from Monte Video!

I have been a very terrible blogger. I have thought of this often, but always will get around to it. We all know how that goes. I know it would seem that since April I would have tons to talk about, but honestly, not too much.

The first thing I will tell you all is that a very special prayer has been answered. Our little Maria Fe has been adopted by a family from Italy. We were so blessed to have been able to have this sweet little one in our lives, and we praise God that he has provided her a family to love her. In October I was able to visit my friend Patty (her husband is on the new site in Peru) who is back living in Peru. We were able to go to the Children's Home and see all the new babies, and our babies that are now toddlers and 2-3 year olds. It was a wonderful day hugging and kissing and cuddling all those sweet children. Please continue to pray for the New Life Children's Home and Bro. Mike & Chelene Kennedy in Peru. www.PeruMissions.com They can always use any amount of support, the info is on the website, and as someone who has been there and seen the difference this home makes in the lives of these children I can assure you this is a worthy investment. God will truly bless you!

Argentina is a beautiful country, but I must say it is a place I would rather visit than live here. But, we are learning and adjusting to life here. We haven't had any time for fun travel around the country yet, as Everette is still working at least 6 days a week. Being Construction Manager for the site keeps Everette always busy, but he loves the job, and they definitely need the power here. They have both turbine plants online now producing power and my power at the house still keeps going out 2-3 times a week! Every time the power goes out now I look toward the plant to see if black smoke is billowing up from that direction! Everette doesn't think that's as funny as I do!!!!

When we return from home in January we are moving back to the city of Rosario. Living in the country has been nice, and I will miss my friendly neighbors of cows, horses, birds, owls, and frogs. However, I will not miss the bugs, mosquitos, and SPIDERS!! In one of my post I had told about the spider I found under the bedspread the first night we stayed here, well, that has proven to be nothing compared to the 10-13 spiders I kill everyday. And then there were the bees in the shower, we don't know how they get in there, somehow through the ceiling, I would go up during the day and find 50-100 honeybees in the shower. Thankfully they would all fly around the window trying to get out (the window is never opened because there is no screen) and eventually drop dead. Now just imagine having to sweep up the bees before you could get in the shower, weird isn't it? It has just proven too difficult to keep living out here, Everette doesn't get home until around 7-8, and then if we have to drive into the city for groceries or whatever it is 12 before we can get back. Plus I have had enough of the power going out, the Internet going out, and no phones out here. So, we will become a high rise apartment dweller again. Hopefully this job will be complete by November of 2009, and we sure would like to get a site in the States for Everette's next project.

I will admit that the time has gone by quite quickly it has seemed. Only 14 days until we fly out for home. Our flight leaves Dec 18th and we get home on the 19th, I hope to savor every minute we get to be with our family and friends. Our return date of January 4th will come too fast I'm sure. Please pray for safe travel for us and all of our friends on the site here who will be coming home for Christmas. We send our love to you all and can't wait to hug everyone!! Dana & Everette

We are living in a House!!!!!

One week ago Friday, March 29th we moved into the house. A very long awaited day. Bad things started happening before we could even get the truck unloaded. Let me correct that, bad things started happening before we could really get the truck loaded. On our way out of the city we stopped at the grocery store here to buy groceries. The store was packed with people which is a little strange for a Friday afternoon, most people are still at work. The store we were at is called Jumbo and is similar a Walmart with a much smaller selection. When we got to the food isles we figured out what was happening, the store was running out of food. We learned this was due to a truckers and farmers strike here in Argentina. Evidently the president of Argentina had imposed a huge tax of almost 70 percent on all grains and soy beans because the prices had risen because of China and other countries buying huge quantities. The president decided the government wanted a big cut of the action and the truckers and farmers revolted. They were dumping and burning piles of grain on the autopista (interstate and there is only one) and everything came to a standstill. Therefore the stores had no bread, little oils, no meat, chicken, pork, milk, eggs, produce, vegetables, and of course what they did have was going fast. There were limits on how many of any one product you could buy. I must admit, it was a real eye opener to me having never, ever seen anything like that in the US. It showed me just how much we take for granted that the shelves are always stocked when we walk into a grocery store and how fast we could all be left with no food. We should all rethink growing a garden and canning some food. Anyway, we got 2 loaves of bread, 3 chicken breast (all that was left) a box of frozen hamburger patties (they were terrible) but enough to get by with. So then we were off to the house which is about 28 miles from the city.

It was about 5:30 by the time we got to the house, then we had to eat so it got late fast. After unloading the truck (and I forgot to mention that we stopped and picked up a clothes dryer) I went up stairs to put the sheets on the bed. The week before I had already laid out the bedspread on the bed so it could flatten out. Well, the first thing I saw when I pulled off the bedspread was a spider right in the middle of the bed, and I do not like spiders. The thought of one on me makes me go into fits. It was a very hard thing to do to lay down in that bed to go to sleep. The next morning when I got up (Saturday) I went down stairs to start some laundry and put away the things for the kitchen. The washer would not work right and the dryer would not heat. There were tiny little ants everywhere in the kitchen. The hot water would go out and not heat at all. (We do not have a hot water heater it is a thing that heats the pipe only) So no hot showers. The Direct TV went out, the Internet went out, and yes all of the electricity went out, but it came back on in about 10 minutes. Since then we have been able to get through most of the problems except for the Internet going out all the time. That is one of the reasons I have not posted since we got into the house.

OK, enough about the house. I want to tell you about one of the past times I find hard to grow accustomed to here in Argentina. Right now I am typing the post and I do not know this well enough yet to figure it all out. But either above the post or below the post there are some pictures. What you are seeing is people in two different places. Now, on the weekends and in the late afternoons people leave their apartments in the city and drive out to either the grassy area underneath of the big bridge across the river, or the grassy area in the median of the autopista (interstate). They take their lawn chairs, picnic blankets, grills, games, and especially in the middle of the autopista even their 4 wheelers. I mean it is a big deal!! Everette and others have explained that for the people who live in apartments it is the only place to go for them to stretch out and relax out being in the city. Now can you imagine loading up the car and going to have a picnic in the middle of Interstate 40??? While cars a whizzing by at 65-70mph? Here the speed limit is 80mph so they are whizzing by even faster. I don't know I will ever get used to seeing it, only time will tell I suppose.

Tomorrow Everette and I have to leave the country for at least 24 hours, our tourist visa's are expiring. We will drive to Buenos Aires tomorrow and spend the night. Tuesday morning we will take a 3 hour ferry ride across to Monte Vedao, Uruguay. My passport is filling up. I never in my wildest dreams imagined I would be traveling like this. God has been so good to me. I will post again when we return, and post more pictures of the house when everything is just right! We love you all and send hugs and kisses, Dana & Everette

Still Coming to you from the Holiday Inn!

It has been a couple of weeks since I last posted and I believe I said something like "I hope the next time I post it will be from the house." Unfortunately here we are still in the Holiday Inn, however it has not been a bad couple of weeks. I met a new wife of one of the guys that works with Everette. Her name is Marsha and we really had a great time getting to know each other. Marsha and Carl are from Atlanta and she came down for 20 days as a trial with her job to see if it would work out for her to stay here. She connected everyday by Internet and things went very well so she will be returning in late April. Marsha was born in the US but grew up in Venezuela so she speaks Spanish fluently and English also. I finally had someone to get out with and discover the city. She helped me so much in getting things arranged for the house. I am starting to understand the way of life and living here. So many of the buildings here are plain and not very nice looking on the outside and there are high walls everywhere. But, I found out that behind those walls are beautiful courtyards and gardens that lead into the houses and apartments. That is the way the older buildings were built. The new construction is built more like in the US. Another thing Marsha helped me figure out is how to find things in the city. There are no super stores with one stop shopping here. There are different stores for everything. I wanted to buy a small sewing machine and make covers for the chair cushions. First we found out that there were no sewing machines to be bought here. The reason being that if you want something like that you go to a store where they make the cushions. Unlike the US, labor cost here is very low so it is cheaper to have things made than do it yourself. There is a store for curtains, one for rugs-carpet, one for plastic housewares (buckets, cleaning stuff, containers etc.) one for kitchen things and on and on it goes. Now that I am getting the hang of it I think it may not be so bad if we had to stay in the city. Today I even went in a taxi alone across the city, spoke Spanish well enough to talk with the drivers and all of the sales people in the stores! I am a long way from having a lengthy conversation but it is getting easier. We have moved some stuff in the house. The direct TV is hooked up and the TV even has a program to change the language to English. The Internet antenna has been installed and the wireless router is in but the connection is still dropping somewhere. Our plan is to be totally living in the house by Friday night. It will be so much better for Everette, he will not have such a long drive to do everyday, and he will be able to really relax when he is at home. Best of all we will be able to get our eating schedule back to normal, no more waiting until 9:00 for the restaurants to open. Today was a very good shopping day! One of the guys here told Everette this morning that last night he was in Jumbo (very small WalMart like store) and that they had some Kraft mayonnaise and Paul Newman ranch salad dressing. Well, as soon as Everette called me i was out the door because it is very rare you can find any US brands here. What you can find is on the international isle in the store. I rushed over there as fast as I could go by taxi, and was rewarded for my effort. There on those beautiful shelves I found 10 pints of Kraft real mayonnaise, 8 bottles of Paul Newman ranch dressing, 8 bottles of Hunt's ketchup, 5 cans of Hunt's roasted garlic and onion spaghetti sauce, 4 cans of Healthy Choice Clam Chowder (for Everette, eeewww stinky!), 4 cans of Healthy Choice Vegetable soup, 4 bottles of Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice Cocktail and 5 small cans of Planter's Jumbo Fancy Cashews. It was quite a jackpot! Needless to say I bought every can! I was putting so many things in my cart people were stopping to look at what it was I was buying. There was a lady who started to reach for a jar of the mayonnaise and I started thinking, am I gonna have to wrestle her for that jar? All in all a very good day. More on life here in Argentina very soon with pictures! Love to you all, Dana

A Beautiful Wedding

December 15, 2007, Andrea Kirby Angell married Lt. Evan Livingstone Shockley. It was a beautiful wedding and the pictures are now able to be seen at an online website. I will put the link at the end of this post.

We are still in the hotel, waiting for the house to have what we hope are the last few items completed. I am hoping the next time I post it can be from the house. Everette is working all the time, most weeks 7 days a week now. It seems every week there is different deadline to met.

Enjoy the pictures, there are many to see!

www.collages.net

User ID - angell-shockley

Password - 9265

Angells in Peru

Last year 2007 from January to July we were at a job in Lima, Peru. When I decided to start the blog I wanted all of our family to be included, and so I put all of our locations in the title. Some of you may have wondered why I listed Peru since we are no longer living there. Well Everette and I left part of our hearts there with a little girl we met while visiting the New Life Children's Home that was part of the church we attended while in Peru. Many of you already know of Maria and that we are praying about adopting her. It seems that many things look favorable and we ask that all of you help us pray that God will take control of this situation and work it for his will to be done. We have a friend who is an attorney in Peru, and Brother Mike Kennedy who founded the church and children's home to help us there. God is his amazing ways has also crossed our paths here in Argentina with someone willing to help us. If you remember in my last post about the house I referred to the owner, Mr. Testone as an attorney. The first day I met him in person and learned that he was an attorney I ask him about adoptions between Argentina and Peru. He kindly agreed to look into it for us. The next week when having a meeting about the house Mr. Testone told us that he had a little information for us, that it is possible to adopt from Peru. He also told us that he was very close friends with the Argentinian Ambassador to Peru, and he too would do what he could to help us. Our greatest desire is that God's will for this sweet little girl be done. Whether it is for us or some other family to adopt her. There is a website you can visit to see the children's home and get information on how you can help with the ministry there. Brother Mike and his family are in the states right now trying to raise more support for the home so they can take more children because they are being called everyday and ask to take more babies. Many of these babies are found abandoned in parks, on buses, or in trash.



This is Maria Fe (Faith). The first day we visited the children's home she made a streak across the floor to Everette and held up her arms to him. Needless to say he was smitten and so was she. When we had to go she cried and cried when he put her down. Over the next 5 months the bond just got stronger, and he started spoiling her. In one of the pictures you can see her eating a cheese doodle, in another you can see her spitting out her regular food. Can you guess who gave her the cheese doodle?, before she had eaten her lunch? In another picture you can see her reaching for something, she is reaching toward the swings, wanting Everette to swing her. We always enjoyed spending time with her and it was heartbreaking to leave, Please help us pray for her and all the children there in New Life Children's Home.
Maria Fe is our little Angell in Peru.
http://www.perumissionms.com/

House in Argentina

I am still figuring this out, but as you can see I did get some pictures on here, now adding text to them where I want it is my next project. The top picture is the outside of the house. Before I go any further, let me correct and say "WE" got some pictures on here as Everette just reminded me. The second picture shows the kitchen and dining room end of the great room. The third picture shows the living room end of the great room. The forth picture is of the POOL!! We were assured for the oh, I can't even keep count of the number of times we have been told that we would be in the house by the end of the week. If they don't hurry we won't even get to use the pool as summer is winding down here. Houses here are hard to find, most people live in the city unless they are farmers or ranchers. The city we are in now is Rosario, second largest city in Argentina. Rosario is about 180 miles northwest of Buenos Aires up the Parana (Pa-ron-ya) River. Everette's jobsite is in Timbues which is another 25 miles northwest up the river. This house is another 8 miles north of the jobsite. Here in Argentina when you leave the city, you are in the country, kind of like when you drive outside of Las Vegas, once you are out of the city there is nothing. Here when you leave the city you are in farm and ranch land, on both sides of the road as far as you can see. Our house is about 32 miles out into the farm and ranch land. Most of the houses in this little grouping of houses were built for recreational use, like we have mountain or beach houses. The house is very nice for here with 2 bedrooms, 2 baths. The house was being built by an attorney (Mr. Testone) for a vacation home, we were lucky to find it. More about the house later, love to all, Dana
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