Married Life and School begins...

God has been so good, as always.

I spent my summer in Caracas doing tutoring for 3 students while Rafa finished his semester at school. When we weren’t busy with that, we were prepping our new apartment. Took more coats of paint than we thought were necessary, but we both ended up satisfied with the way it looked. I finally have my red kitchen!

Before we left, our church threw us a wedding shower. They decided a few years back to do the shower for the couple and invite the whole church family rather than just the women. We really enjoyed it. Karla made chocolate chip cookies which were gone in 30 seconds. And our cakes were stunning as well.

A groom and bride cake. So beautiful!

Karla’s famous chocolate chip cookies!

Reading to one another out of Song of Solomon. 

Out of all the women’s shoes, he had to find mine and put it on my foot. He ended up second guessing himself and chose wrong. Oops.

The girls dressed Rafa and the guys made my dress. Love how we also became prince and princess in the process.

Sharing a toast...Venezuelan tradition. 

Then we headed to Tobago for the wedding. What a crazy week! We were so incredibly busy. It was great to see family and friends, but unfortunately, we didn’t get to spend a lot of quality time with time. Guess we’ll have to come back to visit them in December. :) The wedding was beautiful and my mother was amazing! Can’t believe we pulled it off so well. And God’s blessing shone down as we had a rainless wedding day after a week full of rain.

I’ll post a few pictures, but we’re still waiting on the professional ones.

Really yummy food thanks to Chef Terry and the rest of my family. 

We’ll never forget Bishop Williams. Definitely made our wedding memorable.

Next came our 3 day honeymoon to Barbados as Rafa had an exam to get back to. We enjoyed it, but enjoyed more the week at home that we spent cooking and watching movies. 

The 3 suitcases of goodies from my wedding shower. So so so thankful for my church family back in Ohio and their generosity. We feel so rich and richly blessed. 

Used the new crockpot to make pabellon, a traditional Venezuelan dish. Seriously the best I’ve ever had!

I am blessed to have a husband who both cooks and cleans. We really enjoy cooking together!

School began on Wednesday so we’ve had 3 days so far. I still teach the same 7 (yes 7) classes but there’s been a change this year. We went from teaching semester long class (with middle school being all year long) so a block schedule. I now teach all 7 throughout the entire year but switch off days. I think it’s better for our students this way, but definitely difficult as a teacher prepping for 7 classes. I’m just taking it one day at a time for now but please keep me in your prayers. Must stay organized and plan ahead for this to work. Enjoying the students and excited as have 4 new students joining us this year. 

A tarantula decided to join our class the first day of school. However, he must not really have been interested because when we went to kill him, he was already dead.

First class on the first day of school...geometry!

Here are some ways you can be praying for us this year:

1) Balancing priorities between school, church, and home as I add on the role of wife

2) That our marriage would glorify God and be a testament to others, especially as many of my students come from such broken homes

3) Working out the details of getting our marriage license sent to Venezuela and for Rafa to get his visa to visit Ohio. Also pray for process of buying tickets...we keep hitting roadblocks in the process and will have to buy them before knowing for sure that Rafa is approved to come.

4) For my witness with my students and that we would see growth and change this year. The attitude  of the students this year seems to have improved.

5) Being wise with our finances as I continue to pay on school loans.


We appreciate greatly your prayers and support!