Surprise, Surprise

Last week was surprising...if you were Agatha and Edith, that is. I got to be part of bringing unexpected joy into the lives of first a missionary spouse and then a seminary wife. (The latter was surprising for me, too!) 

Tirzah corralled the women of Cerro Alto and pulled off a baby shower for Agatha (and let's be honest, José Augusto, due just before Christmas) on Tuesday afternoon. She claims she had NO idea but was wearing the theme color!

Everyone filled their plates with goodies (I made meatballs and a healthy-ish chocolate cake) before we played 2 games. I correctly matched 16/18 "Bible babies" with their parents but my string was a wee bit longer than the circumference of Agatha's baby bump. After presents, we ended by singing hymns together (as we had at Agatha's first baby shower) - a tradition (?) I'd be OK with migrating to the US. 

The next day, on my way to a local thrift store chain to hopefully find non-tennis-shoe alternative footwear for an upcoming trip to Europe (spoiler alert!), I nearly backed over a parade of moms & kids laden with flowers, cake, candles, chips, empanadas, chipas, soda, and juice. I re-routed to the Bolivians' apartment half a block away and joined a parking lot serenade of "Happy Birthday" to Edith. No thanks to my singing, she invited us all up ;) I eventually continued on my merry way, evidently before the real party - the one with the karaoke machine - started up. (Lest I leave you wondering, I did, in fact, buy some secondhand low-heeled ankle boots that I'm hoping will comfortably get me through a few thousand steps a day.)

Thanks be to God for this fun-loving, multicultural, caring community of sisters in Christ!