Exciting times at the Hooks house

Shout to the north and the south
Sing to the east and the west
Jesus is savior to all
He's the Lord of Heaven and Earth.


I have very, very little time this morning, since I am headed to Hinkson early in order to teach my AP Lit students. We are coming down to the wire--the exam is next Thursday. I hope I have helped them, and I know they have helped me in my adjustment to Russia. It's nice to do something you're successful at when you suddenly talk like a two-year-old.

Anyway, there have been some interesting new developments here at the Hooks house, and I thought you might like to share in our excitement:

• I found sliced turkey at the grocery store. No kidding...sliced turkey. It was yummy, yummy, yummy. (Most of the sliced meat is not identifiable to us, and so we don't eat it. There's a lot of bologna and salami in the kids' diets right now, so turkey was pretty exciting.)
• I have figured out how to make iced tea. That's big.
• Our table broke, but Marc figured out how to fix it. He had his little tools and everything...he's so cute!
• We had Pizza Hut for dinner last night. A huge, once-every-other-month splurge for us, but so delicious.
• We have crystal light in the house--our favorite drink--thanks to my parents and sister.
• We actually went out without coats or even jackets the last two days. Heaven!
• I have decided that my towels are not "crunchy"--Hannah's word--but brisk. Doesn't brisk sound better, even if they do take off the top layer of skin when you use them? Maybe I could market them as some kind of large-scale loufa?

Actually, there's nothing too exciting in any of this. But when you live somewhere that can be so discouraging, when your identity has disappeared seemingly overnight, you take encouragement where you can get it. And though there are plenty of reasons to feel discouraged about life here, if I look hard enough, there are also plenty of reasons to be encouraged by the way God is at work. So I'm choosing this morning to be excited about turkey and tea and pizza hut and no jackets, because each of those things is a little pat on the back from the God who loves me and sent me here in the first place. Wherever you are in the world, I pray that you can see Him at work around you, and that your AP students are ready for that exam next week! Blessings to you and yours!
His,
Kellye