Stuff

Well, our stepson is holding a meeting to train people to run vacation bible schools...hope it makes money
Our granddaughter is graduating from preschool

And the big news is that our nephew will be buried tomorrow

Last night the prayer group from the local charismatics came over to pray with the family.
It is sad to see the wife and kids, and all his brothers and sisters mourning.
It is even worse because he was killed by "accident"...contract killers were after the owner of the cockfighting arena, and he was talking with the sons...who were also killed.

Our nephew lived long enough to be transferred to another hospital...and for the priest to give him last rites...which makes me feel better.

I'm enough of an American puritan to frown on cockfighting, but I remember Chesterton and Tolkien's hobbits, which remind us that the holiest are not the killjoys but those who are cheerful and generous.

And the fact that many of his fellow farmers have come to attend the long wake shows that he was well liked here.

Here he is in his jeep...we saw him out in the fields the other day, harvesting rice with his farmers...

Here usually the farmers or hired help cut the rice, and then the richer people bring in the thresher to separate the rice from the hay...

Later the rice is dried. You have to drive slowly, because the rice is spread out on the hot ground (and sometimes on a plastic sheet) to dry before bagging it.