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St. David's Lutheran Church-our new home!

 

I haven't caught you up on the current state of Andres' mission development. At the beginning of the year, he was asked to do a short internship at a Lutheran church near our house, to practice the service and learn the liturgy a bit more. After that, we began talking to a few Lutheran churches in West Columbia that had expressed interest in supporting the Latino mission. St. David's Lutheran, in West Columbia but close to Lexington, offered not only to support the mission, but to give Andres an office in the church and use of many rooms for when the mission projects get started. We have attended a few Sundays and the people are wonderful. We hope to participate in the church itself while also starting a Spanish service soon. I have begun teaching my prenatal classes on Fridays every other month here, and the church council has been great in supporting me as well. There are lots of young families with small children (something I always look for) that are active in the church. In fact, we're getting together with a big group of the young couples this week to eat dinner-sans kids :-)

 

 

 This picture compliments of Elias Leone

Jennifer and Brian's wedding

 

Elias was the ring bearer for my friend Jennifer's wedding to Brian Griffin. He took his job very seriously during the practice, the pictures, the rehearsal. The day of the wedding however, he took one look at all those faces staring at him and he covered his face with his ring bearer pillow and walked down the aisle covered by the pillow and his jacket over his head! It was quite funny. He quickly got used to the attention, however, and proceeded to weave his way through all the attendants, swing his pillow in the air, and mimic the bride's mother as she sang. Since I was a bridesmaid he knew my hands were tied, and that he'd get away with the whole show! In the end, I was the only one who was concerned with his antics--everyone else thought he was adorable.

Here he is with Peyton, the flower girl. They got along fabulously!

 

Elias took his lead role very seriously. Here he's helping Brian cut his grooms cake. He tried to help them cut the cake on the wedding day too!

 

Here's Mom in her bridesmaid dress with beautiful Bella!

 

Is this kid a knock-out or what???!!!

Elias at swimming lessons

Elias is taking swimming lessons at the YMCA. He's much more comfortable in the water this season, and he's enjoying learning new skills. Here are a couple of class shots...

Bella lookin funky

Bella dressed in Papa-style!

The Good Samaritan Clinic

Here are a few shots of the free clinic where Andres is a volunteer doctor and Julie is part of the Board of Directors. It's very grassroots, but growing, and doing great work to help a very medically underserved Latino population in Columbia and West Columbia, SC

Fun with shoes!