Lucy's friends

Lucy is having some significant changes in friendships currently.

Her closest friend here, Gabriella, is leaving in a week to move back to the U.S.

(The same thing happened to the poor little dear in Costa Rica - her bestest friend ever left language school in Dec. Thankfully she handled it well. We hope the same will occur this time around. Poor poopsy!)

Yesterday she lost her best friend from the past three years and six countries:

Chelley.

Chelley is a very well worn, well loved stuffed white (imagine that - your daughter's most beloved snuggly thing is white!) dog.

Incredibly I could not find a picture of Lucy and Chelley together.

They are always together.

I know that about three billion pictures have been taken of Chelley, but apparently in my lust for control over something in my life, I deleted all those carefully crafted pictures that Lucy took.

Shame shame on me.

And now Chelley is gone.

Every day Lucy takes Chelley to school to snuggle with for nap time.

Yesterday Chelley didn't return home.

The kids had Awana after school.

We know that Chelley was in her backpack when she put it down in the assigned location.

But we also know that Chelley was on the outside, exposed pocket of said backpack.

We are pretty sure that Chelley was "borrowed", to give the benefit of the doubt, by some other child who for some odd reason was attracted to a dirty, mangy, matted and mangled stuffed dog.

Now we are hoping and praying that this, we are sure, well intended child, will feel extreme and unrelenting guilt and return Chelley to her appropriate and extremely sad owner.

Surprisingly, bed time last night went fairly well without her.

I am tempted to plaster about four thousand missing posters with Chelley's picture on it all over the school, so that the poor well intended child's parents will see the picture and get out the wooden spoon and take it to the child's chubby little bottom to teach them not to steal.

Okay, that is a little extreme perhaps.

And perhaps it wasn't stolen.

Perhaps.

The good news is that Lucy is making an undying and kindred friendship elsewhere.

At Casa G.

Alejandro Moreda is the new, well chosen best buddy.

(Please excuse the horrible, grainy picture. Maddy took it from a great distance so as not to ruin the moment....)

That picture is at Casa G. on Sunday, waiting for lunch to be ready.

And then walking back to Casa G. after playing soccer.

They walked together with this stick the whole way.

Very cute.

At our house, on Monday.... just goofing around.

And Lucy trying to explain the significance of every single stinking ornament on our tree in a combination of her speaking broken Spanish and Alejandro's broken understanding of English.

It amazes me how good all - yes, all - of the guys are with the kids.

Alejandro may be Lucy's best bud, but they all love on the kids so much and have so much fun with them.

It thrills my heart to no end to see the kids run up and jump into their arms whenever we see them.

Blessings beyond....

Once again, while we are trying to serve and help other people, we end up being the ones who are so richly blessed.

Isn't that how it always is?

The more you truly give, the more you truly receive.