Gas Prices

Today Rachel had another first--she filled her own car with gas and paid for it with her own credit card. She was shocked that a tank of gas cost as much as a new set of sheets which she also bought today. She's starting to have a little fun "playing house" as she turns the end of our house into a separate apartment. It is a lot of work and money to do that, but we are aiming for June 1 to shut the door between our end of the house and hers.

Tomorrow Rachel plans to spend the day at the school where she will teach next fall. She will shadow the 3rd grade teacher for the day. She hopes to do this one day a week for the rest of the school year. I think it will be a great way for her to get some of her million questions answered, and maybe to gain more knowledge about the school and thus be more confident when she starts teaching herself.

Andrew and Laura have struggled to know exactly how to file their taxes. It isn't easy to call the SSA or IRS from Ethiopia, but that's what they've had to do. The hard thing was figuring out what status Laura was and whether or not she needed a ITIN (Individual Taxpayer Identification Number) or SSN or neither.

We need to pray for them as they are about to start the packing process to leave Ethiopia. I know times like that are guaranteed to be stressful.