Furlough

I’m officially back from my blogging break (I hope!).  There is much too much to catch up on since I last posted (busyness being the main reason that I failed to post).  Anyways, for those who may not have heard, I am currently halfway through my month and a half furlough.  I was feeling a bit discouraged and overwhelmed with all the ministry work at the foundation and just needed a good break where I could clear my mind and go be surrounded by my very loving and caring family to recharge and encourage me. 

Homeschool Wedding Shower
 

So far my trip has been amazing.  I’ve been to two wedding showers for my sister, Melody, spent lots of good quality time with my family and my life-long homeschool friends Taylor, Andrew, and Lauren, celebrated the engagement of Sara and Mike, gone camping in Yosemite and hiked half-dome, celebrated my dad’s birthday with him for the first time in 2 or 3 years, and spent a week in Kentucky with my grandparents and my mom’s family. 

 I’ve been so busy with so many fun distractions I haven’t even had time to get “homesick.”  Don’t get me wrong, I do love my Mexican family and think about them often, but I am so glad and feel so blessed to still have a couple more weeks to enjoy and revel in this sweet time with my beloveds.

Prayer requests:

1)      For clarity as to what God wants me to improve in my part in the ministry and how He plans for me to do that. 

2)      That I would be more in tune with Him and His Will and desires for my life.

3)      That I would be willing, able, and ready for whatever He has for me.

Mis preciosas!

This is my most favorite family of precious little girls.

I met them at Pastor Hector's church, La Gloria.....they needed a ride home....

This is what I brought them home to....ten people were living in here...two beds in one tiny room.

Plus this extra little enclosed, outside area with another plywood bed.

We prayed and put in a petition for a house from our groups.

REJOICE!  The Lord heard our prayers.

A group from Canada came to bless my babies.

This is where mis preciosas sleep now :]

In warm, triple bunkbeds with mattresses.

This group even went above and beyond and made them storage shelves for food, a counter to cook on, and a dining room table with a wrap-around bench.

I'm so grateful to you all!  What a blessing this group was to this family and to me!  We will never forget you.

CELEBRATE!!

Los abuelitos (the grandparents)

Wow, I didn't even realize how long it'd been since I'd posted.  Let me update you a bit.

Judy's been going to visit the old folks at Juan Vasquez's Senior Home every Wednesday morning, brings them a delicious treat, and helps with foot washing, circulation massaging, and shaving sometimes.  I've been with her a few times, but I was only there once when we washed feet.  This sweet man was one of the ones of whose feet I washed.  This was really a touching experience for me, because just the morning before I had heard that my grandma in Kentucky wasn't doing well and it made me really sad and even though I couldn't be there for her, I could take care of these abuelitos (grandparents) and trust that God was taking care of mine.

....I'll save the other updates for another day.  Check again soon!

A Very Sad Goodbye

Just over two weeks ago, we said a very difficult "See you later" to Karen Wind's little baby boy, Miguel, as he peacefully passed in the middle of the night into Jesus' arms in Heaven.  I've never seen such a little casket.  He was only 9 months old.  It is comforting to know that he's with Jesus in a new, perfect skin, but that still didn't easy the sting of our separation from him for the rest of our earthly days.  Please keep Karen and Alex (her other son) in your prayers.  Miguel, you will be missed for the time being, but praise the Lord, we will see you again someday!

What Is This??

 

A friend gave me this fruit(?) that someone gave to her.  I thought it was a watermelon, but when I cut it open it looked like this! 

I thought maybe it was an unripe watermelon, but when I smelled it and it smelled like cucumber!  I still don’t know what this is, but it definitely tasted like cucumber too, with a little bit of a jicama-y texture.  Any ideas of what this is?  It also had these huge, pumpkin-type seeds inside that had a very interesting taste to them as well.  I am baffled.

Tuesday Nights at La Gloria

We visit the church La Gloria two times a week, Sunday afternoons and Tuesday nights, for their church services.Both times I am in charge of the kids.Sundays I teach just the younger kids (the guys from the Bible Institute are teaching the older kids), and Tuesday nights I teach everyone.It’s been kind of difficult to keep the attention of these kids of all ages (20 or so kids from about 3 to 13 years old).It’s been tough to say the least, but more recently I’ve been trying to come up with some sort of craft or game that we can do together, but that can be adapted to any age.We’ve made collages from magazines about the different characteristics of God (strong, kind, loving, etc.),...

 ...we’ve done a fish puppet craft out of a paper bag when they learned about when Peter found the money in the fish’s mouth to give to the tax collectors, and we’ve had a tower building contest when they learned about the tower of Babel.

I’ve also decided to start having Bible story movie nights on the nights when I’m just too exhausted to teach or when I’ve had no time to prepare anything. The night we did that it went really well, I was so surprised how the 40 min cartoon was able to keep the attention of almost all the children for almost the entire film.

  

Oh What A Beautiful Morning!

I’ve been trying to go running in the mornings.  Here are some of the beauties that get me out of bed every morning :]

Aren't they cute??  So even though I kind of have to hold my breath and run really fast during this part, it's fun to say Buenos Dias to these little amigos :]

Windy Season

So, we have a windy season here in Mexico.  Needless to say, it is not our favorite time.  The wind comes and goes and yes it can be nice to help your clothes dry faster on the line, but if it hasn’t rained recently having dry clothes caked in dust is not worth it.  Also, you have to make sure you don’t just leave light things just lying around or not properly staked into the ground or else things like this will happen….

Whoopsies.

Learning to Let Go...

I am such a control freak! I try and think/hope that it's not really true, but it's times like these that I realize I REALLY am.

I get so weird about stuff that usually I would personally rather spend days or even weeks on a project doing it little by little by myself (so that I could make sure that everything was exactly how I'd imagined), rather than asking for help or allowing someone to help me.

But I know that this is not at all how God intended the body of Christ to be. He wants us to work together, to learn from each other, to grow in our patience, to ask for help and to offer help. He wants us to work together.

I knew that. And I also knew that painting the classrooms at La Gloria was something I wanted to do for the kids. But I also knew just how much more it would mean to them if they were able to be a part of it. And honestly, how much are they really going to care if there's a little green here and there on the white ceiling or if the brush strokes on the base boards are not perfectly parallel to the floor. They probably won't even notice. And look at their faces! They had a BLAST and kept asking for more and more jobs. Even after about 6 hours of painting they did not want to stop!

I personally learned SO much about patience, what really matters and what really doesn't, how much kids are capable of doing, when it is ok to say no to them, how helpful it can be to have kids to a base coat and then quickly go over it with a second coat, etc., etc., etc.

It ended up being SO much fun, not just for the kids, but for me too! I'm so glad that God moved my heart to accept help. It was totally worth it.

So much I did in so little time….

 

Last weekend, I was blessed with the opportunity to go up to the states for my best friend’s bridal shower.  I only was able to go for 3 days, but I packed so much good stuff into that time!  :]  I just barely made it to the shower, then rushed off to spend some family time at my dad’s house, got to see my Uncle Christ and Aunt Lilibeth and their beautiful new baby boy, Joshua.  The next morning I went to church with my mom and got to meet all her new friends she’s been making, I’m so happy to see that she’s found a church that she loves where she feels at home :]  After church, we headed home to fuel up with tuna sandwiches with Norm and then mom and I headed off to do the usual states shopping.  That night I got together with Lauren and Jessica Shea, my two best friends from home, we ate and jacuzzied and then I had my very last sleepover with Lauren! (That’s the ONLY reason I’m a little bit sad she’s getting married, haha).  The next morning was President’s Day and I rushed home to have a delicious French toast breakfast with my mom and sister.  Then I packed up my car, headed up for lunch with Dad, and shot over to the mall afterward to go bridesmaid shoe shopping with Lauren.  Once I had my shoes in hand it was off to San Diego to visit my “long lost” “Mexican” friends, Hannah Koppers and Jessica Simmons (and actually Heber ended up being there too).  Spent the night at Hannah’s and took off the next morning by 8:30am to be back for outreach that night at La Gloria. 

So, as you can see, going home isn’t always a “relaxing vacation,” but I would NEVER miss an opportunity :]  It’s totally worth it.

Single on Valentine's Day?

So was I, but it wasn’t so bad.  I woke up kind of emotional yesterday morning and threw myself a little pity party.  Little did I know God had greater love in mind for me.

Victor asked me to lead him to a family in Graciano Sanchez that we’re hoping to build a house for this spring.  Ten people (three adults and seven kids) live in this little garage door house that’s probably 10x15 feet with a little side porch (only covered by two walls) area where some of the kids sleep.  They really need a decent house.  Anyways, I ended up staying and playing with the girls for a little bit.  They are all SO incredibly precious.  I reminded them it was Valentine’s Day and told them how much I loved them and they kept telling me how much they love me too. 

Then that night at La Gloria, the kids and I talked about Mark 12:30-31, how we are supposed to love God first and for most, but then we are also commanded to love our neighbor.  So I had each of the kids make a special Valentine’s card for each of the adults at church so that they would feel special, just like we feel special when we get cards from our friends at school.  They all turned out so sweet!  But unfortunately it was a lot of work, so I was really busy and forgot to be taking pictures of how they all turned out.

All in all, it was a wonderful Valentine’s day where I said I love you many times and also heard I love you many times.  I am so blessed.

La Estetica Cristina

These are my friends Luz, Kenia, and Belinda.  I’ve know these girls for just over 2 years now.  Ever since I first met them, they’ve had a consistent case of lice that is the worst I’ve ever seen or imagined (practically every girl is forced to shave her head at this point).  Down here, getting lice is quite common though.  In fact, I had my first encounter with lice just a few weeks ago.  It was not as painful or irritating as I thought it would be and I got rid of it pretty quickly, but I had relatively few in my hair.  I began to empathize with them after I had my own taste of it.  This is why, two weekends ago I decided to go down to their house and see what I could help them do.

I wanted to make it kind of fun though, so I brought some magazines and told them it was the Estetica Cristina.......yes, that is their pet turkey behind Belinda in the picture below.

After a few HOURS they got a little bored though, so we moved inside to watch a movie.

Three heads of hair, an entire box and a half of lice treatment, and 4 ½ hours later, we rushed off to pick up another girl from the church and headed to the Mission Church in Vicente Guerrero for the Tambourine conference.  It was quite a long day, but definitely worth it to know they might be itching a little less these days (granted, I did not get them all….that’s practically impossible considering how many there were). 

Care for a little education on lice (piojos en español)?  (courtesy of http://www.emedicinehealth.com/lice/article_em.htm):

The head louse is a grey-white animal about 2 mm-3 mm in length (about the size of a sesame seed). The life span of the female louse is about one month. During this time, she will produce between seven to 10 eggs ("nits") per day and attach them firmly to the hair shaft region close to the scalp or body. These nits, which resemble dandruff, are attached with a gluelike, water-insoluble substance that makes them difficult to remove. After six to 10 days, the nits hatch as nymphs and become adults in 10 days.