30 Days of Writing

One more year of school just about under our belt!! I say "our" as I am just as ready as the boys for a little summer break, from taking them to school, making lunches, going to after school sports activities, etc etc.

Logan's field trip at the zoo

Mom chaperones at the zoo

I see it on all of the moms from the school as well. People are weary, a little more irritable than usual, and ready to take off from some holiday time.

It doesn't help that we are coming out of our hottest time of year - May/June - and are waiting for the rainy season to cool things off a touch! This week has been just that and we've been thankful.

So they've got 3 more days to go.

I thought I'd like to document a bit of our summer each day.

This summer feels a little different that most years, as we will be staying here in Guadalajara! We have been taking our furloughs in Canada every other summer, but this year the boys asked to wait till winter as they reaaalllly want to see snow and we would love to be there for Christmas with our families. The other summers we have been visiting Chihuahua for 1-2 weeks, as we have connections there still with our Church Conference.

Logan and Brady's 1st Taekwondo exam - passed to the next level

So this summer we will start by hosting a youth group from Chihuahua together with our missionary team, get some things done around the house, have a lot of get togethers with all of our contacts and Bible study groups, do pre-marital counseling with a couple that is preparing to get married, prepare for fall ministry and our furlough away, the boys will go for a week of camp (ALL 3 BOYS!! Unbelievably, it doesn't even excite me to be on our own for a week....I will miss them! But it's good), and we will go on a little getaway as a family to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary and Brady's 7th birthday!

Brady has been part of the Escolta this year - the Flag Guard

Parents at a 4th grade park day

I'm going to use some writing prompts for this next month as it gets my writing juices going a little better ;) Tomorrow will be the first word: DREAM

Carter in a soccer game

Attending a 1st communion party with neighbors

30 Days of Writing:
DREAM, SENSES, LIGHT, INSPIRING, WHAT-SPEAKS-TO-YOU, ANIMAL, HAPPY, FLY, MUSIC, TASTY, SUPPORT, SPECIAL, PLACE, BREAK, TOMORROW, DESTINATION, BRAND, EVENT, NO, LAUGH, FEED, MIND-BLOWING, FABULOUS, COMPARE, EXCLUSIVE, FUZZY, FRIEND, BATTLE, SIGN, GRATITUDE, SMILE
*#an_snapaword

*Pictures are all from the last month or so

Cell Phone Dump: July/Aug.16

 The boys occasionally grab my phone to take some pictures, or pose for some extras as I get the "good shots". Enjoy :)

Brady...our soon to be 6 year old. Taken in Chihuahua a few weeks ago.

Also in Chihuahua, visiting the church that is being built in Soto Maynez. 

The boys had to take pictures of all of the animals they saw... 

Their favorites were these pigs. That mama was huuuuge!

Mi amor.

On the road...I believe this was on the way home from Chihuahua, sometime during the 15 hour day. I allowed Jesse my spot in the front so that Dallas and him could listen to their music at their preferred volume while I finished off a book.

 

Selfie by Logan

The boys entertainment one the trip home:

Carter and friend at a get together here in Gdl. 

And the day of the Olympics Inauguration was one of our weekly Bible study nights, so part of the group came early to watch...

 Little did we know how long the Inauguration would take! Mexico finally appeared ;)

Everyone was super excited about that.

And now in the last couple of weeks since we've been back from Chihuahua, we've been connecting again with our Bible study groups and those we meet with throughout the week. 

School starts on Monday (if you can believe that) so I've also been getting school supplies and having a good last week of holidays together with the boys. This week we also have a friend of the boys staying for the week while his parents are away, so that's some extra fun!

Trip to Chihuahua 2016

Since leaving Chihuahua 5 years ago, we have tried to keep up the connections with the people there, especially with the church leaders and those we worked with while we lived in Delicias. Our last visit there was 2 years ago, and this last week we made the 15 hour trip back up that way.

Prepare yourself for a long post with lots of pictures :) 

We took with us our Intern, Jesse, who needed to cross the border in order to renew his visa and then was going to attend the Conference youth camp. So that meant we were in El Paso, TX, where we took a couple of days as a family and did some shopping (school supplies are cheaper up there!).

Then we headed south into Chihauhau where we began visiting. We stayed in 3 different homes over the week, all people we knew well, and so we felt pretty at home. And I have to say that the boys did so well the whole trip long! We visited on average of two different people or homes per day and they loved it all. So that is a huge help when doing these kinds of trips, as it does become tiring towards the end.

Our first stop was in Chihuahua City, where we attended a church service, as it was Sunday. This is the church where the pastor couple of many years, Aldo & Rebeca, both passed away from medical complications a year from each other. A young couple, Victor & Claudia, that had been part of the church for many years (sister to Rebeca) stepped up and became the new pastor couple, and we were thankful to see that the church is doing well and is growing! It was a blessed morning there together with them.

Victor also became the new President of the CEMM Conference (the Conference of 14 churches in Chihuahua) 3 months ago, and asks for prayers in this new role. The Conference has several strong leaders that overall are working well together and so the support network is in place. 

After a lunch together, we drove another hour to arrive in Cuauhtémoc, where we joined John & Lorna Wall for supper. They were missionaries with the EMC for many years, working with the Low German people in Chihuahua, and are now pastoring a church in that area. We always love to see them! We also met up with them one more time later in the week. A bonus for the boys was that they had their 2 grandsons over, who are the boys age.

We then headed just up the road to spend the night with Jason & Jessica, our friends from Chicago who just moved to Cuauhtémoc 2 weeks ago. They had been studying Spanish here in Guadalajara and now are going to begin their ministry with their team in Chihuahua, so we got to crash at their place!

The next morning we met with Walter and Susy, pastor couple in Cuauhtémoc. We always love to visit with Walter and were able to meet his new wife. His spirit and attitude are contagious. You may recall hearing about his wife Chepina, who was killed almost three years ago.

(picture borrowed from Walter)

From there we continued our drive, one hour more, to get to Santo Tomás camp, where Jesse was to spend 6 days. We got him settled and then headed another hour to arrive at Soto Maynez, with Juan Carlos & Claudia, missionary couple with the Conference. 

This was one of the highlights for the boys as they have kids their age and they took us to a farm ;) Our city boys need to get out into the country!!

While we were there we also went to see the church that they are in the process of building. Juan Carlos & Claudia will actually be moving up to Juarez in a couple of weeks to begin a new church plant there.

We also spent an evening with some of the church group, at the home of Oscar & Lupe, who will be leading the Soto Maynez church. 

 After two days in that area, we headed 4 hours east to Delicias! This is where we lived for two years, helping in the church 20 minutes out of the city and teaching the Bible within the city with new groups. We stayed with Antonio & Lety, pastor couple of the church.

The weather here was hot!! I mean, it was hot everywhere, but Chihuahua City and Delicias were about 40 degrees....I guess your body does adapt when you live in it all of the time. 

So we spent some time with them as a family...

And also attended their mid-week church service to meet up with those we knew from the church, and then met up in the city with Mario & Lorena and Benita, some that we studied the Bible with in Delicias.

We also met up with Orlando & Laura and their girls. They are a pastor couple from an Independent church in Delicias, and they became good friends and a good support to us during our time there! 

Orlando also helped Dallas manage the world of government and lawyers :) While in Chihuahua we needed to make a correction to Brady's birth certificate, which we had to do through a lawyer. Orlando knows a trustworthy one and he is now working on the paperwork for us! We are so thankful. We didn't know if we would be able to do this, as it's a process that takes months and has to be done in Chihuahua.

(picture borrowed from Orlando)

After a couple of days in that area, we headed an hour back to Chihauhua City, where we stopped to visit Pepe & Juanis and their son Giovanni. They are the pastor couple at one of the churches there, and Pepe recently underwent brain surgery to remove a tumor. They are so thankful for the way he is healing and that no memory was lost! He is re-learning how to walk and talk but his spirit is positive and it was an encouragement to visit with them. They were a couple that took an interest in us when we lived there and had us over several times, as they were one of the closer churches to Delicias.

Back to Cuauhtémoc, where the boys and I stayed with Jason & Jessica while Dallas continued into the mountains to the camp to pick up Jesse!

Jesse got to know the youth from the different churches and became "one of them" for that week. Some of the food, culture, and Spanish is different in Chihuahua than in Guadalajara so it was a learning experience.

The next day we got up bright and early to begin the 15 hour drive home! We all love road tripping so we had a good time.....but I was ready to be at home again! Stepping into your home after a time away is always refreshing. 

 Continue to pray for the Conference in Chihuahua as they work together as a group and as they seek to build the churches and start new churches. We were encouraged to see what God has been doing there in the north and we hope that we were able to encourage those we visited as well.

June's cell phone dump and joys

It's that time again...where I realize I haven't kept up with the blog and so you get a slew of topics to read about! 

June has been a good month so far. We have been excited to see a couple of people that we are ministering to show a deep desire to know God, and it is evident as they study the Bible with our groups. Pray specifically for a young man who is searching for what God wants for his life and studies with us on Fridays, and for a mom friend who studies with me on Wednesday mornings and is just grasping so many of the truths of the Bible lately!

And so, the pictures. 

Dallas still loves his mountain biking :) it's been a really good way to meet guys, as they work long hours during the day and do this in the evenings or on weekends, and we also meet and get to know the families. Proud Canadian jersey going on there.

At the beginning of this month we had a visit from a pastor couple in one of our churches in Manitoba! What a blessing. We feel humbled and privileged that they would visit us and we enjoyed the 5 days together with them. It encourages us, and it's also a great way for churches back home to connect with our ministry and experience first hand what they are supporting. So come on down! 

 If you're friends with us on Facebook, you'll already have seen our party pictures. Paulina, a girl in our cell group that you have heard much about (she visited Canada with us last summer), graduated from high school!

Dallas and I were invited to her grad banquet, which started at 9:30 pm. Supper was served at 11:30 pm, and we got home at 3:00 am. We were tired but it was kind of fun to be up late...I do like to be up late but it's been a while since it's been that time of night :)

Also on Facebook you'll have seen this picture. There are two weeks of school left so we've been having "end of year" parties lately. When you have 3 kids in school here, where people love to get together for any reason, you have a lot of things to go to! These are all moms from Brady's class.

This last week, Brady's class could take their pets to school for the first hour, so one girl took her pony. I wasn't there but moms share everything on whatsapp.

I'm not sure what's happening, but Brady has been on a dish washing kick lately. And so has Paulina, so the 2 of them put themselves to washing dishes. Literal translation from Spanish, which is how it comes out sometimes!

Our intern, Jesse, has been a lot of fun to have around and work with, and he and Dallas do some interesting things when they're together....

This was last week and they were keeping an eye on the clouds to see if they might just hold a drop of rain. Waiting for rainy season to begin. They look a little fluffy to me.

Since then, we have actually had some rain everyday and it's so nice after the long dry months.

In July we will be traveling up to Chihuahua to visit the pastors and churches there, and Jesse will be going with us to work at the camp for a week. Our CEMM Conference of churches there do a youth camp every summer.

We will also be crossing the border with him so that he can renew his visa, and we mostly look forward to this trip! It's a long 17 hour drive to the border but we enjoy it and the boys also look forward to seeing the friends that they had when we lived there. They don't remember them from 5 years ago when we lived there, but more so from when we visited a couple of years ago.

So, that's the pictures so far this month. There are of course many more little things I could tell you about, but we'll leave it at that. Next week I plan to do the "A day in the life of..." so that we can follow each of the boys around for a day :)