Happy Anniversary to me!

So, one year ago today, I moved to Mexico for the first time. I had no clue what the Lord was up to, but I new that He was moving me into something. I was petrified on one level and thoroughly exhilerated on another. I missed Fredericksburg TERRIBLY, but I new I wouldn't be content if I stayed put. It took a couple months to figure out that the Lord was sending me here for more than three months, but He got that message through.

Now, one year later, here I am marveling once again at how indescribably amazing the Lord is, and how I truly have the best life ever. Sure, there are times when I miss things or the lonliness gets to me, but even then I wouldn't trade this for the world right now. Maybe there will come a day when it's time to trade it for something else that the Lord wants to do in and through me, and at that time it will hurt, but I'll go. Until then, I couldn't imagine anything better than this, and who could possibly ask for more than that in this life?!

One year ago, I made some new friends...
April 2006

One year later, my life has been completely transformed....

Group shot at the end of my first three months..
May 2006

Mili and I at my 27th birthday party, hosted by her mom...
November 2006

Favi and I at the very first Thanksgiving feast at the Arrayanes church...


Me and the girls giving much thanks at Thanksgiving for God's gift of friends...


Mili and I with lights we used to decorate the entire Cofradia church...
December 2006

No one told me there would be KISSING in this movie!!....argh!...

Their introduction to hot apple cider at my Christmas decorating party...

Coffee buddies before church...
January 2007

Claudia and I at Mirna's 13th birthday...
February 2007


And one year later, I'm surrounded by the greatest girls placed on this planet...
April 2007

And God's goodness knows no end!
Happy anniversary to me and Cofradia. Happy anniversary, Lord!

Home Sweet Home

Well, my trip home was glorious. Like I said before, the first couple days were dedicated to resting up and getting my taxes taken care of. But then I was off like a shot, and I didn't slow down until I got back here to Cofradia! The first week I spent in Richmond with my family and friends there. Then I headed to Fredericksburg to be with my church family and see friends and family up that way! It was a little weird because I spent so much time driving from one place to the next, one coffee date to the next, that it felt like I never left. Almost like life just sort of paused itself while I was in Mexico and then hit play as soon as I landed back in the country. It's so easy to get caught back up into all that busy-ness, especially when I have such a short time to cram so much into. But every minute of it was enjoyable and refreshing!

I loved being with the church family at New Life, and we ended up having the monthly pot-blessing that Sunday right after the service. So, I was able to take my time after the service was over and see people and chat and share about what's been going on, etc. That was very wonderful. Then, I headed back down to Fred to The Townhouse, where several of my girlfriends from college live and where I was staying while in Fred. Jen, who owns the house, had agreed to put together and host a gather of my Fred/Small Group friends that evening, so that was much fun as well. I even got to see a couple of friends/supporters from my old job at Northrop Grumman! Yea for shin-digs! The rest of the week I spent driving around, visiting with friends, and holding newborn babies! Several of my friends had babies in January and February, so by the time I got home, there were 4 of them for me to meet. One was my new neice, Alison, and sadly I was unable to meet her. She was born Feb 10, and since I was sick during the week I was home, I didn't go and see her in order to not pass on my germs to one so new and susceptible! But I'm looking forward to meeting her in August!

Meet Eliana Grace Nagy. She was less than a week old in this pic! Her mom and I became friends singing on the worship team together!

This is Jae Keegan Tobias McElvy. He was born in the middle of January, and I had a blast holding him during the church service. After having a mid-morning "snack", he slept in my arms the entire service! Glorious! I worked with his parents in the youth group at my church!

That Monday night, I had the wonderful privelege of having dinner with a girlfrind from college. We have been frinds since the beginning of our freshman year together, and this was especially wonderful because I was able to meet her wonderful boyfriend! We had a good time at dinner and some great conversation! Tuesday I went and spent a night with my grandmother and my aunt in Culpeper. Since my aunt was here from Minnesota staying with my grandma at her house, this was a precious opportunity to be with just the two of them at my grandma's house. She normally lives with my parents now, but every so often, my aunt comes and stays with her at her own house so she can be there and see her friends and do the things she misses doing! So, we had a good time. We watched the video of the Rose Bowl Parade since my cousin's band was one of the invited bands, and I didn't get to see that in Mexico! We cross-stitched and chatted and just had a good time together.

My grandmother's backyard, and the home of many happy childhood memories...covered in ice! Those houses in the background used to be nothing but open fields..

Then on Wedensday I headed back to Fred to hang out with my friend Peggy. We went to coffee, but I accidentally locked my keys in my car, so when we finished coffee, we went and sat by my car and waited for the AAA guy to arrive. Then we walked around downtown Fred, something I haven't done in forever and missed terribly. Finally we headed to her daughter's basketball game, and I had a chance to talk some with her husband about what I'm doing here in Mexico. It was a great afternoon and evening. God is so abundant in his blessings!

Then I headed home because the next day, Thursday, was HEATHER DAY!!! My sister and I got up that morning and got all gussied up to get portraits taken together. We've been talking about doing this for about 6 years now, but everytime we decide to do it someone doesn't have the money or someone won't be home or whatever. So, Heather decided that we weren't missing the opportunity this time. I had just gotten a new hair cut also, so this was especially fun cuz the look was totally different than ever before! When I get my copies, I'll post one! After that we headed into the mall to do some serious shopping. I had a list, and thankfully I was able to get just about everything I had planned to get. Here's the amazing part: we all know that while we're here in Mexico it's not so hard to keep to our budget, but when we go home we pretty much know that we're going to blow the budget out of the water. That's what happened, though I stayed within the amount I had planned for. That was miracle #1. However, for January and so far in March, my spending in Mexico has been under budget, pretty much making up the difference that I overspent at home in Feb. That is miracle #2. THEN, because of how my taxes worked out, I ended up not having to pay as much as I had set aside, and in the end was able to finally pay off my credit card (which was pretty high) including all that I had spent while home. That's miracle #3!! I go home and blow my budget, but in the end the budget not only balances out but I end up getting out of debt also!!! God is just too good to me!! So, that has been a wonderful load off!

Finally, on Friday I headed to Virginia Beach/Norfolk to spend some time with my mom and my girlfriend Beth, another very close college friend and co-English Lit major. I had such a great time with my mom. We did Christmas/birthday, since she saved those gifts knowing I'd be home in Feb, and I showed her all that I'd bought and pics and videos from down here in Mexico. And we just had a good time catching up and talking and being together. We ordered lunch and just relaxed and it was a ton of fun. Then I headed to Beth's appartment that evening, and we hit the town! We got all dressed up in cocktail dresses and went to this great restaurant where I ate the most divine, celestial meal I've ever tasted in my life. It was some kind of shrimp linguini dish with watercress on the side and the sauce was absolutely indescribable! It was truly amazing. Beth's sister Sara joined us there as well, and we had SUCH a wonderful time talking and letting the waiter flirt with us. :) I even enjoyed half a glass of white wine with my dinner, which is totally unheard of; but this wine was GOOD! After dinner Beth and I headed to a bar in downtown Norfolk to attend a fund-raising event for Hope House where another college girlfriend, Dana, works. They had a blues band playing that night, and we had been told that they'd be playing until around 11. We got there around 10-10:30 hoping to catch the last of the band, and that we did: we caught the last 30 seconds of their very last song for the night! HAH! But anyway, we had fun catching up with Dana and watching folks dancing and having a good time. Finally, the two of us headed back to her appartment after picking up oreo pie and some girly alcohol, where we put on our PJs and put on Sense and Sensibility while eating our desert. Saturday we slept in, did some shopping, and then I headed back to Fredericksburg to spend the night at Elena's for church on Sunday.

Beth and I out on the town...oh was it fun to get all dressed up again! I know it's silly, but sometimes I really miss that! Oh, and note the new haircut! I love my bangs!

Little did I know that church was not to happen. It SNOWED that night...real snow, not just ice. And it snowed GOOD. I woke up Sunday morning to about 4-6 inches of beautiful, white, fluffy snow, and IT WAS STILL COMING DOWN! Church services were canceled, and part of me was a little worried about getting my car dug out and getting home because the roads were very slick and icy. But Elena and I enjoyed a leisurely morning and even went out to stand in the snow and watch the kids sled and throw snow balls. We even took a little video so I could share it with the girls down here, as one of their dreams is to one day see snow for themselves! I laughed at myself and my too-little faith. I looked at that snow and stood in it thinking to myself, "I settle for second-best far too often." I had prayed for the Lord to send snow while I was home. When I arrived, the ground was white, but it was all ice. When you walked on it, though it looked like snow, it was hard as a rock and you didn't even leave footprints! But I was okay with that because at least God had sent something, right? Well, that Sunday as I pondered this surprise snow storm, I felt like the Lord was telling me, "stop settling for second-best. You ask me for something dear to your heart and then you settle for something less than my best for you! Trust me to answer your WHOLE prayer, and not just part of it!" Oh it was glorious to stand in that snow and know that God had answered ALL of my silly prayers for snow!

Breakfast at Elena's...she feeds her family well!

Me and the snow on Elena's back deck!

The roads didn't look good at first, but once on the interstate it was smooth sailing all the way home!

I made it home safe and sound to Richmond where it had done nothing but rain all day! HAH! And I spent the rest of the evening packing and getting ready to head to the airport on Monday morning for my flight back to Mexico. The Oscars were on, so my sister and I watched those together while I packed, and my dad and I had a good trip to the airport the next morning. I miss my family, but it was so wonderful to be with them for the short time I was able, and I'm looking forward to being with them longer this summer/fall when I'm home for 4-6 weeks!

Anyway, I flew back to Guadalajara that Monday, and the language school was on vacation that week. Sally had left the Friday right before to move back to Tennessee to live with her family since she had graduated the school. So, it was a little weird to be at Romel and Angeles' house but without my roommate! Erika and I got to hang out all day on Tuesday. I had business to take care of for a short-term team that is coming, so she went with me all over town. We had some good talking and enjoyed each other's company. Then we went back to the house and hung out with the family for a little while and had a good time until she had to head home. The next day I completed my business, and she spent time with her brother, Israel, who is here in Cofradia now spending a month in the home of Jan and Doug. My bus ride back to Cofradia was smooth and it's wonderful to be back home! I got back in town in time to go to the worship practice in Arrayanes. The girls were both playing on Sunday, and neither of them knew that I had come back to town yet. So, they got a great surprise when they got on the truck to head to the church. They saw me and stopped in their tracks! I LOVE surprising people like that! Especially when I know there will be a great reaction to it!

Life is back to normal now, and we're getting ready for the arrival of Cy-Fair Christian Church in just a few days. They are a great youth group who come every year and do construction and youth ministry! They have a stellar outreach planned, and I can't wait to see how it all comes out. The kids are excited for their arrival as well since they have friends on this team!


God is good. Let us never forget it! :)

Student Leadership Conference and then Home Again!

So, February 8-10 saw us in a very youth-specific outreach: a Youth Leadership Conference. Two pastors from Cy-Fair Christian Church in Houston, TX came down, for the second year in a row, to do this conference with our youth. The topic was "Authorith = Love", and they really challenged our kids. Some responded better than others to the authority that these pastors brought with them, but I think that overall it was a very successful outreach. I would describe it all for you, but one of our other staff members, Steve, who is in charge of the youth ministry, blogged about it himself, and he did a great job describing it all, and even included a couple of pics. So, I'm just going to link you to that blog! Go HERE and enjoy reading about what the Lord is teaching our youth! And please continue to keep them in your prayers concerning this area of obedience and submission! It's a biggie! One of the pastors preached on Sunday, and then after the service in Cofradia, they headed back to Guadalajara to fly home. Well, I went with them, since I too was flying home from Guad!

We left Sunday afternoon, and they dropped me off that evening at the Garza home where I lived while in school. It was so wonderful to get to see everyone! Angeles and Romel had planned to have everyone over after church that evening for a celebration dinner to say hello to me and to say goodbye to Sally as a couple weeks later, she was graduating and returning to the states. My favorite part of that evening was the look on Erika's face when she saw me standing there. I was there before they all arrived, and I was sure that she had heard that I would be there. Apparantly, she didn't, however, so as she walked in her face was priceless as she tried to process and figure out who I was standing there! It was great to hug all the dear folk there in Guad, and that night, two of the American students spent the night with Sally and I. Sally and I had a good time watching some Gilmore Girls and chit-chatting while the other two girls studied for classes the next day. Then on Monday I went to school with them and hung out with Erika all morning, after which we headed to Starbucks and hung out some more that afternoon.

Then Tuesday morning, I grabbed a cheuffer service to the airport at 6 am since I had a 9 am flight HOME!!! My flights were all incredibly uneventful, thank the Lord. My trip went more smoothly than I could have even prayed for, especially given the fact that there was an ice storm in DC while I was flying in. I was very concerned, as was everyone else, that my flight would be delayed or canceled due to the weather, but there were no problems at all. I was excited thinking that it was icing at home. I've been missing the winter weather so much. I love the weather in Mexico right now. It's perfect...for Mexico. But it's certainly not winter, and as far as I'm concerned there is a time of year when the cold is appropriate, and I welcome it! I've missed the snow and having my nose freeze, wearing winter clothes and drinking hot beverages under warm blankets in a cozy living room with my friends and family. So, the prospect of such cold was thrilling! However, when we finally broke through the clouds over DC on our descent, I gasped audibly as I was greeted by WHITE on the ground. I had been telling everyone for so long that the reason they were having unseasonably warm weather was because God knew how badly I wanted cold that He was storing it for me to be unleashed fully upon my return, so much so that it would SNOW! Oh me of little faith, even though I knew it was icing, I was not expecting a white ground! It was a glorious moment to break through the clouds and see that God had cared for even such a petty prayer request! :)

The drive home from the airport was even smooth! Since the weather had been so bad, everyone had left work early so that though we were driving home in rush hour on the worst interstate for rush hour, we had no traffic problems cuz most people were already home! Elena and Ken picked me up, and I had a good time visiting with them until my dad arrived at their house. Now, I'm home with my family, taking the couple of quite days that I have to take organize receipts and expense reports, etc. so that I can get my taxes done while I'm here! It is so wonderful to be back with my family: to hug my nephew, to hang out with my sisters, to talk to my friends on the phone and just drive to their homes when I feel like it, to drive my car again (although that took a little getting used to, since I'm now used to a 68 Ford pickup..hah!), etc. God is just so good to me, and I'm eating up his goodness by the bowlfull!

Girls Prayer Group

So, I updated in my January update about our Girls' Prayer Group and the changes that have taken place in that activity. But I wanted to share a little more detail about how that's going. In our first couple of meetings with the girls here in Cofradia, I was very excited to hear what some of the girls shared!

One of the girls, Ana, used to be very involved in the youth group and other ministry areas, and then she just sort of started fading out. Well, recently she started coming back to youth group consistently, and now she's coming to prayer group as well!

Another girls, Claudia, shared from Psalm 1 this past week. Though she has been involved in the youth ministry since The CHALLENGE (El Reto) back in September, she didn't have her own Bible. So, we gave her a New Testament when she shared this at our first meeting here in Cofradia. Last week she shared that this past week she didn't know where to start when it came to reading her new Bible. So, she prayed and asked God to give her a page # to start on. Well, he led her to Psalm 1, and that's the passage she shared in group and what that Psalm said to her. What an amazing thing to share and a perfect place to start, eh?!

We even had a young lady come who has admited that she doesn't have a relationship with Christ but who has participated in youth events in the past. Sandy and she have formed somewhat of a special connection, and Sandy even approached this young lady, Pati, about meeting together each week. However, Pati goes to school in a different town and arrives late each day; for that reason she isn't able to meet with Sandy or continue coming to group, but I was so excited to see Sandy take that initiative and try to reach out to Pati in that way.

Mili and Sandy come each week, but they come very early on Wedensday mornings using the bus that goes between the town. It costs them a little something to attend this meeting, and it's exciting to me to see them making the effort and doing what it takes to participate in something like this. Even though it means that they are away from home all day just for an hour-long prayer group meeting.

Please keep these girls in your prayers: Sany, Mili, Claudia, Ana, Pati, and Cintia. And please pray that the Lord will bring in more girls and build a precious unity amongs our young ladies in this area!

January Monthly Update

JUMPIN’ IN

Well, January has been quite a full month as it kicked off our Short-Term Missions (STM) season! And what a packed season we have ahead of us! As of right now we have 10 outreaches on our 2007 STM calendar from January to August, and there is at least one more in the works! January started with a women’s team from Houston, Texas. They came and ministered to our women through aerobics, crafts, Bible studies, providing a library of books and CDs, and through the building and strengthening of relationships. It’s exciting to see them continue in some of the activities and habits that the women from Texas introduced that week! May these activities and habits become permanent! At the end of January we had a construction team from Washington state. What hard workers these folks were! They worked entirely on our central church facility, which we started construction on just a year ago! While they were here, they finished the platform floor and steps, built the instrument room (minus the roof), and leveled about one-third of what will be the sanctuary floor/basketball court. Two of their men also created our front gate from scratch, welding strips of metal together, and they had it installed by the time they left. What an undertaking! But we are excited to see this facility beginning to take shape as well as the dream behind it! Even more exciting is that our local church members are beginning to catch that dream themselves as they see it coming to life before their eyes, and so quickly! Praise the Lord!

THE MENTOR GAZETTE

In ministry news, I’m very excited about how the Lord is working in our young ladies! I continue to mentor Sandy, and I continue to be awed and humbled as I watch the Lord working in her and growing her into a truly beautiful, strong, and committed woman of God! We just finished studying the book of Ester. It has been a wonderful study in the contrast between worldly and godly character, in submission and obedience, and in having confidence in the presence and working of God in all things at all times! In addition to our study, we have talked about other issues. Discipleship is one of them, and I am encouraged to see her taking steps to reach out to other girls, praying with them and encouraging them in the truth! We have also dealt with issues such as standing firm in the decision not to date non-Christians and in figuring out what kind of man she would want her future husband to be. As the Lord has worked in her life in all these areas, she has been put to the test over and over again both in her own relationships and also due to the attitudes of her parents and sisters on these matters. She is a voice of one more often than not, but she stands on the Word of God so she does not stand alone. I’m so proud of her steadfastness and persistence in the face of strong opposition and from those most dear to her. We are believing that the Lord is doing a changing work in her family, but that takes time and often a lot of pain. Please pray for Sandy and her family.

DO NOT STOP MEETING TOGETHER…

The other very exciting development concerns our girls’ prayer group! This group began in April when I was here during my internship and consisted of me, Sandy, her sister Mili, and her two cousins Lupe and Favi. Favi and Lupe are no longer able to meet with us. However, though we miss having them, we are pleased for the opportunity to open up the group to include more girls. This required us to move our meetings to my house in Cofradía in January, and as a result we have had three to four of our Cofradía girls attend each week. They are all much younger in age and in faith, but they continue to come and do not seem to be deterred by the fact that they are required to share something and pray with us. The point of this prayer group is that each girl would be reading throughout the week so as to have something to share in our meetings, and that we would all pray for and with each other before going our separate ways. By requiring participation from each girl who attends, we avoid having the same ones share each week and increase the possibility of spiritual growth in every one of them! In just our first three meetings, the Lord has done a great deal in each one, and I’m excited to see how He continues to move in their hearts and lives. In addition to Sandy and Mili, please keep Cintia, Ana, Claudia, Pati, Mirna, and Judit in your prayers.

(pics counterclockwise from Top Left. Claudia, Me and Judit, the girls (Ana, Cintia, Mirna, Mili)

More Updated Links

Hey folks! I'm still working on the updates. Things have been crazy busy around here, and now I'm getting ready to head to Virginia at the end of a Youth Leadership Conference at this week. However, I did want to announce that I've added a couple of links:

1. There is a link for the online catalog of our Library here at the church in Cofradia. This library was officially started by the Cy-Fair Christian Church Women's Outreach Team that came down at the beginning of January. Their donation of books, CDs, Bibles, and Bible's on CD have been blessing our church body. We decided to do an online catalog so that folks can search it and know exactly what we have and don't have in case they have an interest in donating more books, CDs, reference materials (study materials, health reference books, etc.), movies (DVD and VHS), or anything else they think might bless the church body here in Mexico. Please keep in mind that anything donated should be in Spanish.

2. There is also now a link to My Yahoo Videos. I noticed that some of my videos when uploaded to YouTube had a delay in the audio. That does not happen with Yahoo Videos. However, since I can't seem to successfully embed the videos uploaded on Yahoo, I have kept the YouTube account as well. So, feel free to check them both out, though Yahoo will be my primary video site!

Well, enjoy! And I promise I'll continue working on those updates!

Painting

So, yesterday I headed to Arrayanes for my weekly mentoring meeting with Sandy, and then afterward spent the day at their house....painting their room! Now, I LOVE painting, so this was a blast for me, but it was hard work too! The girls had never painted before, and I had never painted concrete walls before; so this was an interesting experience for all involved. In the end, although we still need to paint another coat on the upper end of the walls and finish off the details, it turned out pretty well.

Me and Mili painting the two pink walls...

Ok, so these walls go all the way up to the tip of the ceiling!

More painting over the pink..by the way, the new color is pistachio

His Place Construction Outreach

Ok, sorry I haven't posted in a little while. We've been busy with a team from Washington state. They came from His Place Church in Mt. Vernon, WA to do construction on our new central church facility a few blocks away! This construction project started almost a year ago exactly, and it's so exciting to see it taking such form and shape already!!! It's really a huge undertaking, but our God is SO MUCH BIGGER!

Anyway, this team usually comes down every year and does nothing but construction. A few years ago, they came down and started building the Arrayanes church. They are hard workers and accomplish a ton of stuff in short amounts of time! This week they poured the platform floor and stairs; they built the instrument storage room up to the the first "dala" (it's like a concrete beam or something); they leveled about 25% of the sanctuary floor (which is slightly larger than a full-sized basketball court); they extended the re-bar columns on the property wall to their full height; they uprooted and moved several trees to their permanent locations; and two guys took a ton of steel pieces and welded them together to form our massive front gates (complete with man-door); which was installed by the time they left!!!

The greatest part of it all was that the entire week they worked side-by-side with folks from the local churches here: men, women, and even non-church members alike! Even I helped on the construction: shoveling for the mixing of concrete, wetting bricks that were being laid as part of the walls for the instrument storage room, and making steel re-bar cages for the wall cage extensions. I even helped load the massive gates onto the truck that transported them to the church! This project is cool enough as it is, but it's going to be even more phenomenal when it's done and we can each of us, Mexican and American and Canadian, walk around that facility and say, "hey, I helped build this wall!" or "I helped pour this very floor!", or "I helped pour the very platform that He's teaching me from!" What an incredible and tangible way to understand what it is to grab hold of the prize, to press on toward the goal, to take hold of our faith and walk forward in it! Wow, God is good!

The first Sunday that the team was here, they attended both services: in Cofradia and in Arrayanes. Then after the service in Arrayanes, they provided a wonderful meal of Taco soup for them to have a chance to fellowship with that church body. This team has built wonderful relationships with the church body in Arrayanes especially, so it was a really precious time of fellowship and catching up! And it was a ton of fun too!!

The team also went up to Mojocuautla on that Friday to be part of the Bible study ministry there. It was neat to be a translator for that. That is still a pretty tough job for me..translating that is. But even though I'm terrified every time I have to do it, it's just way cool when it all comes out well!

One morning during the week, I even did the unthinkable. Yup, I got up before sunrise! I accompanied three guys and one of the young ladies on a hike up the Cofradia Hill to watch the sunrise. From this hill you can see the entire town of Cofradia as well as all the way to the mountain in Penas, which is about 20 minutes from Cofradia by truck. It was a glorious morning as we welcomed the dawn and then hiked back down the hill to a wonderful breakfast and a day of hard but gratifying work! Praise the Lord for the glories of his creation!

The town of Cofradia from "The Hill". I live just a block or so above the first red roof you see. :)..just to the right of the radio tower!

The sunrise that glorious morning!

At the end of the week, the team went for Tacos in Pilas. There is a man there who has a popular taco stand on the weekends. Last year and this year he opened his home and made tacos exclusively for this team during the week (which he doesn't normally do). The team took probably about 20-30 people from the church with them, so were probably about 60-70 people total! It was SUCH A BLAST!!! Everyone had a good time talking and eating their fill! When it was all over, we at 660 tacos total, and the record from last year was broken for the one person who ate the most tacos. Last year it was 23, and one of our own youth broke the record by eating 24!!! Talk about big eaters!! But we had a wonderful night. I had the priveledge of sitting at a table with Sandy and Mili and one of the young ladies from the team. We had a good time joking around and eating good food.

What a marvelous outreach this team has had in this area. The people here KNOW them, and they look forward to spending time with them. They consider this team precious friends and brothers and sisters in Christ. What a great time of work and fellowship in the Lord this week and a half has been. We're definitely looking forward to next year!

Feliz Cumpleanos

So today is Mirna's birthday. She is Pola and Juan Luis' (the Arrayanes youth pastors) oldest daughter, and she is Mili and Sandy's cousin (Pola is their mom's sister, and Juan Luis is their dad's brother, so they're double cousins). Mirna turnes 13 today. So, last night....or rather this morning...around 12 am...we gathered up a handful of our youth and drove over to Arrayanes and woke her up at the beginning of her birthday by singing Las Manyanitas to her. That is the traditional Mexican birthday song. It was pretty fun, and kind of like an initiation for her. Since she is still in 6th grade, she had to wait until she turned 13 to be part of youth group. So, this was sort of our way of welcoming her into the group as well as to celebrate her in a special way. Since it's Friday, we had youth group tonight. After our meeting, which Mirna attended, Pola invited the whole youth group to their house for Mirna's birthday dinner/party. They served pozole, and it was a great time!

Please keep Mirna in your prayers. She has pretty much grown up in a Christian family, but nevertheless she's still very young (obviously!). Please pray for the Lord to awaken a fire for him in her heart instead of her understanding of God being about church on Sundays and Fridays. She is part of a Christian youth rap band, which she really enjoys and which is led by a young man on fire for the Lord. Please pray that his enthusiasm will be contagious and that this young lady will grow into a powerhouse for her God!

Enjoy the pics.

Mirna, now age 13!!

Steve and Gena eating pozole at the party!

Mirna and the guys
(L-R: top--Pedro, Gollito; bottom--Lorenzo, Martin, Mirna, Ruben, Chicle)

Mirna and some of the girls
(L-R: Ana, Cintia, Mirna, Mily)

Noche de Vida....

....is a once-a-month youth night that happens the last Saturday of every month. We alternate between having it in Cofradia and Arrayanes. For January, we were in Cofradia, and it happened to be while His Place construction team was here. It was a great night. We started the evening with a slideshow from the Christmas soccor tournament. Then we played this new quiz game we've started called "Quien Quiere Quinientos?" ("Who Wants 500?"). It's sort of like "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?", but it's Bible trivia, and the most they can win is 500 pesos (about $50USD). That was fun. We choose the player (only one each month) through a rafle. The guy who got it didn't make it past the second question, but oh well! At least he gave it a shot! Then we moved on to worship and the message. Our speaker was one of our own youth--Martin. He is the oldest son of the pastor in Arrayanes, and the Lord has done so much in Martin's life over the last 2 years. He spent a year at a Bible school in Oaxaca, and has been here since the summer, and then he plans to return to school this fall to complete the second and final year of the program. His desire is to preach and share the gospel, espeically with youth and the indigenous population. Anyway, his message that night was about "Making Decisions", and it was a great message. Lots of kids came up for prayer during prayer time including the entire rap band that Martin and his brother Ruben have started.

Speaking of prayer time, I wanted to recount a little story. I was talking with Sandy and Mili after the evening was over and they related the following to me: Pola and I were the female youth leaders who were up front to pray with the girls. Mili and Sandy had both come up but were behind some of the other girls being prayed for. I was praying with some of the other girls, but when I looked up at the end of praying I saw Sandy and Mili both praying on their own each with one other girl: Mili with Ana and Sandy with Pati! I was so surprised to see this, that afterward I asked Sandy what happened because she went up to receive prayer and ended up offering it! She told me that she did get prayed for by Pola, and so did Pati. When prayer time started, she asked Pati if she wanted to go up, and Pati seemed nervous about it. She told Sandy that she wasn't ready to receive Christ and didn't want to go up alone, and Sandy assured her that she could still be prayed for. So, she said she wanted that and they went up and Pola prayed for them (they are the three all the way to the right in the pic..Sandy in the stripes with her hand on Pati's back). When they were done, Pati hugged Sandy and was crying. Sandy said she just felt in her gut that there was something more to pray for Pati, so she asked her if there was something else specific for which she wanted prayer. She shared about some problems at home in her family and also that she wanted prayer that her parents would keep letting her come to church. So, Sandy just started praying for her. She said she just kept praying and praying and was suprised at how easily the prayer came out of her. She was just so excited because she said that was the first time something like that had happened to her, where God used her in that kind of a way, and it was so cool to her!

A similar thing happened with Ana and Mili as well. They have formed a bit of a connection and talk pretty easily. Ana confides in Mili and seeks her advice on things. After being prayed for, Ana turned and hugged Mili who was behind her. Mili asked if something else was going on, and Ana shared with her. So, Mili started praying for her as well. She said the same thing happened in that the prayer just started rolling off her tongue and she wasn't even sure what she was saying, but that it was a really cool experience! It's just so neat to see how the Lord is working in these two girls. He obviously has something very special planned for them! What a glorious priveledge to watch it beginning to unfold!

Playing at Dusk

So, when we took the Houston ladies up to Mojocuautla, we took a bunch of the Mexican ladies with us, including Sandy and Mili. After it was over and everyone was just milling around waiting to head back to the base, Sandy, Mili, and I had fun playing on a hill overlooking the river! We had fun running up the hill, but then one of them started taking pictures of us which turned out pretty cool because it was dusk and we basically just came out like sillhouettes. So, enjoy!

Ok, seriously...I think I might crow (like Peter Pan!)

"Walk with me...friend...sister..."

And the sun sets on the end of a very wonderful day :)

Cy-Fair Ladies Outreach

Well, here we are a couple weeks into 2007, and it's already been an exciting year so far!! HAH! We just had a group of women here from Houston Texas. They came from Cy-Fair Christian Church on a short-term trip to do women's ministry here in Cofradia, and man was it A-MAZ-ING! It was a small group, but I believe they had a HUGE impact! We had announced that they were coming in both church for a couple weeks before they arrived. So, we had a large group of ladies show up that first day. Some were more skeptical than others about whether or not they thought they'd enjoy it (especially the youth girls that came), but after that first day, they were hooked! Each morning started off with some fellowship time just talking to folks as we waited for everyone to arrive. This group of ladies also brought a ton of books that they donated for us to start a church library. So we had all those books laid out each morning, and the women would mill about looking to see what was available. A couple of mornings we started with some crafts also. But regardless of what we did during "arrival" time, when it was time to began, we did so with AEROBICS!! It was great! It was fun and funny all at the same time, but the ladies REALLY liked it! Of course there were some who didn't participate (yours truly among them), but they would encourage the other ladies anyway. In fact, about 6-8 of them enjoyed it so much that they have continued to come and do aerobics together now that the Houston ladies are gone (they donated that video too)!

Then it was time for the Bible study lesson. The theme for the week was Sister, Daughter, Friend, and our Bible study lessons looked at different Biblical women who were one or more of these aspects of women. We studied Mary and Elizabeth, Mary and Martha, the woman with the blood disorder, etc. It was really neat to look at these very familiar Bible stories from the perspective of their interactions with each other and what that could mean for us in our lives! After the lesson, we had small group time to discuss the lesson and what the Lord was teaching us through the stories. And then several days of the week we ended with some craft time. We made banners with the theme of the week printed on them, and the women really enjoyed that! It was so refreshing to see our Mexican ladies interacting with each other the way they did during this outreach! More often than not the two church are pretty isolated from each other (Arryanes and Cofradia). And when there are fellowship activities for both churches together, it's not uncommon to hear commetns about how someone doesn't want to go because of this person or that person, etc. That can be very discouraging sometimes because it's quite the opposite of unity. But during this outreach the Arrayanes women came with a whole truck-load of women and they came everyday. We had women coming who are not part of the church, and they too came every day! We had old women and young women and women all in between! And no one was thinking about who they were trying to avoid. They were just ENJOYING themselves! And it was so precious to be part of!

I was especially pleased because Sandy and Mili came each day. I had such a hard time convincing them before the women arrived that this would be an enjoyable thing for them. They couldn't get past the fact that this would be a week of ministry for grown-up ladies, all married and with families. But I finally convinced them to come at least the first day saying that the ministry that was going to take place was not specific to women of any age or stage of life and that they really would enjoy it! Well, they had a BLAST! And it was great hearing from them during small group sessions. Two of the women on the team took a special interest in these two young ladies. They actually went with me to have our weekly prayer group that Wednesday, and the elder of the two ladies shared about her favorite Bible story: the story of Esther. This was especially cool because Sandy and I are studying through that book right now in our mentor times each week. Sandy and Mili were really touched by what this lady had to share, and they enjoyed the younger of the two as well as we took them home. The younger of the two was also their small group leader, so they had time to spend with her each week.

That week they also went up to Mojocuautla to minister to the Cora ladies in that village. We split into groups and went to several different homes. There they passed out gifts of perfumes, etc, that had verses inside about how our prayers are like incense to the Lord. After explaining all this, the women then offered to pray with the Cora ladies who gladly accepted those prayers. The group I was with had the opportunity to share with a couple of ladies who don't normally involve themselves with the Bible study activities in that village each week, so it was a real outreach opportunity. One of them was even really sick. None of us left that encounter dry-eyed. During another visit, we were all seated, and a goat began to nibble and nose one of the American ladies during prayer. When we were done and had finally stood up, the goat immediately jumped into the chair and made himself comfortable. We all had a good laugh as we realized that the goat was trying to get his chair back from our friend!

Finally, the last night they were there, the American ladies put on a movie night for all the women and their families. They showed the Wizard of Oz (in Spanish!..quite hard to find!), and before it started they shared some spiritual principles that we can learn from this movie! Everyone had a blast during the movie! And we all ate popcorn and PINK M&Ms!!! After the movie, it was time to say goodbye as the ladies were leaving for home the next morning. I was especially struck by the goodbyes that took place between Sandy and Mili and their small group leader. There were tears (very rare on the girls' parts), and as I walked them back to their truck, I asked them what they thought of the week. Their response: "IT WAS PERFECT!" After the difficulty I had convincing them to give it a try, this was a miraculous answer to hear from them! But I was so encouraged by it because it meant that they EXPERIENCED something during the week. They were touched by it, and I've seen them more interactive with older ladies in the church since then, especially their aunts. It's just really cool to see how the Lord works through us and in us in the most extraordinary ways...even when they seem pretty unremarkable! God is really good, and His goodness shone through yet again through this outreach experience! Thank the Lord for all that He is doing!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Welcome, friends, to 2007, a year full of promise and possibility!! Our New Years celebration was SO MUCH FUN!!! Since New Years Eve was a Sunday, it all started with another joint church service. That's right! The Arrayanes church joined us for another sunday service..that's 2 in a row! And it was so great! Then that evening, the Cofradia church had planned a sort of pot-luck-esque gathering at the home of one of our families! This is how we organized it! Every family that was coming was to bring enough meat to feed their family and enough tortilla mix to feed their family. Then on top of that each of the family groups had committed to bringing another aspect of the meal: beans, salsa, and a few other things. I wasn't in on the planning so I'm not sure what all they were supposed to bring, but let me tell you we had a feast! Then when everyone arrived around 5 pm, the men all worked on grilling the meat and the women all made the tortillas. Yes, you read me right...hand-made tortillas. It's so normal here for them, but they are SOOOO good! It was a ton of fun, and even some of our guys did a little tortilla-making...quite hillarious seeing Dave (our base director), Goyo (our pastor), and the dad of the family that did the soccer camp making tortillas!

Mati (Goyo's wife), Pola (from Arrayanes), and Maria (Arrayanes pastor's wife) preparing meat for grilling

Dave making hand-made tortillas!

Goyo making tortillas

Mr. Funk making tortillas--quite an experience for his Christmas outreach trip with his wife and three daughters!

Folks from Arrayanes came too, and we all ate and laughed and talked and had a grand ole' time. The later it got the colder it got. Eventually we had a couple fires going with folks sitting around them roasting marshmellows and telling stories or just chatting about stuff. Sandy came from Arrayanes, and we had a good time laughing and spending time with her family that came and others from the church. Everyone went home around 11:30 pm, and right at midnight everyone started shooting off their guns for about an hour! At that point, it was already pretty noisy from all the parties going on. So you could hear the music from all over town plus all the guns going off. It took a little while to fall asleep, but it finally happened!

New Years Day dawned, and I had mentor time with Sandy. We decided to go ahead with it regradless of the holiday since we hadn't had mentor time in a couple weeks due to the Christmas activities. I showed up at her house around 10 am to find her still asleep as she had been up all night at the all-night town party in Arrayanes after returning from our church party!!! We had some great time together that morning discussing some pretty serious stuff that had come up for her the night before, and God moved in amazing ways. I can still see how the look on her face changed as the truth of God's Word in relation to what was going on for her began to sink in deeply in her heart. It is a truly unforgetable experience to be able to see with your physical eyes the transformation that the Word of God has on a life in the instant that it's happening!! It was an amazing way to start the year!

The Lord has his own challenge for me as we rang in the New Year together! As I've pondered over the end of 2006 and the entrance of 2007, the Lord has been challenging me to have an undivided heart (Psalm 86:11; Ezekiel 11:19; Jeremiah 32:39) and to be committed to the pilgrimmage with Him that will lead directly to His throne room one day, from strength to strength (Psalm 84:5-7), transformed in ever increasing glory (2 Corinthians 3:18), finding all my fountains in Him (Psalm 87:7). None of that happens by accident. None of that just sneaks up on us until we realize that it has come to be true without our realizing it! It is something we have to work for; we have to set our course in that direction and commit ourselves to how the Lord would work in us to accomplish that in us since we know it is His will and promise for us! It only happens when we seek it out intentionally. So, that's my prayer, my hope, and my "plan" for 2007, and instead of saying "we'll see if it happens", I'm claiming the truth that it WILL happen because that's the kind of God we serve! I pray that as you begin your new year that the Lord is challenging and encouraging you in your intentionality for 2007 as well, that this will not be a year that just happens to us but rather one in which WE happen to IT and all for the glory and kingdom of God.