New adventures!!

The past three weeks have been a whirl-wind of activity. I helped to host a marriage retreat of over 46 people. They had conference meetings, praise and worship, a scavenger hunt, and beach activities. The day after this group left I had a medical mission team that came from Tulsa, OK.

The village I had originally organized for a medical outreach with this team canceled because the mayor of the village had been under pressure from local catholic church members that were opposed to our group coming in to do medical outreaches. So he declined our permission to hold the mobile clinic in the city hall. Luckily there was a nearby prison we choose as in alternate site. But on the way two of our three vehicles began having mechanical and brake problems. So we stopped on the side of the road on the side of the mountain to pray about whether we should turn back around or go on to the ministry site. After we prayed I really sensed that we should head back. Just as we were loading the cars 6 trucks with 6-8 military policemen raced by us. We all looked at one-another in astonishment and felt God confirming the decision I made.

I later found out there had been an altercation among the Taxi and Mototaxi drivers of the town where we were headed, and the military police were called upon to intervene and subsequently the only major road into this town had been closed. Had we gone on to the village as planned we could have been caught up in the violence or been forced to stay the night there until the road was re-opened.

The second village trip was a huge success we made over 100 pairs of glasses, one doctor attended over 90 patients, 2 dentists attended 27 dental patients and over 60 people accepted the Lord.

The third group was from Kansas and we held several children's programs in several villages. We had a crowd of about 100 kids over the several days of ministry, of which many responded to the altar call and prayed the salvation prayer.

A miracle that happened for this particular team was that one of the team members had to use glasses. He really had a sense that a particular gentleman was supposed to pray for him and that this man, Leon, prayed for his eyes to be opened. Well, Dwayne, thought that it was in a spiritual way. When he got on the plane to go home he realized that he could read clearly without his glasses. He had been restored to 20/20 vision.

One really exciting thing I got to do with this team was a three hour horse back riding tour through the mountains, through rivers, and finally we came to a natural hot spring. It was an amazing ride and we even had long stretches where we galloped.

Home again home again jiggity jig

So after a little over a month of furlough in the US I made my way back down to Roca Blanca on the 12 of September. I have been back in Mexico about 3 1/2 weeks and let me just say its has been a really full three weeks.

Random things I have seen since being back that remind me I am back in Mexico:

1. A very old man (in his 70s) walking down the side of the road butt-naked with his cowboy hat on and his trusty machete.

2. Flamingos fishing in the river our in front the back of our house.

3. A guy surfing on a longboard but using an oar.

4. A woman breastfeeding her child with half her blouse around her waist

5. Men herding cows on high way on the way to the airport

6. State Police in full uniform including helmets and automatic rifles riding in the back of a pickup truck.

7. Pigs, chickens, goats, & turkeys running alongside or behind me or away from me on my daily afternoon runs in town.

8. a one ring circus complete with lion starring at me as I run by every afternoon with said animals behind me. It makes me wonder if he looks at us and thinks wow, looks its a buffet, poultry, pork, goats? (don't know what kind of meat they are), and a Korean all the basic food groups. yeah this circus was hilarious, the people that run this circus all came hobbling along in a beat up RV pulling thus said lion and other assortments of animals and their hitch for their tent. The thing that really had me cracking up with the last day there were in town and were trying to advertise and had the RV with huge speakers attached and a real live monkey strapped to the front hood and drove around blasting their announcements.

My biggest challenge coming back this time was the heat. In the three years that I have been here I have never been so hot and sweaty in my entire life. Consequently I change and bucket-bathe or shower about 3 times a day, no joke. I sweat through my undershirt and top shirt within a couple of hours of working or serving.

For those of you who keep up with me on facebook, you know I had been really sick this summer with walking pneumonia and amoebic dysentery (diarrhea brought on by amoebas). I am here to say that I am officially 100 normal and back to my healthy weight of 127lbs. I had dropped down to 120 during the height of my being ill. Thank the Lord.

The base once again was flooded. The day before the rains came down, the wind was blowing so fierce that it knocked down some power lines and we were in complete darkness for several hours and without fans it was crazy, sweating-buckets hot. There was standing water in some places about three feet deep not to mention in some areas there was actually a current.

Since this Monday and for the next three weeks I am hosting teams. We will be doing clinically out reaches, children's programs, and giving out customized reading glasses. We will be going into 4 or 5 different villages within our region.

This year, I will be mentoring some of the female students from our high school. I usually meet with them during their homework time and also during the evening after classes are done. We have done bible studies and had times of prayer and then sometimes I just listen to what is going on in their lives.

I will also be posting a video that I have put together about the mission base some time this week or next. The theme is igniting the mission flame.

I will also be posting the picture of the next couple of weeks in ministry.

Please email me or leave a comment, I would love to hear from everyone.

Gone Fishin'

Growing up in West Virginia caused me to really have a great love of fishing. My dad used to take us when we were little. Which is why I jumped on the opportunity to go today with a good friend. We were out there for several hours with out a single fish, and I ended up taking a nap right on the dock. After my second wind, I finally got a good hit and finally a fish. I was casting to get the next "big one" when a wild-life conservation official told us we were trespassing and needed to get off the grounds as soon as possible. Shut down right when we were just getting bites.

"isnt she a beaut...!"

Sports History!!

Okay so I randomly turned on the boob-tube yesterday and turned it on just in time to see, Y.E. Yang make golf history by winning US PGA championship. Woo-whooo! Kind of wished I would have taken up golfing. And to commemorate the victory I made regular egg rolls, and a butter and honey braised fruit dessert egg rolls. Then I randomly watched Hussein Bolt run the fastest time in history with 9.58 in the 100m event.

Swine flu, koreans, & a vacation

Tomorrow I will have been in the States for an entire week. The past week, I lead a group of Koreans from Seoul Baptist in Houston. It was a parent/child team and it was an awesome last team for the Summer season for me. They restocked my korean food stash that I hoard and only eat in extreme times of Korean food cravings.

I lead them on a trip to San Pedro Amuzgos. We passed out about 100 bags of dry groceries, did medical consults and gave medicine to over 200 patients, of which over half prayed the sinners prayer, had a children's event with around 250 children and parents attended. And then to close out the week we had a pizza party for the team and church volunteers who helped translate, cook, and man-power that weeks ministry schedule. It was truly beautiful to see Americans, and Koreans, and Amuzgans all coming together to adance God's kingdom but also just to fellowship and have fun. Unfortunately we did have a few cases of "runny butt." But you know this is missions and you'll have that.

I flew out the same day as the Koreans just several hours earlier. So it was like a marathon, trying to pack and clean, take them on their freeday, arrange travel to the airport, say goodbye to everyone, laundry, getting visa papers in order, and not to mention my case of runny butt and the beginnings of a cold (not swine flu). So when I made my first pit stop I was exhausted and my "cold" turned out to be walking pneumonia.

But even though I was exhausted mentally & physically, God in his goodness showered me with blessings upon blessings through several wonderful people in Rogers, Arkansas. I stayed in a beautiful home, I ate amazing food that was not black beans and tortillas, but best of all I got to rest. No schedules, no translating, no planning, no herding teams around airports or shopping or villages. Just four days of doing what I wanted to do, which was basically nothing.

The magnitude of this reprieve from my daily schedule reall hit me one night as I sat under the stars in a hot tub. I just kept saying over and over to God, thank you for giving me this time. Other than the discovery of walking pneumonia, I had an amazing time.

I hate when people name drop, so I will refrain from that tactless practice. But I do want to tell yall that I recently met the CEO of a major international corporation at a church plant's soup kitchen. If no one would've told me who he was, I would have assumed he was like a regular Joe. He was a very pleasant, non-ego-tripping, and a sincere and good christian man. Knowing the realm of influence and power he walks in daily, and yet seeing him set up chairs, clean, and serve was truly incredible. The thing that impressed me the most was the fact that he listened to someone's suggest about how to better his particular company (because it is a household name) and he seemed to genuinely take interest in what they had to say. I absolutely love his company chain and part of me wanted to tell him that the first time I cam back from Mexico and crossed the border his chain was the first place I went to and spent four hours in there. But I did not want to say something that would seem like "brown-nosing" so I let it be. He did ask me if there was a chaing of his business in my neck of the woods and I told him not but that there should be, he said he would look into it.

So right now I am re-couping at home in good ole West Virginia. so be expecting a few blog updates that I have been wanting to do but have not had a chance to.

A river runs through it...

Here recently I went to a village called Tetepelcingo, which is a mixteco village to help do a clinical outreach. It was my resposibility to do children's ministry.

A majority of the children spoke very little Spanish so it was difficult to communicated with them. But we still had an amazing time playing together. I taught them how to play "steal the bacon." Which was a huge hit with them. Even when it started raining the kiddos still wanted to finish playing. Then we all went down to the river. The girls and I walked together while we held hands or they held parts of my skirt. I think that there were about 20 kids in all that went down to the river with me. It (the river) was beautiful because it is at the foot of the mountain. So I tucked my long missionary skirt throught my legs and into my waist band to make kind of like pants so they would not get wet and we waded through the little river or should say creek. The boys stripped down to their birthday suits and went romping throgh the water. There was lush vegetation everywhere and there were women out washing their clothes or bathing. The people of this village make little wells about a foot deep in the river with stones and mud to catch rain water and it also filters the water that is flowing and catches some of it. So we washed our faces and then the children took me to a part of the creek that is heavily shaded and a bit deeper. So the boys went for a swim and the girls went to sit on the rocks by the river. we ended up painting our faces with some really rich red mud, and then I told them a bible story and we talked about the moral of the story and of God's redeeming love for them. we then waded back through the water back to the clinic outreach.

I am not sure how to describe it, but there was team that was recently here that talked about discipleship is doing life with people. That day by the river, as simple and ordinary as it was for me was beautiful and something I will not soon forget, on some small scale I was discipling those children, just by doing life with them, playing with them, loving on them, and cherishing them, enjoying them, but most importantly telling them about the love of Jesus towards them.

On another note for those that follow this blog I am leaving for the states in the next few days or so after I finish the last short term team mission trip that I am leading of this summer season. Drop me a line if you want to get together with me. I am going to be going by fayetteville, arkansas; charleston, WV; columbus, ohio; springfield, missouri; tulsa, oklahoma; houston, texas; and possibly corpus chrisiti. hope to see you stateside very soon.

Three graduations and a funeral

This past week has been one of the most spiritually and emotionally trying that I have had in a very long time. Last year I blogged about a young boy named Wilbur, from a village town about three hours away. He was a very special friend to me and he just so happened to have a congenital heart disease. Had I known that April would be the last time that I saw him I would have hugged him a little longer and told him how very special he was to me, even though I showed him all the time how much I thought of him. He passed away on the same day his sister, one of the girls in my pastoreal group, graduated from her second year of Bible school. I accompanied her home to help her with arrangements for the funeral. Her parents were to come back the next day with the coffin and little Wilbur's body. The verse that the Lord brought to my mind was the verse in Job where his friends came to where Job was at sat with him in silence for several days. Many times in our effort to comfort others during the passing of their loved ones we say really stupid stuff. I told her however she wanted to express her grief that I would just sit with her and pray to myself for her as she mourned. She was so strong for her mother though who was really taking her son's death particularly hard. I was so proud of her. A band, complete with drums brass instruments, came and played from the time the coffin got there until 2 in the morning. It is a tradition that comes from the Catholic religion when they pray for the soul to leave purgatory. Well that is what someone explained to me. The cemetary was on the other side of town on a hill that we had to walk to. During this walk, as I carried Wilbur's little sister, Annette, I came to some realizations that I am still processing. I miss him terribly, but I know that he is happier than he has ever been.

Apart from the funeral I celebrated the graduation of my girls in my pastoreal group. I helped served the graduation meal. I was the official general over the waiters. It was hectic but really rewarding to see everyone enjoy the meal so much.

I also was asked to be a madrina, which translates to godmother to a girl that was graduating from kindergarten. After the completion of each school, pre-school, primary, secondary school there is always a graduation, and each student is accompanied by a godparent. So I attended my first kindergarten graduation. My duty was to help monetarily and to buy a gift and attend her graduation meal. Her name is Roxana. Unfortunately I bought her clothing with out knowing her size and since last year she has doubled her weight. So the dress I bought for her fit her like a blouse. And the jacket I bought fit her little sister.

During the graduation they do several dances. This one is called the deer hunt. It originates from the Aztecs and there was a little kid that had a deer head and a hunter. very cute.

These little fellas marched around and were the color guard and carried the flag for the ceremonies.

This was the third graduation. A elementary school graduation. This is a dance called the arch dance. Very appropo no? Anyhow when I showed up at the graduation it was like the music cut out and every body whipped there heads around to look at me. The girl that I had come to the graduation for, needless to say was pummeled with thousands of questions. Like why a chinese girl had come to the graduation and how it was that the chinese girl spoke spanish and did she know kung fu? Sigh...some things never change I guess.