Ana and the Deer

A couple months ago, I spent a week at Julian and Whitney's house while they were in the States. Ana lived with them and didn't want to stay by herself for a week, so I stayed there too. Anyhow, one day, she came home from school and we decided to fix something for lunch. I found some beans to cook up, and was looking for other food to eat too when Ana told me "Oh! My aunt gave me a cut of meat the other day, we'll eat that!" And she proceeded to pull out the giant, round, dark red, inch-think chunk of meat out of the freezer. "It's deer," she told me. This slab of meat was so big, it even had a big indent in it where it looked like Bambi's backbone may have been. Ana tossed the whole thing in the mircrowave for a little bit, then told me to cook up half of it. Ok, I'm from Oregon, so eating deer isn't abnormal. But I've NEVER cooked it, and had NO idea how that works! So I cut of half of it, cut that half in shishkabob-sized pieces and tossed it in a fry pan with a little oil and whichischire sauce. It was a little rubbery, but it tasted alright.
Later, Ana thanked me for having cooked up the deer, as she didn't have the foggiest idea how to cook it! Now we both know how to improvise when cooking a slab of large forest-dwelling animal!

On to a more serious note, Ana has joined my english class for this semester. It's always weird for me to have friends in my english class, but this has turned out really well... Wednesday was the first class. One student - Noemi - accidentally came an hour early for class. She sat and talked with Ana and Raquel (another girl who works at the cafe) for quite a while. During class, I asked each student where they go to school or work. Ana said she goes to the Horizonte school of evangelism. That sparked questions with Noemi about what in the world IS a school of evangelism, and why would Ana go there?? So Ana and Noemi are getting together this weekend to go out to coffee and get some of Noemi's questions answered.
I don't think I've ever met another person who just has so many evangelistic opportunities dropped in their lap!! SOOO many people just ask Ana out of the blue about the Lord - her sister's boyfriend, a taxi driver, a girl from her high school who she hadn't seen in like 7 years... Wow!

It Happened...

I, along with all single missionaries I'm sure, am always asked if there is "any special young man" in my life. So far, the answer has always been "No." So far...

I have known Jean Paul since I moved to Queretaro last February. We are involved in a lot of the same ministries of Horizonte Church, and have many of the same friends. He's basically a really great guy! And he apparently thinks that I must be a really great girl too, as this week he asked me to be his girlfriend! So now I guess I can't say "no" to the question I am frequently asked!

Here is us at the Christmas formal at church in December

Slumber Party!!

I don't think you're ever too old to have a good slumber party. And that we did last friday night! Whitney's husband is in the States, and her mom was in QRO, so we took the opportunity to have a little party! Diana and I were technically the only people "invited," as Ana, Aidee, and Whitney's little girls live there all the time...

Here we are (Ana, Micaiah, Diana, and I) enjoying pizza and nachos:

Alice, Talya, and Aidee surrounded by yummy junk food:

And what girls' slumber party wouldn't be complete without some nail-painting?! Here is Micaiah attempting to paint Whitney's nails:

Is it just me, or is Tayla already more than half the size on Ana, at 11 months?!

It was nice to spend some time all together for an evening... Julian and Whitney and their girls are moving back to the States the 29th of January. This puts Aidee (who is working as their house helper and living with them) and Ana (attending the school of evangelism, and had been passed between like 4 houses before finally spending the past three months living on the Kreveres' couch) out of a home. I was getting really worried, and wished that I could offer some floor space in my room... But thankfully, the Lord has provided - Aidee is moving in with Justin and Lluvia in their new house (they have been living with Lluvia's family for over a year!). Ana has found a place with Adiel (the youth pastor), his wife Nadia, and their son Gerardo.

This month has been full of changes, but all for the better I'm sure. My parents will arrive right in the middle of the caos (and I had been so sure that the week they were coming would be non-busy...!). They'll be here from Jan. 26 to Feb. 2!!

Home... Again!

Well, I am now home (in Queretaro) after being at home (in Tegus). I am glad to be back and sad to not be in Honduras. But, I know that I am supposed to HERE now, in Mexico!!
I have not much going on this week, as we don't open the cafe until next week, I have no english classes to teach, am no longer taking spanish classes, youth group won't be until saturday, and I haven't gotten in touch with my girls yet to set up meeting times with them. SO, I have time to put some pictures of the rest of my time in Honduras on this blog!

This is my new favorite picture ever!! The first time we've taken a picture of the ENTIRE immidiate family!


In back are: Iván (brother, 26 years old), Franklin (brother, 22), Suyapa (mom), Michelle (sister, 33), Me, and Martha (grandma who lives with us). In front are Delmer (dad) and Ronald (brother, 20).


And the newest couple, my best Honduran friend Luisa, and her new boyfriend (who we've known forever!) Moisés.

My friend Flor and I... she's my shopping buddy!

The gringas - Marlia, Michelle, and I. Marlia is from California and was in Honduras visiting (she went there on the team from Simpson in 2003). Michelle has been a missionary in Honduras for 5 years.

Extended family members hanging out at my house - Larissa, me, Karla, and Flor (They'd be my cousin and second cousins)

And here's the kind of thing that goes on in the house when we've all had too much sugar and it's late at night...

(Iván, Fran, and Delmer trying to see who can wrestle who to the ground first)

Our family Christmas picture... although I now like the one with EVERYBODY better!

And, who says you can't have snow in the winter in Central America?! Michelle brought fake snow with her from Arizona... add water, and it turns into what really feels like snow!!

More Honduras!

Greetings again from Central America! And happy New Year!!

I'm still enjoying my time here in Honduras, it's been nice to have a few weeks to hang out, rest, and visit my friend here! I DO miss Queretaro though!!

Here are just a few pictures:

Suyapa and I on New Years Eve:

My two youngest brothers and I:

Fran, Luisa, and I at the mall:

Delmer and Suyapa (my honduran parents) and the evil orange cat:

I'll be heading back to Mexico Monday, Jan. 8! Sad as always to say goodbye to everyone here, but this time I'll also be very happy to go back "home" to Queretaro!!

CatrachoLandia...

Here are just a few pictures of my Christmas here in Honduras!

Singing in the choir on Christmas Eve...

The kids' part of the service...

And my brother Franklin and I enjoying some Christmas presents (I didn't get a mask for Christmas, I was just borrowing Ivan's!)

Christmas Banquet

Stepping back a little over a week, I have some pictures from our youth group Christmas banquet at Horizonte Queretaro!

The banquet was an evangelistic event - we asked the youth from churh to please invite a non-Christian friend. We figured about 35 or 40 from our church would come, and that maybe 10 would invite a friend. When it came time to buy food and stuff, we had 94 people registered to come!! 85 actually came!

Here are several of the university girls:

Aide, Ana, Whitney, and I

My good-looking little sister Gaby, and little brother Roberto

And, me with friends Dany, Ana, and Kike (KEE-kay)
It was a fun night!

"Home" Number 2

Greeting from Honduras! I arrived safely here sunday afternoon, and am staying with my wonderful Honduran family! I don't have much of a plan for my time here other than relax and hang out with friends and family. I'll be here until January 8.
Hasta luego!!

And Some Good Mexican Food...

... to tide me over while I'm in Central America!!

I actually took pictures of some of my favorite foods here (yeah, I know, I'm kind of lame...)

Here's my very very favorite food - it's called a gringa! The gringa is on the right, it's a big lump of white cheese and BBQ pork all melted together, and some places even add pineapple. It's eaten in flour tortillas. It's really really yummy!
I didn't get a picture of "mole" (MO-lay) which would be my next favorite food... It sounds kind of sick, it's chile sauce mixed with chocolate. It's usually eaten over chicken, or used instead of enchilada sauce!

Here is a "Guajolote" (wah-hoh-LOW-tay), or also called "pambazo" in outher parts of the country. It's a big sandwich. The bread is dipped in really yummy sauce and toasted on a grill. It is filled with meat (I like pork, chicken, or chorizo sausage), lettuce, tomato, beans, jalapeños, and cream. Definitely a good choice in mexican food!
And here's one that would make "health fanatics" cringe even more than the first two foods - the "Elote" (ei-LOW-tay). It's corn on the cob. Now, corn on the cob is pretty good for you - here they serve it boiled or roasted. However, when you eat it the mexican way is when it starts the arteries a'cloggin'. First you put on butter. Then mayonaise. Roll it in shredded white cheese. Squeeze on some lime juice, and sprinkle on some chile powder. There you have your cooked mayonaise on a stick! No really, it's really tasty! The one in the picture was bought on the side of the road out in the boonies. It's the best elote place!!
And I'm sure you're familiar with tamales, but you've probably eaten them with chicken or pork and spicy sauce. I like them like that too. However, since tamales are commonly eaten for breakfast, I usually acompany my chicken and green sauce tamal with a sweet tamal! The pink think in the picture is indeed a tamal. It's stawberry flavored with raisin. My favorite is pineapple flavored! We had gringos here when we were eating these particular tamales at church, and there were two guys looking at the tamales and thought the pink ones looked gross. but I gave them a taste, and they also liked them better than the meat ones! The women were afraid to try the sweet ones... they missed out...

Next Sunday, I'm off to the world of "ketchup is the spiciest thing we can eat." HONDURAS!! I'm very excited about going there... there are even foods there that I enjoy, even though they aren't super flavorful. Looking especially forward to baleadas (flour tortillas with beans, scrambled eggs, and melted cheese), pupusas (gorditas to mexicans, or corn meal patties stuffed with cheese, meat, or beans), and cuajada - my favorite Honduran food (salted curdled milk that's hardened enough to cut with a knife! No, I'm not kidding...).

I probably won't be updating this blog for another 2 weeks or so, so enjoy the 4 posts I did today!!

Merry Christmas!!

State Fair!

The State Fair of Queretaro is going on right now, and I went last night! I unfortunately didn't take my camera in with me, so I have one picture... of us in the car leaving. There are two GIGANTIC expo center-type buildings (think two buildings that dwarf the Jackman-Long at the Oregon State fair) full of really cheaply priced goods! I bought some earrings for less than half the price that they sell them for in the Centro. We (Brisa, Lluvia, Justin, Dany, Aide, Shultz, and I) beat our way through the crowds for about 3 hours of shopping. Then, we hit the rides. I don't think I've been on fair rides in at least 8 years, and 8 years really ages you a lot!! I can't handle rides like I used to! But it was very fun! And, of course, the yummy greasy fair food was WAY overpriced, and Im not supposed to be eating it anyways, so I limited myself to an apple-flavored pop. Fair food in Mexico = french fries, hamburgers & hotdogs, corn on the cob (with mayo, cheese, and chile!), stuffed churros (Mmmm!!), pancakes (yes, pancakes!) potato chips with salsa, and fruit popsicles covered in chile powder. Anyhow, even without food, it was really fun!!

(the picture is Brisa, Aide (eye-day) and me)

And the Winner Is...

CHIVAS!!!!!!!

The Mexican League soccer final was yesterday, and my favorite teams, Guadalajara Chivas, were in it. And they WON! And it was against my LEAST favorite team - Toluca!

Here is my probable new favorite Chiva - Omar Bravo.

Omar and Bofo

Bofo with my as-of-right-now favorite Chiva - Oswaldo Sanchez

Unfortunately, it is very likely that Oswaldo will be moving to Tigres of Monterrey. Such is life.

Where Do I Live??

For those of you who have always thought that it never really gets very cold in Mexico, this picture is for you! heehee! This is me before leaving for my spanish class last week - I leave at 7:15am, and it is COLD. Not as cold as it is in Oregon, but considering that we have NO HEAT in our house, and I have yet to be in ANY building that does have heat, once it drops below about 45 degrees, it gets rather uncomfortable! About 3 weeks ago, there was actually frost on the ground, and people here say that they'd never seen frost in QRO before (although most of the people who live here who I know are originally from Mexico City...) Anyhow, it was dumb of me to leave the majority of my winter clothes in my parents' house... I bought the scarf/hat/gloves here! I like the weather here, it's kind of unpredictable!

Queretaro Nativity

For some reason, I have a fixation with Nativity scenes, Latin American style.
A few weeks ago, to my great joy, they put up a life-sized nativity scene in one of the plazas en downtown QRO. So I had to take some pictures...

Here is the Jesus' birth scene:
And, like all large nativity set-ups in Mexico/Central America, it also includes more scenes possibly based on Bible stories, as well as a typical village scene from the country.

Here are Mexican children doing piñata in their village:

And here is Bernal QRO/creation... Not sure how a lion and girraffe got in QRO...

The three wise men coming to see Jesus: (in latin america, the wise men have names, which I don't remember, and one comes from the middle east with his camel, another from china with his horse, and another from india with his elefant)

And, they put up a "hell" scene too. Not my favorite.

Super Super Heroes - Part 2... And My Not-so-super Immune System

We finished off our SuperHero series in youth group this past saturday with a lesson on Daniel. The hommade video this week was so funny, I thought we were going to have to bring in oxygen for the youth group kids they were laughing so hard! Ok, not really about needing oxygen...

So here are our 5 heroes: La Mole (the big guy from Fantastic 4) - Adiel, Superman - Alex, Spiderman - Dany, BatMan - Justin, and SuperWoman - Whitney.


Now on to a not so fun subject. My failing health. Ok, not really, I'll be fine. But I have had a rather bad illness apparently since september, it just kept reappearing, and I thought I was just getting sick a lot. Nope. But now, after two weeks straight of being sick, I'm on the road to recovery. On Thanksgiving day, I was diagnosed with Salmonella, but sent to get blood work done just to make sure. Yesterday, I went back to the doctor to find out that it was really Typhoid (Salmonella is a type of Typhoid). Thankfully, I had been immunized against Typhoid in 2002, but the vaccination only lasts 3 years. I had enough still in me to keep the illness to a minimum. I feel alot better, but will be on a diet for the next two weeks, and anyone who knows me knows that I'm NOT a diet person. I'm a "street-tacos, ice cream, and pizza" person. I think I'm up to par with being a healthy Mexican now though - I got a new Typhoid vaccination (a must for living here...), and will get "de-parasited" every 6 months. Thats a nice thought, now isn't it! heehee!

All in all, I should be feeling better in the next few days, be ready to eat normal things in two weeks, and I'll be off to Honduras December 17!! Of course being very careful as to what I eat...

Thanksgiving!

Although rather ill, I was able to spend Thanksgiving Day with a bunch of other "gringos!" There were about 25 of us in one house, eating all the goodies of Thanksgiving! I thought that I was the only non-southerner gringa here in Queretaro, but there is a couple from Indiana who I'd never met before... Needless to say, there were a few dishes at the meal that I'd never heard of before, like cornbread dressing (apparently an essential to Thanksgiving dinner), and congealed (CON-gee-old) salad, which is like a creamy jello fruit dish.

Here is our potluck spread:

And one of the three tables we had set up:

Me with the other young gringas - Stephanie, Laura, and Mary.

And to finish off the evening, we sang hymns - IN ENGLISH together!

I ate pumpkin pie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was a great day!!

Part Two

Another full week with a short term team from NPCC in Atlanta!

This team from North Point helped us host a "GroupLink" which is a large meeting of people who are already involved in a small group, and those who are looking for a small group - so those who are looking can find a group that's right for them!

Here is a small look at the conference:

Here is the small group that I am a part of (not the one that I lead), with our new members. We are: Liz, Ana, Claudia, me, Edith (the leader), Sandy, and Sara. Silvia is missing from the picture. Liz, Sandy, and Claudia joined our group during GroupLink.

Every vacuumed grass?? I have! NPCC bought us a blower vac for the buildings and grounds, and I was using it to suck up the sawdust...

The team also helped us put 4 sets of stairs on the stage (stage was unfortunately not ready to be carpeted as we had planned...)
Jan (aka Juanita), me, and JP modeling a new set of stairs.

Here's the whole team: Liz, Jim, Andy, Jan, and Diane.

And me with the ladies at their goodbye party

Then we had a birthday party for Aaron, a Horizonte staff member:

Wow, aren't we mature?! The guy with his tongue sticking out, that's the youth pastor! hahaha!

And Aaron after getting his cake smashed in his face (anyone who is familiar with my blog knows that this happens at EVERY birthday party!)

Last but not least, yesterday we had a pizza and movie afternoon for the university age small groups from Horizonte! Mmmm, pizza!

After moving WHILE the short term team was here, and all the other activities of the last two weeks, I'm grateful that today is a national holiday, which means that I don't have to work either!

Happy Thanksgiving to all! Please eat some pumpkin pie for me, as I can NO WHERE find canned pumpkin... and if they think I'm making a pie from a real pumplin, well, I'm not! Have a good one!!