Independence Day, and Passion 2008 Mexico!

I'm pretty much not keeping up real well with writing in this blog, please excuse me! :)
September 15-16 is Independence Day here in Mexico, and we celebrated in style at the house of our friend Job and his family, with typical Mexican soup, enchiladas, and traditional musica and dance!

Me, JP, Lalo, Phil, and Ruti enjoying the festivities!

Me with Mariana and Alan:

This week, we've been planning high and low for Passion, a hugh event for college students with the purpose of encouraging students in their relationships with God, and proclaiming His name in the city! We'll be taking 25 students to Mexico City this weekend for the event! We had a coffee and cookies fundraiser at church this past Sunday which went quite well, and the students are excited for Passion! Please pray that this will be a life-impacting event for our students - worshipping alongside thousands of other college students! - and that everything will work out logistically. Honestly, I'm a little nervous about taking so many kids to Mexico City, in the eyes of Mexican parents, I'm the only adult (you become an adult when you get married or turn 30), and only barely so! Phil has done an amazing job of organizing the event for the Queretaro students, I really haven't done much at all, so he's been on his own for the most part - finding a cheap/safe hotel, reliable transportation, event tickets, everything. Phil moved here from Australia in March, so organizing the Passion trip for our students has been a huge undertaking and good learning experience!

Again, we ask your prayers for our students and leaders during this event - this coming friday, saturday, and sunday.

I'll post an update when we get back! :)

Some Updates, Finally!

(I started to write this 3 days ago, but the power went out, as it has frequently in the past weeks, and with it went the internet... so this is a bit delayed!)

I'm SO sorry about not having written in FOREVER! But, you can probably imagine that things have been busy since we got married!! Busy in a good way, of course! :)

I just want to give a little update about what the Lord is doing in the lives of some of our college students...

I don't remember if I've mentioned Maricela before... She's a 25 year old girl who we know because she's been spanish teacher to some of our short-term missions girls, and she used to attend Justin's english class. Lluvia (Justin's wife, both work with students at Horizonte) began to have a Bible study with Maricela about a year and a half ago. I think it was about 10 months ago that Maricela accepted the Lord! She was always nervous about coming to any church because she'd always had bad experiences with churches in the past. But, in May, Maricela began attending sunday service at Horizonte! She's come regularly ever since, and come to thursday night college group when her work schedule permits.
Last thursday, Maricela called Lluvia after college group that she attended, and explained that she was really enjoying being a part of the group, especially this past thursday, as we had an awesome time of worship and opportunities to spend a lot of time in prayer and reading the Bible. Maricela said that she plans to invite her sisters, who are between 18 and 24 years old, to this week's meeting, which happens to be specifically for inviting non-Christian friends. It has really been amazing to see how Maricela's life has changed in the past several months. We doubted for a long time that she would ever start attending church, and now she's even inviting her sisters to come! We thank the Lord for His work!

Here is Lluvia with Maricela (yeah, I stole the picture off Lluvia's blog...):

Brisa is a 19 year old girl who just entered college at the State University this semester to study foreign languages and linguistics. I've known Brisa the entire time I've been here in Mexico, she's Lluvia's little sister, and has grown up in church. She's also quite shy around people she doesn't know, so I knew it would be interesting to see her form friendships with her new schoolmates. Brisa has said that she feels like she needs to get her act together as far as being a Light for Christ to her school friends. I'm very encouraged to hear her desire to reach out to those in her class who don't know the Lord! We're looking for an open space in the week for me to go to her school for a little while each week to pray with her and any friends that would like to join us!

Brisa at a birthday party...

Rafa is our friend who is 24 years old, and has been paralized in a wheel chair for 7 years. He's VERY shy, but has opened up to Phil and Justin (two missionaries who work with college students) more and more in the past months. When we closed Global Grounds cafe in the location, we were nervous that Rafa may stop coming to college group. Why? Because the only other apt place to hold the group was UPSTAIRS in Horizonte Church. And no, it has no wheelchair access. Rafa didn't come for about 6 weeks after we changed locations, but decided to give it a try one day. Two guys lifted him up the stairs and two other brought his chair. Rafa has come very regularly ever since! He also has been sharing with Justin about his relationship with the Lord, and his struggles in life.

Along with Rafa comes his 17 year old cousin, Hector, who helps Rafa's mom take care of him (Rafa's dad passed away 6 months before he became paralized). Hector rarely talks. For a long time, he would just help get Rafa into the college group area, and sit by himself and not want to talk to others, even though several guys made a good effort to involve him in the group.
In our recent few group meetings, Hector has opened up a bit to Justin and Phil, sharing about his recent trip to the beach, and also asking for prayer that he would be able to follow Christ more effectively! As far as we know, Hector has not accepted the Lord, but wow, he's heading down the right path!!

Rafa at his birthday party a year ago...

And finally, Mariana. My little girl grew up and went away to college!! I feel like a mom saying that. Mariana has been out of high school for a little over a year now, living in Queretaro with her mom and brother, taking intensive English classes (I think she speaks better than I do now!). But in August, she got the opportunity to study Bilingual education at a college in Puebla, about a 6 hour drive from here. So my wednesday nights from 7-10pm seem quite vacant now without looking forward to meeting with Mariana.
However, Mariana has come home a few weekends since she moved away. She's asked prayer for her relationships with ther classmates - that she can have a good friendship with them while keeping moral limits (the classmates like to party a lot). This is also Mariana's first time living alone, and 19-year old girl living alone here is not very common, so it's a BIG adjustment.
So far, all is good, and very busy!, in Puebla, and I trust that they Lord will help Mariana develop healthy friendships and thrive in her new school and living situation!

Mariana and I...

Just a Quick Note...

To let you know that I am, in fact, alive and well!!
As you know, I got married on August 9th to Jean Paul, and have been really busy with all the planning and honeymooning and all!!

My families came down to Queretaro the week before the wedding...

My mom and dad (No, I don't think my mom is choking him...)

Dan, Kathy, and Apryl...

Suyapa, Mamilita, and Franklin (my mom, grandma, and brother from Honduras!)

I absolutely LOVED that my families were able to come a week before the wedding...

See more pictures of that week by CLICKING HERE.

The wedding was perfect, just how I wanted it!! Jean Paul and I enjoyed it, and I hope the guests did too! :)

More pictures of the wedding HERE.

JP and I left immediately after the wedding to go to Playa del Carmen, by Cancun!

You can see more honeymoon photos HERE.

I'll write more later, check out the pictures!! :)

Por Que Continues!

On last tuesday (yeah, I've been really busy to write!) we had a little follow up meeting/party for the Por Que event, for the Horizonte folks who helped out with the event. The purpose was to thank God for what He did, to thank those who helped out, and to hear any stories the teens had to share about what God did in their lives or in the lives of their friends.

We broke out all the coffee stuff from Global Grounds, and brought a couple of cakes. We had a time of worship with Ruben, Phil, Job, and Alex:

The kids really got into it!!

Even the moms and not-so-young volunteers came:

And later, EVERY teenager, and person under the age of 25 shared in front of the group their thoughts or feelings about the event, or what God did in their life or the life of a friend they had invited. Many great testimonies were shared, but I'll just tell you one, the one that impacted me the most!

Alan, pictured below, has grown up in church with an awesome Christian mom (he's the little brother of Mariana who I disciple). He's pretty mischeivious, but what 16 year old boy isn't?? Anyhow, about two years ago, Alan invited his neighbor friend Eliu to start coming to youth group with him. Eliu came, and liked it, so he kept coming. He started making good friends at youth group, and started coming on sunday mornings too. Alan shared that ever since he'd met Eliu, he'd wanted him to know the Lord. Now, Eliu, his mom, and his sister Alma come to church just about everytime the doors are open, and the mom is in a womens' small group and has accepted the Lord!

Then Eliu, pictured below, got up to share his side of things, more specifically having to do with the Por Que event. About a month ago, Edith, the leader of family ministries, asked Eliu if he would be insterested in helping lead a small group of 9 and 10 year old boys during sunday school. Eliu was honored to be asked, and all the little kids really like him, but he mentioned that it would be a huge responsibility, and that he was scared that maybe his life didn't reflect Jesus as much as he felt it should to lead young boys.

Anyhow, during the Por Que event, more specifically the question and answer time, Eliu felt impressed that he'd never actually said in his heart that he wanted to follow the Lord; he just showed up for church and helped out a lot, but hadn't taken the step to let the Lord be number one in his life. Eliu accepted Jesus at the Por Que event!!

Something good is happening among the junior high and high school students at Horizonte. God is touching hearts and lives, and we pray that the kids don't let that die! Please pray for the college students, as we don't see the same fire in them as in the younger students. Please pray that God can use us (the college ministy team) to encourage the college kids in their relationships with the Lord!

¿Por Qué?

This past Saturday was our big outreach event called "Por Que." (Why? in english). We had first an excellent turn-out of students from Horizonte who came to help set up as early as 10am.
Here, the students are in a short pre-event briefing so we're all on the same page during the event:

It had rained every day for over a week before Por Que, and several times it even began raining in the early afternoon (which is unusual). We were very nervous that it would rain on July 5th, and we didn't want new students staying home because of the event, or leaving early!
But it didn't rain!!
Here, some students are enjoying the volleyball tournament:

This was an outreach event for junior high, high school, and college students. We had many different activities going on such as the climbing wall, a room with three video games on big screens, the volleyball tournament, ping pong, Global Grounds cafe, and a graffiti contest. We also had live music performed by Job, Phil, Alex, and Ruben from Horizonte, along with several other young adults from other Churches in Querétaro and even from Monterrey.

We had quite a good number of students come to PorQue who were not from Horizonte (the whole point was to INVITE those who don't go to church!). I was a little disappointed at first at the small turn-out of college students, but we do have some good stories... Keep reading...

The band "Juan," which is part of Semilla de Mostaza in Mexico City came to play in the evening, and Kike from Semilla Cuernavaca and the band guys took questions from the students about Christianity, God, and life in general. Kike has a TV show that deals with tough questions and Biblical answers for young people. The show airs every Monday at 7pm in Cuernavaca and I think Mexico City. Horizonte Querétaro will be on the show this coming week!

Some of the students left after the outdoor activities had ended. But the ones who stayed for Juan and Kike got a good message... The group answered questions like, "How can I know that God really exists?" "Why do Christians hate homosexuals?" "Is there really a heaven and a hell?" "Why is there so much crime and sickness in the world?" And of course the token mischievious question, "Why are Alma Rosa and Jana so weird??" (obviously written by one of the Horizonte girls in the junior high group that Alma and Jana lead...!) The group had some amazing responses to these questions and more, answering straight from the Bible. At the end of the night, the group gave an invitation to accept the Lord (explained really very well!), and approximately 10 people raised their hands to make a first-time decision to follow Christ!!

About 4:30pm, a young man about 20 years old, Jorge, came into Horizonte. He works at the car wash across the street from Horizonte and saw the activities when he got off work, so he came over to see if he could play ping-pong and volleyball for a while. Obviously we welcomed him in. He played with us for a couple hours, then stayed for the Juan concert and question session. He accepted the Lord at the end of the time! We found out later that Jorge had been attending a good evangelical church near his home for about a month, and had a lot of questions, but something inside him told him that Christianity was good. So he made the decision to follow Christ! He will probably continue to attend the church near his home, and I believe someone from Horizonte is going to talk with someone in leadership at the other church so they know about Jorge's decision, and have someone available to disciple him.

Also, Bere, my friend Ana's niece, came to the event. Bere is in high school. We've been praying for Ana's sister (Bere's mom) for a while. Bere also accepted the Lord at PorQue!! Her mom, during the PorQue event, was in a pretty nasty car accident, but wasn't drastically hurt. Bere and Ana were able to share with the mom about God's protection. We hope that soon Bere's mom will come to believe as well!

I know there are other stories of PorQue, but I'll have to share those later!!

Thank you to all who prayed for this event, and we hope that you will continue to pray for the Horizonte students, and the students of Querétar in general.

If you want to see more pictures, click HERE!!

The Few, The Proud...

The............. Horizonte teens!!

On Wednesday night, we held a prayer and worship time for the youth and youth leaders of Horizonte, to pray for the Por Que event that will take place this saturday, July 5th. (If you're wondering what that's all about, you can read a little about it HERE).

It was pouring down rain, and a lot of people at Horizonte don't go out much in the rain (especially teens who don't have cars!!), so I was discouraged about the meeting, and almost didn't go - I was ridiculously tired from inmigration/moving JP's stuff to his house/running errands/Por Que preparations/etc.! But I went, and this is what we saw:

Kids joining together in praise and prayer to our God who we love and serve. Pretty much, we had a good core group of teens - ones that come faithfully to events and are not apathetic toward their relationships with God. I was very blessed to see true worship from the hearts of these kids, and around the bonfire (it quit raining for about 2 hours, and we prayed around a fire that was made in the yard!), several of them prayed for their friends' salvation, and that God would use the Por Que event to bring more youth of Queretaro to Him.

We trust that God has great plans for this saturday! Please pray with us for this event, the teens who come, and the leaders!

Prep Time for Por Que

Of course for an large event like Por Que, that will be this Saturday at Horizonte, you've got to have a good amount of preparation time. And if you live in Mexico and go to Horizonte, that prep time MUST include food!! And a lot of it!!

The past 3 weeks, the college group (those who are available at lunch time) has been meeting on thursdays for lunch and to plan for Por Que and Infusion (our new group for college students who have an interest in "spirituality." It will begin on July 17th). Today, Lluvia, Phil, and I made a Chinese-type stir fry. Man did it turn out goooood!!!!!!

Lluvia and I with the woks:

Some of the students who came (more came later, as work schedules allowed!)

The Answer...

To what some of you have been asking...
Where will you and JP live??

Well, we'll live here:


Yes, we found the perfect house to rent!! JP is moving in this weekend, and I'll move in after the wedding!

Here's me in my new kitchen!!

If you want to see more pictures, click HERE!

School Time

I found some recent pictures of Jean Paul's school that I thought might be interesting! JP studies International Commerce at the UNIVA university.

Here's part of the school from the outside:


Classmates during classtime. In Queretaro, you stay with the same students all the way through your school years, so you get to know them really well! All JP's classes are with the same bunch of students every semester.

Most of JP's classmates goofing off!

We know Bruno (guy in the back with the pen in his pocket) and Gaby (girl kneeling down in front) the best, and have been able to share about the Lord with them. Please pray for Bruno and Gaby (and the rest of the class!) that God will open their hearts to know Him!

5th of July

On July 5, we here at Horizonte Church be holding an outreach event for the youth (ages 12-25) of Querétaro. We aim to invite non-churched, non-christians, especially the friends of the youth at Horizonte. We plan to follow up on the new students who attend the outreach event, and are planning regular events that cater to the needs and desires of non-christians who have somewhat of an interest in spirituality.



PLEASE PRAY for this event that God will use it to bring more students to a growing relationship with Him, and that we will be able to follow up with all the new students.

What Not to Do

I've learned a lot of things in my time living in Queretaro, and in my cross-cultural experiences prior to that. I was thinking the other day about some of the funny things that I've done, trying to be creative or have fun, that just didn't turn out right!

Creativity is a valuable commodity as a missionary. Unfortunatly, I don't excel in that, although when someone has a creative idea I'm able to help carry it out efficiently. So I guess that's my gift instead of coming up with the creative ideas. I just want to share with you some of the things I've learned NOT to do over the past few years!

When being a guest teacher in a 3rd and 4th grade sunday school class in the US, it's a good idea to refrain from bringing your spanish-english Bible to teach out of. Why? Well, on the front of the Bible it says, "Holy Bible - Santa Biblia." To me this is completely normal. However, to english-speaking children, "Santa" only has one meaning... and it's not "holy." I was horrified to hear "Our teacher has santa on her Bible," coming from the students after class, especially since I know that most or all of the childrens' families don't do santa clause for Christmas, and definitely don't want their kids learning about santa in sunday school! Oops!

Be careful about the seemigly harmless materials you use while doing games for college students. I was in charge of games for one of our college group meetings one night, and I had been thinking about a game where there are two teams each lined up and each team has an object such as a water baloon or a wet sponge and must pass the object down the line of the rest of the team members using only their knees. (The object get placed between the knees of the first person, standing upd, who then passes it to the next persons' knees, etc.) Well, since it was November and cold out, and we'd be indoors, I wanted to choose a not-wet object to play this game, but something in a shape that would be hard to pass from knees to knees. I chose a banana. Never, under any circumstances, take a group of college students and tell them to put bananas between their legs. I was horrified once I saw the first people place the bananas and everyone started laughing... My bad...

When doing games for groups of adults, pretend you're doing games for Junior Highers. I've had two bad experiences with adults and games...
The first was in Honduras, a group of young adults went to check out a campground for a youth camp, and afterwards we all decided to have a nice friendly game of frisbee football. The score was somewhere around a lot to zero, and it was getting late, so Michelle - who was the person in charge of the whole camp thing - wanted to end the game and said that the next team to score a goal would win. It ended up that the team I was on (score of zero) actually scored a goal, therefore "winning" after Michelle's new rule to end the game. On the opposite team were several guys between the ages of 24 and 26. They absolutely threw a fit! They were so adamit about needing to win (and they HAD scored like 10 goals, WAY more than my team!) and were so outraged that Michelle had made that new rule and the lousy team won... I had NEVER seen young men act like such little kids in my entire life!! It set a bad tone to the drive home too, just because they HAD to win, and even when we said that they actually won because they'd scored so many more goals that us, they STILL wouldn't let it rest!!

The second incident with adults and games happened about 6 weeks ago at Horizonte. Phil and I were leading games for a group of about 60 adults. I made a "bingo" game where everyone has a sheet with 16 boxes on it, and each box has a characteristic (like "someone who has been to South America," or "someone who was born in the same month as you.") You must find a person with that characteristic and have them sign that box for you. The first person to have all the boxes filled and come to the stage wins. Sounds harmless enough. I purposely picked things that I was 100% sure would be present at the event. I got "someone born in Veracruz" (I know at least 4 people born there, that were at the event), "someone with a drivers' license from a state other that Queretaro" (if no one else, mine's from Oregon...), and so on. However, I made a little mistake. I put "some who uses contact lenses." Those are moderately common here, and I know several people who use them... but none of them came to the event. Soon, most people had all the boxes filled except the contact lens one, and everyone got upset because there was no on who had them. I said no one wins then, the game's over. That caused an uproar "We just did ALL THIS for NOTHING?!?!?!" The purpose of the game was actually to meet people you didn't know before, but whatever... I yelled, "Ok, the next person to bring a black watch to the stage wins!" Someone right below the stage pulled off a black watch, tossed it to me, and I pronounced her the winner. There were about 10 people who got rather angry and came to talk to me about how I was rediculously unfair and how they were really the rightful winner. Phil and I were absolutley agahst at the reaction to a simple little game!!

This is getting long, so I'll stop for now. I hope you enjoyed a few stories about attempts at good going wrong! :)

New Arturo

I think "Arturo" must be a common name here in Mexico, as this will now be the third Arturo who I've mentioned in this blog!
Ok, so, in preparation for the "KidStuf" that I mentioned in the previous entry, we needed a little bit of help with the acting part of the production. Someone in the church recommended that we talk with a guy named Arturo, who is a professional actor in Queretaro, and is also studying for a Masters degree in Theater. Arturo, who is 24, was very happy to help out with KidStuf, even though he's not a Christian and didn't really have any interest in church.

Throughout the KidStuf rehearsals, the other actors (young-adult Christians from Horizonte) began to hang out with Arturo outside of rehearsals. He invited everyone to his house a few times for snacks and a movie, the Horizonte actors went to one of Arturo's plays, and they all began to have a good friendship.

After the first KidStuf, Arturo volunteered to continue helping with future productions, and the leader of KidStuf felt that it was a good idea. Last week, Arturo showed up at Horizonte for the 11 am service. He hadn't actually attended a church service before, but said he felt comfortable at Horizonte because he now has a lot of friends here.

After the service, Arturo was talking with some of his friends - Phil, Sara, and Alma Rosa. He told them that the music at Horizonte had some really interesting words about loving God and knowing Him, and he didn't really understand what that is all about. I wasn't there, but one of the people talking with Arturo said that he almost seemed a little bit irritated to be thinking about God, but at the same time, he knows that there's something different about his new friends from Horizonte. These friends worship God, but are also really cool and fun to hang out with. So we know God is working in Arturo's life, and I believe that soon he too will have a relationship with God!

I didn't have any pictures of Arturo, but I found this picture of backstage after the first KidStuf on Phil's website, so I stole it to show to you all! Arturo is the smiley guy in the middle.

Buckhead KidStuf

It's been a while since I've written, but we've been busy... Getting KidStuf going at Horizonte!

KidStuf is a musical and dramatic presentation for elementary school kids and their parents. KidStuf goes hand in hand with the virtues that the kids are learning in their sunday school classes, and helps to reinforce them.

A team from Buckhead Church (and other North Point ministries churches) in Atlanta came to help us get the stage set up and get KidStuf underway. The team and Horizonte staff worked hard all week (even staying until after 3am on saturday night!) to get everything in order!

Horizonte girls doing the opening song on the not-quite-finished set on friday:
I think we had a good response from the families at Horizonte and some new families that came to KidStuf (Cosas de Niños).

We'll be back with more KidStuf once a month!

Amanda, Deborah, and I at the celebration for all involved in KidStuf on sunday night:

If you'd like to see ALL my pictures from the week, CLICK HERE.

Holy Cross Day

I'm gonna guess that most of you who think about mexican holidays this time of year would think primarily about 5 de mayo, which, by the way is NOT mexican idependence day. But there are a LOT of holidays all jammed into about 2 weeks. Childrens' day is April 30th (kids go to school but get to play all day). May 1st is Labor Day (no school, no work, no banks, no p ost office...). May 2nd is contructions workers' day (no work for construction workers). May 3rd is Holy Cross Day, which I'll explain later. May 5th is Battle of Puebla Day (no school, some people don't have to work). May 10th is Mothers' Day. So there's 6 holidays in about 2 weeks! And I'm waiting for some paperwork from the mexican government that I need by May 20th, and they said it would be ready in 10 "working days." Ooops.

Anyhow, I must add that yesterday, 5 de mayo, I saw no celebrations. I thought, "wow, people in the States are eating mexican food today in honor of a holiday that they have no idea what it is!" But that's ok, any excuse to have some enchiladas is fine with me!!

So on saturday night Jean Paul and I went to the little town of Pinto to go to a festival for the day of the Holy Cross. JP's friend Ruben and his family (who are Christians) live there. It was interesting to see all the festivities, and a TON of people clogging the streets!


Everything that you can imagine was for sale:

Including some really yummy breads:

To celebrate the holiday, a big tower was set up that had shapes of various catholic icons that would later light up with fireworks:

And this is the courtyard of the church in Pinto:

A lot of people just went to the festival for the same reasons we did - cheap food and lots of stuff for sale. But something that's sad to me is that many people come from all around the area walking barefoot or crawling on bare knees to the church as a penetence in respect of the Holy Cross. Then at night, many people get drunk. In the court yard pictured above, there's a band playing and many many drunk people dancing. Some of them even had on scary masks that supposedly scare off evil spirits. It was really surprising to me to see this going on in a religious area where just that morning people were paying penetences to the Cross. It's also sad to me to hear of people mistreating themselves in honor and maybe worship of icons that are not God.

Here's me and JP with Ruben and his son Gabriel:

Useful Missionary Skills - Part Three

Low-Tech Technological Communication Skills

Yeah, so, that's probably not really a term for anything, but I'll explain.

Something interesting that I've noticed over the past 2+ years of living in Queretaro is the way we communicate with one another. Pretty much everyone over the age of 12 has a cell phone here, and that's been a useful tool for me ever since I got here. Contacting youth group students, friends to go to lunch with, Jean Paul at work, and many other different people is most easily and cost-effectively done by text-messaging. My phone company has 10 cent messages (USD) to all cell phones in Mexico, and I have a pay-as-you-go plan, so that works out pretty cheap for me. I can remind all my college girls about the sunday evening meetings all at once and in about 1 minute.

Another great communication tool for college students is the use of Facebook and other social networking internet sites. It's quicker and funner than emails, free, and can be done at any time of the day or night. Some of my friends even receive Facebook messages on their cell phones! In planning an event, we can invite many friends all at once through Facebook, and they are even reminded about the event shortly before it starts. It's crazy.

I definitely prefer talking in person with other people to texting and Facebooking, but you gotta use the means of communication that those you are trying to reach use! And through those means, you can set up actual times to meet in person with them! :)

He's A Bus Driver, Not A Baseball!!!

The other day I was walking down Universidad Street (a main, busy street) in Queretaro with Jean Paul. It was a sunny evening, and we were going to the park. All of a sudden, we saw at the intersection ahead of us, two men fighting, and one of them was hitting the other repeatedly with a baseball bat!! We stood there for a few seconds trying to figure out what waso going on... There was a bus parked in the middle of the road, a taxi idling on the side of the road, and the guy hitting a man in a bus-driver shirt in the arm with a baseball bat. Pretty much if there are two men fighting here, everyone stays out of it and just watched. JP wanted to go help the busdriver out, and of course I wasn't too cool with that. But right then, a traffic cop showed up, and JP and a couple other men went to the fight scene with the traffic cop to help settle things down. Apparently the bus had cut in front of the taxi on the road and the taxi driver had a bat hidden under his seat, pulled it out, and hit the door of the bus with it, breaking the bus window. I know it's frustrating to be cut off by a bus, but out of the approximately 4 hours I've ever driven in Queretaro, I think I've probably been cut off by a bus maybe three times. So, I'm gonna guess that it happens every day to taxi drivers... So pretty much there's no reason for whacking a bus with a bat! And REALLY no reason to start hitting the bus driver with it! JP was talking with the taxi driver for a while trying to calm him down, while the traffic cop and bus driver were filing an incident report. I stood by the bus (parked in the middle of a busy street, nearing rush hour), and directed other cars around it.

Everything ended fine I think - we left before any other police officers got to the scene. But I was really surprised, road rage (with physical violence) just doesn't happen much here. In fact, that's the first time in my 2+ years here that I've seen violence used in a traffic incident! JP said that Queretaro is turning into the United States - next thing you know people will carry guns in their cars for when other drivers make them mad. It's interesting what a violent reputation the US has in many places! But it's true about the whole road rage thing - I remember ducking under a table in a donut shop on Lancaster Dr. on night about 3 years ago because some people in the parking lot and on the road were waving guns at each other. Living behind the Taco Bell on Commerical Street (the one at Madrona) had it's little perks like that too - the stabbed guy ringing the doorbell in the middle of the night, another lady who'd stabbed her boyfriend in "self-defense," and all kinds of good stuff that went on in the park across the street... Oh, not to mention the fugitive that was caught in our backyard one evening when I was home by my self wen I was 13! Really, it's true! I felt actually rather scared one night in January or February of this year walking behind the Salem Library by myself in the dark, and it was only like 6pm!

And then there's life in Tegucigalpa - don't talk to anyone on the other soccer team in Yaguacire, they'll start a fight; get back inside the house, the police just apprehended a murderer across the street; don't go to the market place alone, Suyapa got robbed at knife-point twice...

Well, I feel blessed to live in Queretaro, it's pretty safe in general!

Just a Normal Weekend...

Here are just a few pictures of some of the activities that were going on this past weekend:

We had a "conectate," or "group link" event at Horizonte Church. This is a breakfast event where people who are not involved in a community group can get involved. We also had a few groups multiply to make new groups! Jean Paul and I are now in a community group for young married couples. I think it will be great, our good friends Ricardo and Ana, and Justin and Lluvia are in the group, along with another couple who we kind of know, and two couples who are new to Horizonte. I know that it will be a good opportunity to grow in our faith along with the other 5 couples!

Here, we are playing some games at conectate to get started:

Sunday evenings are our college group meetings for the college kids at Horizonte. I led the discussion this week, the topic was about evangelism, and how we can branch out to our non-Christian friends; how we can introduce them to Christ's love by creating atmospheres that are relevant to college students.

Here's our ice-breaker game:

And, Julian and Whitney and their girls - a family who used to work here at Horizonte and now live in Atlanta - are here for a week to visit!

Here's me, Sandy (I live with Sandy and her husband Luis), and L to R Talya, Micaiah, and Haniel. Talya and Micaiah are Whitney's daughters, and Haniel is Sandy's.

Whitney, Sandy, and the girls:

Pepe - Part 2

In a blog in the beginning of December, I wrote about two guys named Pepe who had significant life changes and accepted the Lord in the past year. (You can read that here)

Well, last Sunday, Pepe (the one referred to as "Pepe 1" in the previous post) publicly announced his faith in Christ through baptism at Horizonte! Baptism is a big step for a lot of people in Mexico, as many of them were baptized as babies as "assurance of salvation" in the Catholic Church. Many Mexican families don't want their family members to be baptized in an Evangelical Church.

Here is Pepe in our little baptism tank!

The Car

I think I mentioned before that Jean Paul and I now have a little car! Here it is - a Volkwagon Pointer - I don't think they have that in the States, but it's a great little car. It gets good gas milage, and is easy to find parts in case it needs reparation. And I always think of Volkswagons as being pretty sturdy. This one is a 2004, so it pretty new (especially for me, who's never had a car newer that 1984!!). This picture is how I saw the car when I got back to Queretaro after being in Honduras! It's amazing how everything worked out for the car - we bought it from the boss of a good friend of ours who sold it to us for substantially cheaper than he should've just because our friend is such a good employee. With a car, JP and I will be able to find cheaper housing, as the further outside of the city you go, the cheaper rent is.

Another way that God has provided for us - a friend fromo JP's school works for a home construction company, and the company furnishes their model homes before showing them. One the model home is bought, they company sells the furnishings, most of which are slightly used, or not even used. So we are buying a brand-new refridgerator through this friend for about half the price that it sells for at Sears! Little by little, God is providing things that we need even before we actually need them!

A New Stage of Life

Ok, I know, it's time for a major update on this blog!

As many of you know, things have changed substantially here in the Queretaro ministry in the past few months, basically the months that I was not around, so everything was different when I got back! So hopefully this entry will provide some answers to what is going on:

1. Global Grounds Cafe - Yes, Global has closed it's door in the mall across the street from the university. However, we have moved everything to Horizonte church, and are continuing to have our sunday evening college group with the students at Horizonte. We hope to have everything up and running this next week to open as a cafe and a place to have activities for students on Friday nights as well. We are in the planning stages of re-organizing and re-thinking the college ministry. The Horizonte college students are enthusiastic about continuing the sunday evening meetings, and we are making sure to keep in contact with the students who don't come to church, but came to Global. So yes, I DO still have a job here!! We would appreciate your prayers in this transition time!

2. The Wedding - Things are coming along excellently for our wedding! We have a lot of things completely taken care of, and many friends are pitching in a lot too! Here are some of the things that friends have volunteered to provide: our rings, my dress, our cake, the centerpieces for the reception, the food for the reception (cost of food only, labor is free!), the cost of transportation to our honeymoon destination (yet to be determined!), and we have a friend who's volunteered to be in charge of serving the food at the reception and finding others to help serve, for free. By the way, in Mexico you always have food at a wedding, it's pretty much not optional! So we're not doing an extravagant feast! In fact, in case any of you are worried, the total for food for 200 guests is approximately $300. Not bad if you ask me!! :)

3. Jean Paul and I - It's transition time from being two single people to being a married couple... ok, that does NOT mean moving in together!! That will be AFTER the wedding! :) But, there's so much to think about: arranging our schedules so we can have sufficient time together, thinking about renting a house, changing my mexican visa to a permenant resident, and lots of other stuff that you'd never even think of. But it's been good, and my my pastor and ministry teammates have been patient with us as we work out scedule details and wedding plans. Please pray for Jean Paul and I as we prepare for our life together as a married couple!
Oh! This is cool... We've been asked to join a small group for married couples! There's been a group for young married couples at church, and now there's a lot of those couples, so they're breaking it down into young couples with kids, and young couples without kids. Our good friend Ricardo and Ana are leading the non-kids group, and we'll be joining along with 2 or 3 other couples!

And a couple of pictures...

Phil, Jana, Brisa, and Dany (students who attend Horizonte Church) hanging out at tacos:

Pablo, Alma, and Aixa - students who we know through Global Grounds: