Last time I posted was before I went on the staff retreat to Creel, MX. I kept thinking I would get the pictures up before I posted and therefore again kept waiting and waiting and… you get the idea. Well, I am having some issues with my photo site, so I am going to post without them.
The trip to Creel was amazing and when I Read the rest of this entry »
A couple weeks ago we were all piled into the bus ready to go to church in Juarez and the bus wouldn’t start. One of the kids had been playing in there and turned several things on and drained the battery. I am not sure exactly what they did, but they eventually got the bus going and Read the rest of this entry »
A few weeks ago the interns and I went to Juarez after chuch to visit the market and have lunch. The night before Anthony and I asked Teo for directions and after 30 minutes we walked away with a two page hand drawn map, a mexican cell phone and 30 minutes of verbal directions from both Teo and Lety. Well, we missed the first main turn and ended up Read the rest of this entry »
The girls have been begging us to take them to the pool this summer and so we got a date arranged with Dean and started making plans. We were going to be gone all day, so I had to take lunch also. I started asking what we should bring…thinking burritos or sandwiches or something and ended up cooking tacos and rice. I stayed up till almost 11 the night before cooking it all up and then we had to take charcoal and pots to cook it over the BBQ. It was a lot of work, but the food was good and I think I won extra points for doing things the Mexican way. Lety told me I cook good enough to marry a Mexican guy. 
So we had a great day playing in the water, eating lots of food and getting sun burned…especially Sarah and I…the only white girls at the pool. But I learned my lesson and will be much more diligent in the future with the sun screen.
I didn’t take any pictures…but here are the ones from Sarah’s camera.
My home group here had a picnic one night to celebrate several of the men’s birthdays for that month. It was a themed picnic and all the food and drinks were favorite recipies from past presidents. We had quotes of things they had said and then also this game to see who knew the most about the birthday boys…I was kind of handicapped in that game considering I didn’t know most of them at all…but I asked lots of questions and actually got third place.
Here are a few pictures from that night…my camera died so yes, there are only four.
Ok, so this is a little out of order. The church from Gilbert, AZ had a water play day on their last day here. They turned the school yard into a water park, complete with a water slide and everything. They also brought in pizza for lunch which made me very happy. I have found that one of the foods I crave the most here is pizza… So anyways, it was lots of fun and I took lots of pictures. I hope you enjoy them.
It has been a crazy summer and I am way behind on blogging. It makes me laught thought because I have been following one of the interns blogs and she post almost every day all the little things the kids did and said and all our little adventures and “mis”adventures. I am hoping to do better, but I always say that and well…here I am again with piles of pictures and more stories than I will ever get online. So for now, I have decided I will just start with the oldest pictures and adventures work my way forward. I am hoping to be caught up by the end of next week…we will see how that goes. Read the rest of this entry »
So, a couple weeks ago we had a team here from Gilbert, AZ. I actually got to spend a lot of time with them because I was in charge of one of the work groups. My new office needed tile and since I had an experience (not experience…just one experience) laying tile here last fall…Dean asked me to put the floor down. After 5 days, pulling up half the floor and literally scraping off the ends of my fingers…I now have an office floor. I am moved into the office and this week someone is going to put in the trim Read the rest of this entry »
Juarez: The Ranch takes all the kids into the Sovereign Grace church in Juarez the first Sunday of every month. For various reasons we haven’t been able to go the past couple months so this was my first time going with the Ranch. We all loaded into the school bus for the 45 minute drive into town. The message was on “Taming the toungue” from 1 Peter and they talked a lot about gossip. I got the general idea, but didn’t understand as much as I would have liked. The bus ride was fun and we also stoped Read the rest of this entry »
Well, this past week was such a blessing to me. The Lord opened the door so I could attend the NEXT conference and also to go early and spend a couple days with the group from El Paso as well as some of Read the rest of this entry »
Ok, so for those of you who have been wondering where I was…I have tried to write this post several times already and every time I get it almost finished…something goes wrong on the internet and I loose everything I have written. So this will just be a short recap because I don’t have much time, but I did put up a bunch of pictures.
So, several weeks ago we received 50 brand new bikes for the kids here. We built them and gave them to the kids on, of all days, “Dia de Nino” or Kids day. It was like Chrstmas in summer, we had moon bounce, relay games, presents, and special food. Oh, and I ate menudo…it is some sort of cow intestine or something. The flavor was ok, but the texture…I can’t even describe how Read the rest of this entry »
(This was written on Friday) I am writing this while sitting in the school computer lab. Last night I found out I was “teaching” la clase de computacion this morning. Basically I am just babysitting and problem solving as the kids Read the rest of this entry »
I was so blessed to be able to go home last week. Silas is already talking so much more, but refuses to talk to me on the phone. Evalyn has grown like two inches and blabbers and coos all the time. I also got to attend one of our singles meetings and was very blessed by Phil’s teaching on pursuing and giving Read the rest of this entry »
This past week was full of new adventures and projects. I had several opportunities to hang out with people from the El Paso church and have noticed several “cultural” differences. One…there is a lot of hugging. Hugs hello and hugs goodbye and hugs sometimes just because. I have to admit that it is taking some getting used to. Also, the singles play a lot of sports…literally, this is what they do every Sunday afternoon. Basketball, volleyball, dodge ball, kick ball. Last week Read the rest of this entry »
Life here at Rancho 3m is much slower in many ways, but some how it still seems to be flying by. My schedule has started to change over a little and I spend at least a few hours in the office every day. I have also been doing some random projects with pictures and flyers etc. I am going to pray for the Lord to provide a decent computer and some software in the coming months because I have been very frusterated at how long a simple project can take without a decent computer and software. Read the rest of this entry »
It has only been a few weeks since I left home, but it has been a crazy few weeks. We made good time traveling out here and made it in two, fourteen hour days. I spent the first week here at the Ranch with my family and then we went up to Pheonix for my cousin’s wedding and to visit my grandparents. We had a great time and I was so blessed to be able to see everyone before I came back. I arrived back here in Mexico on Wednesday and have spent the last few days getting used to my new chores. My schedule is continually changing, but I am excited to learn all the different ins and outs of the jobs around here. So far I have done some cooking, helped with home work groups, had “guard” over the kids during different meals, gotten the girls up and going for school and helped put them to bed as well as doing some different projects for Dean in the office.
I have also enjoyed attending home group with the older girls and memorized my first bible verse in Spanish (Josue 1.8). The other day I spent over twenty minutes helping a couple of the little boys rescue a match box car from a hole in one of play ground toys and Saturday night I tried to learn how to jump rope again…it was rather comical as the little five year old could do it better than me. I have also been learning new words at an exciting rate and just finished looking up the word for pick up as in pick up your clothes off the floor. (recoger)
I have also been blessed to find out that there are two other singles living here. Flash, an American guy from???, but I haven’t really seen much of him and also Leydi, one of the teachers from the school who lives in the girls dorm on the week days. I have already been so blessed by Leydi and can tell that we are going to have an adventurous friendship as she is a very fun loving jokester and has already roped me into learning to play basketball…ahhh!
So far the Lord has blessed me with good health and I have also been pleased to find that contrary to me previous assumptions…much of the kids food here is quite edible. I am also trying to learn how to cook for one and at the moment have only a microwave and small crock pot, but I am hoping to get a table top stove. I would love some recipes if anyone wants to send any.
Yesterday I went to church in El Paso and also had an opportunity to hang out with some of their singles. I mostly just talked to one of the girls as everyone else was playing basketball…but we had a great time and I really enjoyed getting to know her. Though there are many new adjustments to be made…I think this one is going to be the hardest. While the Lord has helped me to grow so much in my social adaptability…I still really struggle with being the “new” person and have to work really hard to make myself get to know people. I would really appreciate your prayers in this area…that the Lord would give me grace to step out and serve and also that He would bring people/familes into my life that I can get to know.
The Lord has been so good and I can’t thank you all enough for your prayers. I will try to get some pictures up soon!
Life has been a little crazy so these pictures are mostly un-edited, but I wanted to get them online before I leave or who knows how long it would have taken. These are pictures from several events over the last month or so. Wish I had more time to post about them, but this will have to do. Enjoy!
I have already talked to many of you, but for those of you who don’t know or just got part of the story…I would like to let you know what’s going on in my life. Since the first time I went to the Rancho 3M orphanage in Guadalupe, Mexico (www.rancho3m.com) I have been praying that God would open the doors for me to live and work there. Read the rest of this entry »
I wanted to update all our family portraits for my mom’s wall, so this past weekend we all went downtown for a photo shoot. It was so much fun to just hang out and walk around taking pictures and … if I do say so myself… the pictures came out great. Read the rest of this entry »
The New Year’s Eve party this year was slightly different than most. Matt, who can always be counted on to come up with some crazy idea, had everyone split into groups and make puppets and put on a puppet show. Needless to say it was all very entertaining. Read the rest of this entry »
Ok, so this is a late follow up to Christmas, but I didn’t have any really exciting pictures, so it took me a while to get these up. I started taking a few pictures and then kind of forgot about it. There are still a few though if you would like to see them.
Last week I finally got to do some portraits of Evalyn Jane. She was asleep through all of them, but she is so absolutely perfect that you can’t help just staring Read the rest of this entry »
Thanks for your patience waiting for these, but I wanted to wait till I had links to both the photographers pictures before I posted them. Enjoy!
This morning, January 13, at 4:38am, the cutest and most beautiful little girl was born to John and Deana. Little Evalyn Jane was born 7 pounds, 3 ounces and 2o inches long. She couldn’t be a more precious little baby, but I will just let you see for yourself.
Click here to see all the pictures.
