We're here!

Hello, blogger buddies and faithful readers! I am glad that you stopped by!
As of my last post we -- my family and I -- were preparing to leave for the States. Well, we are now in the States and staying with some very good friends in Tucson, AZ.

Our trip was wonderful! We had no incidents, no excessive heat (praise God!), no delays, pleasant company and great sermons to listen to all the way up! The night before we left Mexico several friends stopped by to send us off. After they left I stayed up for a bit cleaning and getting food ready for the trip (just so that I don't take all of the credit, Annette did help with the food :P ). I think that I ended up going to bed at like 12am ... though it might have been 12:30am ... I don't remember *smiles sheepishly*.

About 15 minutes after I fell asleep -- it was more than that, but it sure felt like 15 minutes -- I felt my Mom shaking my shoulder telling me that it was time to get up. IT should have been quick to get out of the house, but there are always those "last minute details" that seem to take forever! We finally left the house at 4:30am.

Later that day I was commenting to my Mom that it always seemed so much easier to get out of the house when she and my Dad would get everything done and then wake me up when the van was running and we were ready to walk out the door. Now that I am older my Mom wakes me up earlier so that I can help her do the last minute stuff. Don't get me wrong, I love being able to help out and I really do like organizing... but not so much at 3am! ;^D

Anyhow, we arrived in Tucson at 7pm, just in time for supper, and got settled in. The next day we had volunteered to help some friends of ours move. We had a great time getting to know all of the people who showed up to help and just fellowshipping with the friends who we hadn't seen in months. I firmly believe that the best way of getting to really know someone is working beside them... it can show you what the person is really like when they are sweating and out of breath yet still have a smile on their face!

On Sunday we rose early to attend church. My Dad was teaching that Sunday so I had the privilege of hearing the message that God had given him. God used his Word powerfully and I know that more than a few lives were touched and challenged. After the service some friends of ours invited us over for lunch. We had American style taco salad... it really tastes nothing like what I now consider a true "taco salad" but I liked it equally well, if not more! Annette (she is another missionary from Mexico who "hitched a ride" up with us. She'll be staying with us for a week or two) and I decided that as long as you don't consider the food that is called "Mexican food" as authentic, it tastes great!

Anyway, back the events of the day! At four o'clock all of us went over to the church for a picnic. I for one had an absolute blast! We played games, hung out, made new friends, caught up with old ones, ate hamburgers (I liked that part :D), and had a great time! Some of the games that they played were very interesting. There was the water balloon toss -- you can't have a picnic in the summer without that -- then the water balloon fight -- I still have a big bruise on my back where someone pegged me with a balloon that didn't pop -- then a game called "Wink'em" in which you make a fool of yourself by diving to the ground to avoid getting tagged (if you want a more detailed explanation than that you'll have to write me and ask me to explain it better! ;P ). Finally, we played a game called "Kijawbie" (don't quote me on the spelling). In this game everyone (well, we divided it into a team of boys and a team of girls) forms a circle with a little piece of rope with a know on each end between every person.
In the center of the circle you place a garbage can (plastic). On the count of three the whole group starts rotating around the can while trying to make someone else either lose grip on one of their ropes or touch the can. The object of the game: be the last one standing. The rules: no yanking, biting or kicking; anything else goes. The game was brutal! To my great surprise I ended up the last of two standing. The other girl won, but by the time the game was over all I wanted to do was flop down on the grass and stay there -- which I did ;) . If you will believe it, the game that I participated in lasted almost 20 minutes. Can you imagine? 20 minutes of feeling like you hands were going to fall off! I am sure feeling it today! Still, it was enough fun to make up for the aching shoulders and sore legs that I woke up with this morning!!

Today my parents and I went and applied for my passport. It didn't really take very long except for getting my photos. My Dad took me to Walgreens early to do that. I liked how the picture turned out, but my Dad says that it looks like a mugshot because I didn't smile. I replied that if he would have told me that you could smile, I might have! Then again, if I was completely content with the picture it would be just weird! lol

Alright, I think that I have got you all pretty much up to speed. I will only add that God has been wonderfully, amazingly, completely faithful in my life! He is so good and I can naught but praise Him! I hope that you have a blessed day!

Isaiah 40

21 Do you not know? Have you not heard?
Has it not been declared to you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
22 It is He who sits above the circle of the earth,
And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers,
Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain
And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.
23 He it is who reduces rulers to nothing,
Who makes the judges of the earth meaningless.
24 Scarcely have they been planted,
Scarcely have they been sown,
Scarcely has their stock taken root in the earth,
But He merely blows on them, and they wither,
And the storm carries them away like stubble.
25 "To whom then will you liken Me
That I would be his equal?" says the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes on high
And see who has created these stars,
The One who leads forth their host by number,
He calls them all by name;
Because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power,
Not one of them is missing.

God is at work 24/7

Good day to you! Today is Saturday the 15 and it is a beautiful morning! God had be marvelously good to me in these past few weeks. I am falling more and more in love with Him day by day!
Don't get me wrong, struggles still come -- and have come in these past weeks -- but it is such a blessed assurance to know that God is always there with you and never abandones you!

Preparations for our departure to the States continue. We are planning to Thursday morning early -- like 3am. Keep us in prayer!

Our weather here has been in a constant state of change. It has never really gotten cold, but we did have one day that was moderately warm rather than extremely hot. One night you are so sweaty that you can't get to sleep and the next you are sleeping with a blanket!?!? It's because of the storm systems up in the mountains... but as long as the coolness lasts I will not complain!
But you know, even the heat can be a blessing. Sure it's hard to deal with and sweating all the time isn't exactly my ideal, but it really tests your patience and God has used it to show me how my attitude is -- it's really hard to hide a bad attitude in frustrating heat and while doing hard work. The only way to avoid striking out in anger in a frustrating situation is to not have anger in your heart to begin with. For, as the Scripture says:

Luke 6:45
"The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is
good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for
his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart.

So, if I want to be a blessing to others it has to start with me first!

Last week we went to Los Mochis and while we were there a huge storm hit. Since it was raining too hard for us to drive home we ended up staying the night with some friends. I had never had that happen before, so for me the experience was unique! -- One thing that I absolutely love about Mexico are the thunder storms. They are AMAZING! We get winds and rain, but above all we get lightning and thunder! The lightning strikes and then... CRASH! The thunder sounds! My personal favorites are the storms where the thunders sounds something like a whip. Perhaps this is strange of me, but I can't help it. Every time I hear the thunder it just makes me think of how awesome and powerful a God I serve. The trees and plants might show His beauty, but the thunder and brilliant lightning show His might! -- Anyway, back to what I was saying...

We were originally in Los Mochis to visit with some of our friends and also to attend the youth meeting. The week that we were there the youth pastor had decided to show a video instead of giving a message. I really appreciated the sermon. It was called Return to Christianity but you can find it on Youtube under The Shocking Youth Message (Paul Washer). It was the most moving and convicting sermon that I have ever heard from a man. God used him powerfully.
There was one phrase in particular at the beginning that really caught my attention. Paul was talking about how watered down Christians and Christianity had become in the States. I don't remember exactly what he said, but it was something to the effect of "we have forgotten what true Christianity is and we need to change" and after he said that everyone applauded and some people even whistled. When the applause had died down, Paul look out over the audience and said, "I don't know what you are applauding about; I am talking about you." Ouch.
I recommend the video as an hour well spent. Even if you don't agree with everything that he has to say it really makes you think and, more importantly, examine yourself.

Alright, now I have done! I will try and get back on here soon with pictures... we'll see how soon "soon" really is!
May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding be with you all!

Everyday goings-on!

And so the time goes by! I cannot believe how fast the weeks seem to pass. I honestly didn't realize that it had been so long since I'd last written!
No much has happened really. Days come and go, it is still very hot and humid and GOD IS GOOD!

Right now my Mom is preparing octopus for lunch... I have never had octopus, but everyone I have asked says that it is very tasty. Still, I would prefer to come to my own conclusion after I eat it. It makes me laugh to think of what I might have said three years ago if my Mom had told me that we were going to have octopus for lunch... very funny! I don't think that anyone in my family would have gone for it, me least of all! But now, I think that everyone except for Evie will eat it without comment (or at least without complaint. A favorite habbit of ours is to comment on the food; my Mom doesn't mind as long as all that we say is positive ;P ). Evie has never liked sea food. Oh well, that just means more for us!

The boys have been working on cutting wood for my Mom's new brick oven -- which, by the way, is now finished. It's sort of hard work, but it keeps them occupied and that means that I have some quiet time to, say, write a blog post!

Yesterday we went to a party for a friend's little boy. It was fun and it was only a few blocks from our house which means that we didn't have to worry about the distant storm clouds catching us on the way home! It was another pool party and the boys spent most of their time trying to climb a rope swing that was stationed above the pool. I think that Jessee holds the record, something that Caleb laments. He really takes pride in being the strongest boy. I wager he'll be doing push-ups for the next few days! Well, I might be exagerating a little bit, but it is true to some extent.

Alright, before I call it a day I want to share a passage in 1 John that I have found quite challenging these past few days:

1 John 3:5-9

You know that He appeared in order to take away sins, and in Him there is
no sin. No one who abides in Him sins; no who sins has seen Him or knows
Him. Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices
righteousness is rigthteous, just as He is righteous; the one who practices sin
is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son
of God appeared for this purpose: to destroy the works of the devil. No
one who is born of God practices sin because His seed abides in Him, and he
cannot sin because he is born of God.

A party, a storm and three days of horrible heat!

Dear faithful readers,
As always, I have to excuse the lack of movement on this blog. And, as always, I do have an excuse. These past few days here have been nice and horrible at the same time. We had a huge storm which knocked down a good number of telephone poles and even more trees. The result of this was that we had no electricity for almost three days (this is my excuse). I was desperate by the third day -- mostly because I hadn't realy been able to sleep without at least having a fan. I slept enough so that I wasn't falling over, but not enough to avoid a headache. Thanks to God, we now have electricity, but the days without it are still fresh enough on my mind to make me quite happy and not at all discontent in the heat... I suppose that means that something good did come of the trial... but at what cost? lol ;^)
There's a really cool story to go with all this, though. I was trying to think of the best way to start, but I guess that the best is always to start at the beginning. Here goes nothing!

On Saturday we all woke up at the normal time, did our chores and other various odd jobs that were to be done around the house and then we had a few hours to spend as we so desired. I spent most of it practicing my guitar and clarinet... and, of course, reading, but I didn't really do much of that. At 1:00 we all got ready and left to a party for one of our friend's cousin's daughter's birthday (say that five times fast!) in Guamuchil.

It was a swimming party and they had rented a pool for the occasion. We had a great time hanging out with our friends and keeping cool (very important!). At about 6:00pm we started seeing a large storm system rolling in, but we didn't really think much of it. We ended up leaving about an hour later and by then the sky looked really dark. Still, it didn't look like the storm was going to hit us for a good hour and we knew that by that time we would almost be home.

After a bit of consideration, my Dad decided that we would take the back roads in order to get home sooner (just so you know, most of those roads are dirt or gravel). We drove for a ways on the road and then, all of a sudden, it got crazy still without even a little bit of breeze. It was like that for a moment and then SWOOOSH! the wind came blowing in. It was a lot like the movie Twister (if you have ever seen it. If you haven't just imagine the harshest wind you have ever seen and that's probably about where it was).

The trees whipped around like crazy and the dust swirled up making mini tornados. It was INSANE! After a little while, the dust got so bad that we could barely see the road, so my Dad had Esteban (a friend of ours who knows the roads really well) change places with him. The wind was so strong that when my Dad opened the front door of the van the wind grabbed it and flung it so hard that it almost came off the hinges (that's the next project that my Dad has on his list, fix van door).

I was a little worried by that time. Not the kind of worried where I was scared, but worried enough to begin constantly praying. We weren't more than 20 minutes from home on one of the gravel canal roads when the rain came. If it was hard to see in the dust, it was twice as hard to see in the rain. Garbage and tree limbs were flying everywhere and the rain was falling almost horizontally. We were driving about 10 miles per hour, but even at that pace we had to stop constantly in order to make sure that we weren't headed into the canal. We were about 5 minutes from the highway when we glimpsed the lights on a car ahead of us. It seemed like the car wasn't moving and as we got closer we realized that not only was the car not moving, but there was a tree on top of it!

From the looks of it, the tree had fallen a matter of minutes before we arrived. It was kind of weird how it happened, but we hadn't been there a minute and my Dad and Esteban were still discussing the best way to be able to help them when three girls (well, more like youth) and a lady carrying her baby rushed out from the bushes where the car was stuck and into our van.

They were all soaked, but no one seemed to really mind since all four of the women were hysterical (I have never actually seen someone go into hysterics, but this was really close). I tried to calm the girls down the best I could. After about 30 minutes of the two men who were in the car trying to get the car out from under the tree, we decided that it would be best to take the women back home and then have them send someone back with help to get the car out.

By this time the rain had calmed down and the road was clear enough to be able to drive on. We backtracked the way we had come and about 2 hours later, after having dropped the women off at their house, we arrived in Las Glorias. Not much of our stuff got damaged by the rain (mostly just some books of mine that were on my desk under the window). Nothing that couldn't be replaced. God really protected us and I hope and pray that we were able to be a testimony to that family. They even invited us to come by and visit them any time!

It's cool how God uses those kinds of circumstances for His glory and to bless us. We kept commenting that, "If we had only left 5 minutes earlier we would have made it through the storm." or "If we had only left 5 minutes later we would have chosen a different road." Then we realized that God used everything and worked it all together so that we would take that road and so that we would arrive at the tree a mere minute after it had fallen. Who knows why it happened, but I do know that it did happen for a reason. Maybe someday I'll know why, but even if I never do I can trust that God is capable and willing to take care of everything!

Alright, I am now going to release you, but only as long as you promise to come back -- or are you too scared? Mwahahaha!
Seriously though, I hope to see you around here again!
Blessings!

God is in Control!

Hello everyone! Interesting title, right? It doesn't have a lot to do with what I am going to write, but it's the thought that has been most prominant in my life over the past few days. I figured, why not make it into a post title? So, I did! :^D

As of right now it is 4:15 a.m. . Some of you might be wondering what in the world I am doing on the computer at such an insane hour... well, there is an easy answer for that too! We are being hit be a storm. Like most nights when we are hit by storms, the power is out, the roof is leaking in places -- there is one right over my head that is dripping constantly. I am already wet, though, so it doesn't really matter too much. I am wet mainly because I had to step outside to find the mop... took me a little bit because the only light I had was a cellphone and the occasional flashes of lightning.

Still, even though storms here do have their downsides, I can't help but love the wildness of them. There is something so magestic about the rolling of the thunder -- that is the perfect word; "rolling". It does sound like it is "rolling" across the sky... BEAUTIFUL!!

Anway, aside from the fact that it is 4 oclock in the morning and the power is out, lets just pretend that this is a normal update. Sound good?

My days have been pretty full this past week. If I am not doing one thing I am doing another. I have been trying to keep my hands busy. I find that when I have my hands busy I am less likely to fall into temptation.
The principal filler of my time has been the memorization of verses. I am trying to memorize the book of 1 John. Right now I am on chapter three. It is very fulfilling to be able to quote passages of scripture; it's nice to know that what I am putting so much time into is something that's going to be of lasting importance. I have also found that when you are memorizing passages of scripture it really helps in your understanding of it. Kind of like the "meditating on His word" that Psalm 1 talks about. I believe that when we take the time to really think about what a verse means, the Holy Spirit gives us understanding.

The best way I have yet found for "meditating on His word" is memorization. For those of you who feel up to it, I would like to challenge you to learn a book of the Bible. After 1 John I am thinking about beginning on the book of Romans. I know that it is a long book, but don't you think that it would be worth the struggle? I do! Take up the challenge, and don't put it off another day. It's a trap that we fall into, procrastinating. Live every day as though it were your last... such a hard motto to live by, but if we want to live lives that will leave a lasting mark on this world, we will have to do more than just plan. It's going to take action and sacrifice...

Luke 9:22-23
"If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me"

... are you going to take up that cross? Then take it up! And follow HIM to the end!! And this isn't just about memorizing verse -- thought that's a good thing -- it's about what you are going to do with the grace and mercy that you have been given through the blood of Jesus Christ.

God bless you guys! I hope and pray that you have a wonderful week! May te peace of God which surpasses all understanding be with you!

Just the average update to you all!

Hello faithful readers! I know that I was hoping to have that whole week free... well, I did have a whole week free, but it seemed that every time that I sat down to type on my computer the internet was busy, the power was out or I just plain got distracted by something else.

I have had a great and relaxing week. The heat here is making it hard to accomplish any really big projects or tackle any really big jobs, but I think that we are all making it alright. Today was especially hot though... oh well! I suppose if it was cold I would be complaining the opposite. I just have to take everything with a grain of salt -- or something like that ;^)! Through it all God is good!

In this past week I have, among other things, been taking the opportunity of practicing on my neglected and dusty clarinet. My Mom gave me the clarinet on my 10th birthday, but I haven't really applied myself to it until now. It's a hard instrument to learn because it sounds so horrible when you don't do it right that you can only practice when everyone who has to share the house with you is okay with your doing so! Still, I have a fairly gracious set of "house-mates"... they put up with a lot more than most! lol So far I can play a total of three songs on the clarinet -- all old hymns -- not too long and I will be playing on Sunday mornings on the worship team *winks*. :^D

Today my Dad went to town to buy materials to start construction on a new portion of our house. This time it's going to be our -- Evie's and Mine -- room! Right now we only have enough to build the walls, but soon we are hoping to be able to put a roof on as well. It's so exciting!! I am already busy planning how I am going to arrange to our room... hmmm... lol!

It's funny how God works and uses all these hard situations to cause you to grow -- kind of random of me, I know, but when I write I tend to write exactly what comes into my mind as I am writing.
My Dad and I were talking the other day and somehow we ended up talking about our comfort zones and how a lot of the time, as Americans, we are accostomed to more than most Mexicans and a lot of times tend to complain more when we are deprived of our comforts.
Talking about this lead us to talk about how everyone is at a different level in their comfort zone. For example, I might say "I went three days without food so that we could complete the outreach we were doing", whereas a Christian in a country such as Africa might think of that sacrifice as nothing. Sometimes we -- I should make this more trasparent and say "I"-- forget about all the other Christians around the world and get too involved in what is going on my life -- the things that I am dealing with or the sacrifices I am making -- to be able to remember that less than twenty out of every hundred people in the world have electricity; to remember that 1.1 billion people in this world don't have clean to drink; to remember that even in my hardship I am blessed.
It's so easy to aknowledge that when you are seated in the church pew... but when you are lying awake tossing and turning in the heat because the electricity has gone out... then it gets hard to remember.
Still, looking at the Bible I have to see that God never warns us to be careful in hardship (Romans 5:3-4); it's when we have plenty. When we are "well-off", that's when the Bible tells us the be careful. It's not that riches are bad in themselves, it's that, if one is not careful, riches can cause one to stumble and sin (Psalm 49; Mark 10 Rich Young Ruler). Just a challenge for anyone willing to give an ear. Sure is challenging me!

---TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN---
We are officially planning to be in the States August 20th thru September 10th -- I am not 100 percent sure about that second date, but the first is right. We will be traveling up to the LA area but probably not any farther. If any of you want to plan a roadtrip down to see us... well, you have an opportunity!! ;^D
Blessings to you all!