Also, we recieved a huge donation of sheets, blankets, towels, and other linens yesterday. Here is a clip of unloading the truck. (I get to see these people every day!)

See it here

John Mark spoke at church last night. Here is a recording of the bilingual sermon he gave. The introduction is in spanish and ends around 1:55. Enjoy!
Ir a descargar

John Mark lost his wallet last week. We haven't been able to find it, so now he is going through the process of canceling cards and so forth, but we don't know how he is going to be able to get a new drivers license. Please pray that we either find the driver's license or that he can get a new one before we visit the states in May.

Also,our computer is starting to act up. The weather and dust are hard on computers down here, and we are thinking that we are going to have to replace it sooner than we had hoped. Most of what I do for the church is on this computer, so it is not really optional. Please pray that the computer will last until we can go to the states for a new one and that we will be able to afford it.

Thank yo for your prayers!
love,
Moorea

 To Tepic

Hello,

Things feel a little more christmasy around here. John and I went to Tepic with some friends on Sunday evening for a Christmas service at La Fuente Tepic. We hadn’t been to Tepic yet. It was interesting to leave our little area and see a different part of Mexico. Tepic is about 3 hours away by car in dry climate at a higher altitude. The city itself was also very different. The atmosphere was a little more intense as it is not as isolate from the cartel issues as we are in Bucerías. It was a fun, spur of the moment trip to see several aquaintences at the Christmas show. 

 La Fuente Tepic Christmas Service

Yesterday, we had a Posada, or Christmas party, in San Ignacio. We had 100 kids and 30 adults attend our potluck and piñata party. We had ponche (a traditional Mexican Christmas drink with fruit and chunks of sugar cane in it), posole (a pre-columbian Mexican corn soup), and tamales. So good. It was very crowded with all those people trying to fit on our small porch. Thankfully, we had just enough food for everyone. 

Last Tuesday, John Mark spoke at San Ignacio. He gave his testimony and talked about God’s goodness. The crows was very small, but he felt confident. I was upstairs teaching kids’class to the little ones, so I didn’t get the hear it, but my friend said it went well. John also had an opportunity to speak at the junior high youth group a while ago. He has a lot of opportunities this month to speak, and he is learning a lot. 

 Youth Group: using the stage for the first time

 

 

 Ladies' Group Christmas Party

We have several Christmas parties, programs, and outreaches still to come this month. Please pray with us that the Holy Spirit will prepare people’s hearts to receive him. John and I are doing well. We are excited about the things that we are involved with. Please continue to pray that we will continue to be healthy and learn Spanish. God has provided for us in unexpected ways. Please continue to pray that he will give us everything we need to do his will here in Mexcio.

God bless you & Merry Christmas

Moorea

This is what happens when we forget to bring the guitar to the San Ignacio Mission.

Good Morning,

Happy belated Thanksgiving. I hope you had a wonderful day with family and friends. John and I celebrated Thanksgiving twice, which seems to be the Mexican way (even though Thanksgiving isn’t a Mexican holiday! Any excuse to celebrate is a good one.) We enjoyed a traditional Thanksgiving a few days before hand at our pastor’s house and an nontraditional one on the day of at a restaurant on the beach.

 Thanksgiving Dinner: fish for me, pork ribs for him

John and I have been sick this week, so we have been moving a little slower than usual. I just had a cold, but John Mark had an attack of allergies due to a wind storm we had a few days ago. He is allergic to dust, which there is a lot of around here now that the rains have stopped for the winter. We are both beginning to feel normal again, thankfully.

The top floor of the new building at the church is finally partially inhabitable. They completed several offices and a storage room to replace the unit they had been renting. Last week, John Mark helped them more out of the storage unit and reorganizes their things upstairs. Sound equipment, craft supplies, medical gear, etc are now upstairs. 

 Preparing to pour the sanctuary floor

Freshly poured sanctuary floor

Last week in San Ignacio, we had Kilo x Kilo which is a work for food program. Several kids from the church also came out to help us. Several families came to work and received bags of food in return. There was also a lunch to say thank you to the volunteers who work at the mission. We ate at the main La Fuente church in Bucerias, which is the town John and I live in. It was fun to hang out and eat good food together.

 Cutting weeds beside the highway

 Twirling

 washing the tables

 Reading her new Bible

Kilo x Kilo food for work

I was asked to preach at the San Ignacio mission this week. I gave a short talk, my first ever, on Tuesday to about 10 adults. Misha, the pastor’s daughter and regular volunteer at the San Ignacio mission, translated for me. It went pretty well; I definitely have a lot to learn about preaching. I am really glad for the opportunity to try. John Mark is preaching three times this month. He is teaching at Eklektos, the jr. high age youth group, tomorrow. He is teaching again next Tuesday in San Ignacio, and again on the 21^st for the Spanish service at La Fuente. I think I am more nervous than he is. He is looking forward to it, I think.

 Me speaking in San Ignacio

Yesterday, I was responsible to bring refreshments for the English Adult Bible Study. My “oven” at home is actually a large toaster oven. It works great, and I am happy to have it, but it only makes very small batches at a time. I only own one oven safe pan, and it was not large enough for the brownies I was making. I decided to cook the brownies at the church since I was sure they would have larger baking dishes and a functional oven. You would think that I would have learned by now: nothing is easy here. I found a couple baking dishes that would work, but were far from ideal, and preheated the oven. When I went to put the brownies in the oven, I realized that it was cold.  A friend suggested that the pilot light needed to be lit. After ten minute of trying to light the thing, it was suggested that the propane to the oven had been turned off. John went to check and sure enough it was. Now, the propane was on, the pilot light was lit, and the oven was preheating. Suddenly, there was a flash of light and a small explosion in the oven. John rushed over and turned it off. We consulted our friend who reassured us, “oh yeah, it does that.” Not sure whether to be comforted or not, we relit the oven and cooked the brownies without further incident.

Today, one of the pastors from La Fuente’s parent church is coming down from Tepic to teach John, another pastor, and I about the new website design. Our site desperately needs some renovation. I am pretty happy about the change. It sounds like John will be the one primarily charge of the new templates. He is looking forward to doing some techie/design work.

This afternoon, I will also be teaching dance for the Christmas program this month. I choreographed a dance for the kids, and we have been practicing on Fridays. We only had two girls coming for a little while, then some of the kids from a nearby orphanage started coming. I am expecting between 8-10 kids to dance with us on December 18^th. I have really enjoyed teaching them, and I am thinking about offering to teach at the orphanage a few times a month.

Tomorrow is breakfast at the missions, so we will bring a typical Mexican breakfast food, sandwiches or tortas, out to San Ignacio with us. The Canadian volunteers are here at the church now preparing the sandwich fixings. They come at 6am on Saturdays, before sunrise, to prepare 200 tortas for all the mission locations. It is a huge help for those who work at the missions to have the tortas pre-made.

Cutting onions for tomorrow's tortas

Even though the weather has started to cool off (we finally need more than a sheet to sleep with at night), it doesn’t feel like the Christmas season at all. I don’t miss home as much as I would if it did feel Christmasy, so it is not a bad thing, I guess. We are staying here for Christmas, though beyond that we don’t have any holiday plans. Although, I should mention that the church has about 10 Christmas parties planned between now and then, so we will certainly be celebrating.

Thank you for all of your prayers. We would appreciate continued prayers for our health; we have been sick more in the months that we have been down here than we are used too, but I’m sure part of that is due to the time we spend with kids. We also need more teachers at the mission. Please pray that we will find reliable people who have a heart for kids and for Jesus. (Matthew 9:37-38 – He said to his disciples, “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.”)

Blessings in Christ,

Moorea

Hello,
We have been just as busy as ever the last week or so.

Circle of Concern, a non-profit that has been a foundational part of La Fuente's prayer and financial support, came down last week. They were only here for 2 days, but those days were jam packed! They had a team helping with the construction and another team doing painting in the dinning room and the new offices upstairs.

 

Pouring the footings for the sanctuary columns

New paint!

They also helped the pastoral staff at La Fuente run a children's program in a new school in a nearby town called San Vicente. The schools in this part of Mexico often have two sessions of classes in a day. One group of teachers and kids come in the morning from 8am-1pm and another group comes in the afternoon from 1pm-5pm. We did a program for both sessions of kids. We had crafts, dancing classes, relay races, class photos, and teaching about character. There were also some dentists who held a free clinic and an eye glass station that gave free glasses away to the adults who came. We had about 500 kids participate in our program in San Vicente.

 Craft

 Free dental clinic

 Class Photos

 Team activities

 Learning a dance

La Fuente has a mission (church services and kid's programs) that operates in San Vicente twice a week. The mission had its one year anniversary about a month ago. That area has been recently developed. Hundreds of families live there but there are no churches. La Fuente has been praying for land to build a church in that area longer than John and I have been here. It was really exciting to spend some time with the kids of that area.

The next day, Saturday, We did had medical clinics and kids' programs in San Ignacio in the mission that John and I work with. The town is very small, about 300 people. We did not have the same number of kids, probably 50 all in all, but a lot of them were kids I hadn't seen before which is exciting. Lots of people turned out for the medical clinic. They had a pediatrician, three dentists, and a team of doctors from the state.  They also had an eye clinic and an opportunity for families to have photos taken together. They would print and frame the photos right there. The team was also sharing the gospel at the clinic and giving away Spanish Bibles. I saw several people praying with and talking with team members through out the morning.

 

Watching a drama

The drama

Teaching about the fruit of the Spirit

Learning a dance

Eye glasses clinic, and the waiting room for the doctors & dentists

Ministering to those who came

The government also sent a medical team to the San Ignacio mission

That evening, we had an outreach in the town square in Bucerias. We had some balloon animals and face paint for the kids and showed the movie Soul Surfer. It was a really fun time. We had a lot of people come out for the movie, which was great.

Watching Soul Surfer in the downtown square in Bucerias

Side Note: downtown is a dangerous place for John Mark because there is a churro cart that makes chocolate, caramel, sweet and condensed milk, and strawberry filled churros. This particular evening I believe he had FOUR. He has made it a tradition that we stop for churros after mission on Tuesdays and whenever we happen to be downtown.

One of the young couples on the team had lived here in Bucerias and worked with la Fuente two years ago. They were really interesting and fun. John and I got to spend a little bit of time with them. It was great. One of the things that we really miss when we are here is having friends who are close to our age and stage of life. We know a lot of wonderful people who live here, but all of them are 10 years younger, 20 years older, or have two kids. It was fun spending some time with a couple near our age and who understand the dynamic of living in Mexico. We are happy to have met them.

Over all things are going well. We will be going up to Tepic for a couple days next month to learn how to use a website template which we will then implement. It sounds like it will become John's job to keep up the website, which he is excited about. I hear that Thanksgiving is next week :) We don't have any specific plans, but we have decided to have fish at a nice-ish beach side restaurant or to go the the local sushi place. Basically fish or fish for thanksgiving.

Please pray for the San Ignacio mission. There have been some miscommunication and shifting around of leadership. We are talking about making some big changes. Please pray that those in charge now do not get offended and that we will have enough teachers to cover our kids' classes would be very much appreciated. We need more help.

Thank you so much for all of your support.
Blessing & Love,
Moorea

So, this happened yesterday...



They tore down the old building and two trees to make way for the foundation posts for the new sanctuary.
<3
Moorea

Hello,
Here is a video made from the photos of the baptism we had last week. A couple of our friends are talking about organizing another swimming trip since that day was so fun. Enjoy.

I learned last night that "estoy caliente" does not in fact translate at "I'm hot" but as "I'm horny".


No wonder those kids looked at me funny.

Good Morning,
Pastor Keith gave a message this week about how important it is for a church to have a focused children's ministry. You can listen to the message entitled Fight IV. The statistics he gave are staggaring:
19 out of 20 Christians accepted Christ before the age of 25
85% of Christians accepted Christ between 4-14 years of age
Half of all Mexican citizens are under the age of 25

I an not sure where he got his stats, but I did find this interesting article from the Barna group concerning the age of conversion in the Christians church.

In the message, Pastor Keith talks about applying the business concept of investing where you will see the most return to ministry. Kids are the most important part of La Fuente's ministry from an evangelistic standpoint. Children and young people are much more likely to make a commitment to Jesus often will keep that commitment for the rest of their lives. The kids are not just the future of the church, they are the church. 

When I was home last month, I shared at our missions meeting that my understand of children's ministry has totally changed since I have been in Mexico. I used to think of kids' ministry as a babysitting programs so that the adults could focus on God. My perspective is so different now. Kids are so easy to impact and willing to learn. The older I get, the more I see how uncomfortable an adult must become before they are willing to change on a fundamental level. The philosophy and worldview of most adults is set. But children are like wet cement, they will take whatever mold they are poured into. This information is very powerful because it shows us how to develop a ministry that raises up lovers of God.

Of course, this is not to say that ministries focused on adults are less important. They aren't, but when talking about evangelism, and adult convert is an exception, not the standard. God is not surprised by this statistic. He knows how people think. He also loves children. A lot. I am really grateful to be learning this lesson, which I know is close to God's heart.

But Jesus said, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children.” -Matthew 19:14

 
“Yes,” Jesus replied. “Haven’t you ever read the Scriptures? For they say, ‘You have taught children and infants to give you praise.’ ” -Matthew 21:16

 
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has become a child of God. And everyone who loves the Father loves his children, too. -1 John 5:1

"And in the future, your children will ask you, 'What does all this mean?' Then you will tell them, 'With the power of his mighty hand, the Lord brought us out of Egypt, the place of our slavery.' - Exodus 13:14

Love,
Moorea

We are preparing for a group of 50 people that is coming down on November 10th. They have be extremely intrumental in helping the church here and have come down several times to help. This time, they will be helping us with free dental, eye, and doctor clinics in two locations, child evangelism & activities, an outreach in Downtown Bucerias, and teaching values in local schools. You can learn more about them here.

This video was shot by Circle of Concern in 2007. A lot has change around here since then.




Please pray for us as we prepare for them. We are praying to see many people save as a result of the programs and ministry times we are planning as part of their time here.
Thanks,
Moorea

This morning we went to the church early, as we usually do on Saturday mornings, but instead of dispersing to various missions to hold bible studies, work for food programs, and activities for the kid, we piled into several church vehicles and went to the lake. This morning was a baptism service.

All the baptism services I have been to in the states are very basic: come, watch the baptism, go home. You sped an hour tops. Not so here. It is commonly understood around here that Mexicans have parties as often as they can. Any excuse is a good one for everyone to gather, eat potluck Mexican food, chat, and listen to music. Today was no exception.

We drove about 20 minutes to a river flowing out of the jungle and towards the ocean. It was very beautiful. I was surprised how much the scenery reminded me of the Feather and Umpqua rivers: forested mountains nearby and shallow rocky river bed in the valley. The men unloaded tables, chairs, and a basic sound system. We had perhaps ten baptisms in the cool water. The water was probably a little warmer than the rivers in Northern California at their warmest. Here, that is freezing. The ocean and swimming pools are very warm, so only the kids and pastors were brave enough to get wet at first.

Once the baptisms were over, the women produced huge pots of beans, rice, tostadas, sandwiches and desserts. We ate the wonderful food, trying to forget about the swarms of carpenter ants we had disturbed on the beach. John started swimming and I went wading with some of the older girls. At one point, John picked a couple flowers upstream and brought them over to me. That attracted the attention of the whole group and they started wooping and chanting at us in Spanish. I didn't understand at first, but with the help of a Canadian friend, I realized what they wanted. I kissed John to the delight of the crowd.

It was such a fun, relaxed atmosphere. Some of the men started hunting for fresh water shrimp, and the young adults floated down the rapids. I hadn't quite gotten up the courage to brave the cold water AND rapids, when Pastora Maya asked me if I would float down with her. I agreed, so John, me, Pastora Maya, and her teenage son floated down in that order. It was so much fun, I did it again :) All in all, it was a wonderful day. I can't wait for the next baptism service.

Other than the trip to the river, our life was very typical this week. We went to the mission a couple times, worked on things at the church, attended a couple prayer and regular church services, made power points for the services, and studied Spanish. I called the language school, and John and I are starting to research what we need in terms of funding and housing to move to Guadalajara to attend the school.

John and I are starting to feel some spiritual opposition now that we have committed to staying here for a while. Nothing huge, just small inconveniences that make life more complicated. For example,  John Mark is still sick with the upper respiratory infection he got when we were home. He did a round of antibiotics but wasn't getting better, so he went to the doctor and got another set of stronger antibiotics and some other drugs. Those new drugs gave him some rough side effects, and he had to stop taking one of them. We also lost our camera. I thought it was around the house somewhere, but we have looked through everything (twice) and cannot find it. We don't know where else it could be. We are praying that it just appears somewhere. Please pray with us about these things and that the details for language school work themselves out. Thank you so much for your prayers. We value them greatly because they make a difference in our lives.

We are doing really well, and are very happy to be here.
Blessings & love,
Moorea

Hello,

I am sorry that it has been so long since the last post. We’ve been stuck in a whirlwind the last few weeks. I have only just started to catch my breath. 

Autumnal walk through orchards

John and I went home for a wedding of a dear friend at the end of September. The wedding was absolutely wonderful- a fall picnic in a persimmon orchard. We were able to spend time with close friends and listen to a folk/bluegrass band through the reception. Just perfect.

Me and the lovely bride

Two dear friends listening to the music

The rest of our time was parceled out between friends and family. We had something going morning, noon and night. (and even later night!) I was really nice to be in a comfortable and familiar place for a little while. We got to spend time with our niece and three year old nephews (one of whom has been asking after “Unca John” since we left three months ago). I am really happy that so many of our friends and family made extra time for us, staying up late to hang out with us despite having jobs and family to take care of in the morning. John and I were really encouraged by the time we spent with people who are important to us. 

 John, with his nephew, Jayden

 We ended up extending our trip a little to move out of our cottage. Our landlords and friends had generously to let us leave our house intact duringour three month stay in Mexico. They have been using it as a guest house for some family who had come to visit. Since John and I have decided to stay longer then we were planning, we packed up our things and moved them into a corner of John’s parent’s garage. We packed and moved in the space of four days while still spending time with friends and family in the evenings. We were pretty exhausted by then. We are so grateful for Ted and Mary who offered to do all the packing and moving for us, and who ended up helping us a lot with the move. My mom and Mary are also going to clean the place and return the key.  It is hard to describe how much our families have helped us in our adult lives. I am so very grateful for their love and support. It would be impossible for us to have the life experiences we have had without them. 

 My sister, brother, and me

We also sold our car to my parents and are looking for a little truck or 4-runner that would be more appropriate for the terrain down here.

It is no surprise with the change in diet, time, schedule, and environment that we were both fighting colds while we were home, and John Mark is still pretty sick. He is suspecting an upper respiratory infection and has started antibiotics. He has been sleeping and resting a lot to try and get well. There wasn’t time for us to rest when we were visiting home, so we are both a little relieved to be back into our own place and into a routine.

John and I decided while were home that we want to make a longer commitment to La Fuente and go to language school to help us learn Spanish. We have been making some strides with the language, but our time is focused more on serving, which limits the time we can spend on language study. It would help us so much to spend some time where we are only working on the language. We could do so much more if we knew Spanish. The pastors have started speaking to us primarily in Spanish since we returned which will help immensely.  The school we are looking at attending is in Guadalajara. It is specifically for missionaries. We would probably spend 3-6 months there depending on how long it takes to become proficient in conversational Spanish. John and I feel like there is still a lot for us to learn and do here in Mexico. We are looking forward to the months and years ahead. 

 We had a safe and uneventful flight despite the concern about Hurricane Jove. They were predicting extreme whether with over 100 mile/hour gusts. Hurricane Mckenna hit here a few years ago, and it was pretty intense. It rained so hard that cars were swept down the street and into the ocean. I have heard that the Mexicans were buying extra water and candles this time, expecting the storm to be pretty bad. The kids even had time off of school. Hurricane Jova was supposed to make landfall before we landed in Puerto Vallarta on Tuesday, but it never hit here. The south part of the bay had some severe wind and rain, but we just had a steady rain for most of the day yesterday. It was almost eerie how still the palm trees were for most of the afternoon.

Together!

 Thank you to everyone who came to our get together on October 2^nd. We loved seeing all of you and sharing some pictures and stories with you. We are so grateful to have your prayers and financial support. Without them, it would be impossible to follow the direction that we strongly feel that God is leading us. Despite our blindness, we are confident that God will continue to make his plan clear to us just in the nick of time – as has been the case with us this past year.

At that meeting, we asked you to pray for our friend, Dago. There was an accident the day we flew home. The head of construction who was a close friend of John’s fell 20 feet onto concrete and did not recover. We are very sad to lose a friend, but we know that he is with Jesus. Thank you for all of your prayers. Before he passed, his wife had a dream of him saying goodbye to her and leaving. She was deeply comforted by that dream and has been doing well considering the circumstances. Please continue to pray for her and the rest of his family.

We are very grateful for your continued prayers for us and the ministry here. John would appreciate prayer concerning the infection he is fighting. He wants to get back to work, but is not feeling well. Please pray for safety for the construction team and for our continue progress in the language.

Looking Forward,

Moorea

Happy Mexican Independence Day.



Today is one of the most important holidays in Mexico. The kids have the day off of school and there are parades happening all day. This evening, Their are two or three street parties planed just in Bucerias, not to mention Puerto Vallarta and the capital, Mecixo City, which is the largest metropolitan area in the Western Hemisphere. Girls in traditional Mexican dress have been galloping by the church on horses to make it to the parade on time. The workers at the church are getting off early today and are having a special lunch prepared for them as part of the celebration. Everyone is more relaxed and chatty, even at work, because of the holiday. I am happy that John and I get to be here for Independence day.

 Playing soccer Independence Day afternoon

This evening, we are having a Posole dinner at San Ignacio to celebrate. We also have two potlucks on Sunday. As pastor Keith says, if the Mexicans can find a reason to celebrate, they will. This weekend is also the second anniversary of our marriage. We are very busy, but it is mostly with celebrations and parties, which is pretty great.

 San Ignacio Independence Day celebration

Last night I went to a friend's surprise 16th birthday party. He is the one who translates for me the most, so I talk to him a lot. It was a swim party with most of the teenagers from church. I was very fun. Lots of loud American pop music and jumping off the second story balcony/compound wall into a 4 foot pool. (I was not a participant in that particular enterprise.) There were a couple dance parties thrown in there too. Half the kids there were Canadian, so they speak English, but they all also speak Spanish. One of my friends who is in university in Tepic came down for her brother's party and I am happy I was able to spend some time with her. She is really great, and I was sad when she moved away for school.

This morning, we had prayer at the church as usual. Prayer is open to anyone who wants to come. We start off together, praying for each other and our specific prayer requests, and then break up to pray for the prayer cards from the church services. I love it. I feel very privileged to know these people who are so committed to serving God. So many people pray for healing, for financial provision, for restored relationships. It is a blessing to see that faith and join in with it. Sometimes they translate for me, sometimes not. I can understand some of it when I remember to listen. It is a lot of work listening closely to something I don't understand. Some of the people who come don't speak three words of English, but I have slowly been able to develop a relationship with them anyway. This morning, we were able to joke around with just hand signals. I am starting to work on my conversational/relational Spanish now that I can ask and answer functional questions.  I have been studying a lot - almost every day. Probably for 4-5 hours a week not including the conversations I have with people or sermons/prayers I listen to everyday. I still have so much to learn. Thankfully, the people here are very gracious and repeat things the correct way when I mangle a word or phrase.

Construction is coming along. John Mark has been helping with running electrical, plumbing and other lines upstairs. He is using a chisel and a sledge hammer to cut crevices in the block for the lines before they stucco the walls. It is very hot up there since there is not good airflow and no air conditioning. The work is not as difficult as it has been , but the heat makes it tough.

 Preparing an Independence Day meal for the construction workers

John Mark was sick this week. He caught the flu and was totally bedridden. He was very sick, but thank God it was only for one day. He was feeling much better the next morning, and it totally fine now. His allergies have been giving him some trouble; please pray that he will be able to sleep well and that his symptoms would go away.

John, chilling on the roof

This week, I was given the task of figuring out how to put the sermon recording on the La Fuente website. The guy who had been doing it left for Bible School in Tepic a couple weeks ago. He tried to train someone before he left, but she did not understand how to do it. Now that I have spent three days trying to figure it out, it is no wonder that she couldn't understand it. I had no instructions to go on and the website is only available in Spanish, so I was flying blind x2. After much trial and error, I figured almost all of it out on my own. I like the way that the player displays on the website, so I think it was worth it, but it was a lot of work.

Mexican pride :)

John and I have been really developing relationships recently. We love getting to know people and hearing their stories. So many of the people we know have come from drugs, or alcohol, or eating disorders, or depression. The work that Jesus has done in their lives is unbelievable. We see God's restorative power every where we look. I was talking with a friend who works with us in  San Ignacio who told me that he has been a Christian for 14 years after coming our of drugs and gangs, but in the last four months, God has been shaking things up. He says that his life will never be the same because of how God is moving.

We feel very privileged to be here. Please pray with us that God will provide direction and funding as we are praying about his long-term plan for us. Please also pray that we will learn Spanish quickly. There is so much more I wish I could do, but can't because of the language barrier. Thank you for thinking of us and checking our blog. We appreciate your love and support.

Vive la Mexico
Moorea

They were cutting tile yesterday to finish off the kitchen counters. It was a little dusty so I improvised, much to the delight of my co-workers.