By a rubber tree in the river market, Vallarta

We has a great day yesterday. Since we have been here, we have been befriended by a middle aged Canadian couple who live here full time. They have been very kind to us. They were the ones who took us scuba diving, and they have had us over to their house a few times. They have also been the source of great advice about which taco stands to visit and how to get around the area. They also know where the good ice cream is :) They have a real estate business here and therefore a internet phone that has unlimited international calls to the US and Canada.

They have invited us to use their phone any time to call our families who we hadn't spoken to (besides for a few emails) in a month. We went over yesterday afternoon and talked to my whole family and John's mom. I called my sister in Texas, and John called his brother. It was really good to talk to them all and catch up with their lives. We definitely miss them all.

The Forgets also lent us several things for our apartment that we have been living without (like spoons and other near-essentials)They even took us out for Mexican food and good conversation. John and I are both very grateful for their friendship and their generosity.

working in the nursery for Spanish Service

Next week, we are planning a kids camp. Please pray that more kids will sign up. We only have 21 kids between the ages of 3-10 signed up.(Yes. 3 year old kids here go to overnight camps. Some things are very different here.) I am co leading one of the teams and organizing a sack race, which will be interesting considering the limitations of my Spanish. Lots of pointing and hand signals will ensue. Please also pray that those who have volunteered to help with the camp will have enough money to pay the leadership fee, which basically covers food costs. It is only $100 pesos, which is about $8.00 USD, but for most of the volunteers, that is a lot of money. They are selling smoothies to raise money. Please pray that that brings in enough to cover all of the leaders for the camp.

 Taking people home after church. La Fuente bought this truck from the Plumbing Doctor in May.

My Colombian friends suggested that some of them sing on the bus as a fund raiser. I asked if singing on the bus was common. I have seen it once since I've been here. He said that singing is one of the fastest ways to raise money around here. "You can make a lot of money singing on the bus. Some people even make $300 pesos a day" He said. His tone suggested that that was a LOT of money. I was taken aback. $300 pesos is about $25 USD. That's it. Living costs here are about the same as northern CA. They are very expensive. 2 or 3x as expensive as any other place in Mexico.  How do people survive on less than $30 dollars a day? I don't know that answer to that question.

Supports on the second story before they poured the roof last week. They had support like this on the 1st and 2nd floors to keep the building up while the roof was curing. John Mark went to church at 6:30 this morning to take them down for church service today.

Thank you all for your prayers and support. John and I are doing well.
Blessings and Peace,
Moorea

Church roof pour

We poured the roof of the church today! This is a big milestone for La Fuente as they have been preparing for it for about a month and is a large financial undertaking. And they have done all of this debt free! The pastors and staff are excited and relieved to have it done. More pictures and details to come.

Oh and dad, we're still alive.

Peace be with you,
jhn mrk


- Posted from my iPhone

 The view from my bedroom

So, last week was a whirlwind as we hosted a team of 14 people from Canada. They helped with VBS at two missions, Punte de Mite and San Vicente; they completed a large part of the painting at the San Ignacio mission; they visited and helped with cleaning at a local orphanage; they made breakfast for feeding programs at the missions; and attended several services at the church. John organized their transportation, and I made their schedule. We were very happy to have their help. Thank you everyone from Medicine Hat. It was wonderful to meet you and we hope you had a good time here.

Saturday: Morning in San Ignacio for mission. The evening, they went to Jr. high youth group at La Fuenta Bucerias.

 Checking to make sure his sister had enough

 to eat

 Teaching the team some worship songs

doing crafts together

After mission, one of the kids had a birthday party at the local park, and we were all invited.

kids around the piñata

Sunday: The team taught Children's church at La Fuente Vallarta. They put together a skit about forgiveness and colored with the kids afterwards. 

 Acting out a parable from Matthew 18

Shopping at the market by the river near Puerto Vallarta's Romantic District

The van broke down on our way back to Bucerias

Monday: We spend the morning at the orphanage. The team brought balls and little toys for the kids. The team also helped with some cleaning around the center including changing sheets, sweeping, moping, cleaning windows, and so forth. They spent the afternoon painting in San Ignacio.

 Playground at the orphanage

 Playing a game together

 Little girl at the orphanage

 Painting inside and outside on the second story

and the inside of the first floor

Tuesday: Morning doing VBS in San Vicente. The group that does mission here sets up in a field in the middle of a new housing development. 

 Setting up the tent

 All ready

Memorizing their Bible verse

 We are praying that the Governor of the state of Nayarit will give La Fuente a piece of land in this area to build a church. The new development houses 10,000 people, but there are no churches here now.  Pastor Keith had a chance meeting with the Governor and discussed the potential in San Vicente. Please pray with us that the Governor will remember La Fuente before he leaves office in the next few months and gives us the land to plant another church.

The new housing development in San Vicente

Prayer Request: our computer speakers quit working a week ago. Tragically, that means we can't skype anyone on our laptop. We also can't watch anything or listen to music or sermons either. John Mark is usually pretty savvy with these things, but he has tried to no avail to fix the problem. Please pray that our laptop will be fixed so we can communicate with our friends and family.
Thanks,
Moorea

So today, John Mark and I took the Canadian team who has been with us for a week to the airport in Puerto Vallarta. We were driving La Fuenta's new 15 passenger van. Now this van is only supposed to be driven by one specific guy. When they tried to legalize it and bring it over the boarder, the government arbitrarily decided that they would not legalize any more cars for the year. They made that decision the day before the pastor from La Fuenta got to the border and tried to register the van with Mexican plates. After waiting at the boarder for three days, they decided to bring it down under a different vehicle classification, which means only one person, the only American on that trip, is supposed to drive it. Because legal complications and technicalities, this is not uncommon. John has been driving it all week, ferrying the team around.

Today, we passed a police checkpoint. We have passed this checkpoint several times, and rarely do we see anyone pulled over. This afternoon, John Mark was questioning the purpose of the five speed bumps at the check point, when a police officer motioned for us to pull over. We were both curious how this was going to go, considering John Mark was driving the van illegally. John Mark rolled down the window and the police officer asked for legal documents in Spanish. John and I looked at him blankly. He asked us "No espanole?" We shook our heads no. "en Mexico?" We smiled sheepishly.

He said in a thick Mexican accent, "When I was in San Diego, they were always telling me, you are in America. Speak English! Now you are in Mexico, and you do not speak Spanish!?" He started to smile.

We laughed and John said, "We've only been here a couple of weeks. I'm working on it."

The police officer shook his head, laughing at us, and motioned for us to merge back onto the highway. We lost it, and the three of us laughed heartily as John merged and we continued back to Bucerias.

Thank you, Jesus for turning a sticky situation into a funny story.

 Walking to the beach in Bucerias

Good afternoon,

I have a new official title: Project Coordinator for Visiting Team. I have been calling and emailing the Canadian team leader to coordinate schedules and so forth. John will be there official driver and we will both work with them a lot while they are here. Since we only have one team coming in the near future (on July 14^th), I will gracefully retire when they leave on the 21^st. There is no end of projects, so I am not worried about my job security ;)

For example, I was asked last week to cover the 9-12 year old Sunday school class. The Sunday morning classes are in English. I had two girls in the class. Only one of whom actually spoke English, but she was able to translate and it went great.

We have still been attending all the services, helping with set up and tear down. Basically, we are here to do whatever needs to be done. There is so much vision and work and not enough hands to do it all. Even though I am frustrated that I can’t help more because of the language barrier, the other pastors keep telling us they are happy we are here.

 San Ignacio mission

One of the long term projects we have been working on it the new mission in a nearby town called San Ignacio. It is east of Bucerias about thirty minutes through tropical jungle. It is a beautiful drive. We go twice a week, on Tuesday evenings and Saturday mornings. There are classes for kids, an adult Bible study, and occasional feeding programs. The town of San Ignacio is very poor. Both parents work in most families and even then, the families subsist on tortillas, beans, and occasionally eggs. The kids are left to fend for themselves. Education is not a high priority, and many of the children cannot read even at ten or twelve years old. The kids are basically raising each other; the older ones look out for the younger ones. They are very independent and at times rebellious. Since they spend most of their time on the street, the kids have learned to cuss a lot. Teachers at one of the other missions recently did an experiment. They encouraged the kids not to cuss. They told them “if you go a whole week without cussing, we will give you a ride around the block in the truck.” The kids keep each other accountable, giving a report of who cussed and who didn’t. They are motivated and a lot of them try to keep their mouths clean. Kids’ ministry is extremely important, I am learning. It is very rare that adults will come to church or accept Jesus for the first time, but kids are much more open. If they continue to attend church through their childhood and teen years, they will likely stay Christians their whole lives. At church, they have positive role models who encourage them to stay in school, abstain from sexual promiscuity, and make good life choices. 

 kids at the San Ignacio mission

John Mark has been doing a lot to fix up the San Ignacio Mission. When La Fuente rented the house, it had no indoor plumbing and only two lights in one of the five rooms. The first day we came, water was out to the whole town! I guess the town is on a single well pump. At the end of the year, the total bill for running and maintaining the pump is divided by the number of houses in town. No meter at all. If you don’t pay the bill, the townspeople cut your pipes. John has been extending the wiring in the mission so the whole house has electricity. He is getting parts to extend the water from an outdoor spigot to the rooftop tank for the outhouse toilet and a sink in the house.  The gate needs to be replaced, and the second story painted inside and out. We also have a sign that was donated to the church. John spent a couple days sanding the rust off, priming, painting, and testing the attached lighting system. We are waiting for the vinyl sign to be finished, and John Mark will mount the sign on the San Ignacio mission. A lot of this work will be done by the Canadian team when they are here. Whatever they don’t finish, John Mark will be working on later.

Last week, John Mark was given the assignment of removing the loud buzz from the sound system. It took a few days to diagnose the problem and another day or so to get the parts. After changing the ballast in one of the florescent lights, most of the buzz is gone, which John is happy about.

 computer work

I have been working on proofing the English song master and standardizing the formatting for the song powerpoint. We recently bought a Mini Mac to run the services’ song, announcements, and sermon slides. I’ve been installing a few things and updating the software.

Last week, John and I mastered the bus system, so we now have transportation when we need it. There is only one bus that runs the length of town, which is long but not very wide. We were going to the grocery store. Once we got there, we ran into five people that we knew, and we don’t very many people here (it’s worse than Winco). One of the couples gave us a ride home, which was nice. We have been asking a lot of questions about busing in the area from people who use the bus often. We might brave a trip to Vallarta on Monday.

 John and I on the bus

Have I mentioned how many Americans and Canadians around here? It is the off season for tourism in the area, and still maybe a fourth of the people at Mega (the only grocery store in town) are native English speakers, mostly retired folks. The signs in the grocery store are bilingual. Even a lot of the Mexicans speak it. Enough so that we can order at most of the restaurants in English. Its good because we can communicate, but bad because we aren’t learning it as quickly as we could be. I don’t mean to say that we don’t hear Spanish every day, we just don’t need it to survive. We know a Canadian family who has lived here for almost eight years and they don’t speak Spanish. I am still studying it. I want to understand. It’s just not coming as fast as I’d like.

                            John in the sun

We finally went to the beach on Monday. We had been here more than a week before we figured out how to get there and made time to go. It turns out it is only a 10 minute walk from our house. The water is very warm and VERY salty. We played in the water for a little more than an hour. That evening, we realized that we were both burnt, John Mark pretty badly. Apparently it is not a myth that the sun is more intense nearer the equator. The longitude of Bucerias is about 20 degrees, while Yuba City is about 40 degrees. We slathered on aloe vera for a few days and are pretty much healed.

Training in the pool

Our Diving instructor Temo, John, Me , and new friend Shay

 about to dive

Yesterday, we had an opportunity to go scuba diving. One of our new friends is a scuba fanatic. His friend is a dive master and offered to take us out very cheaply. Five of us went this morning. We trained in the swimming pool at a resort before going out in the boat. We bought tortillas from a local stand before we left to feed the fish. They loved it. Our friend says it’s because they are Mexican fish J We were swimming in swarms of fish, blue, yellow, purple. It was unbelievable. We dove for about an hour. In that time, we saw several puffer fish, a spotted sting ray (4’ wingspan), a more eel, an octopus, star fish, and a myriad of tropical fish. We went down about 50 feet. We kept looking for sea horses, but the water was a little too warm for them. After our dive, we got a driving tour of Vallarta. We stopped at an amazing ice cream stand. The man who owned the shop hand makes the ice cream. The texture was different, like a mix between a slurpee and regular ice cream. There were flavors I had never heard of. John Mark ordered some non-dairy strawberry sorbet and I got blackberry. They were both excellent.

We are moving this week a few blocks away. We will have internet at our new place, which we are excited about. It will be easier to keep up with friends and family if we have it at home. We have been using the church’s internet since we have been here. We will also have TV, which we don’t normally watch, but we have heard that many English speakers learn Spanish by watching TV. We know a 16 year old Columbian kid who speaks almost perfect English which he learned by watching American movies.

Thank you all for praying for us.

Peace and Love,

Moorea

Prayer Requests:

Healing for my hamstring. I think I pulled it a few days ago

That we will learn more of the language every day

Smooth move from one apartment to the other

Better sleep for John and I

That John’s ears will equalize. They have been plugged since we went diving

We are living in the top floor of this house, affectionately known as "The Pink House"  by the church staff.

 The view from our roof

 The church from our rooftop. You can see the awning with chairs stacked under it and the cement block which is new construction

Hanging out on the roof

 Ants carrying leaves at a restaurant we went to

e

 Pet turtle at that same restaurant

 Setting up for church

 Iguana, wild around here

 My trusty dryer

 My office

Trying to fix the buzz in the speakers from the florescent lights

 

Sunset, looking inland

I will have another post with more details. I just thought you would like to see some pictures in the meantime. 

Blessings and Love,

Moorea

Our street in a rain storm. Note that the road has become a river

Hello,

We have been here for almost a week now, and we both like it a lot. This part of Mexico is really beautiful, even if it is the worst time of the year to be here, as the locals keep telling us. It is humid and rainy every day, but it has not been too hot, though John Mark might disagree with me. From our rooftop, we can see the mountains to the north and ocean to the west. The church is literally three houses down from where we are living. It's a great location. 

We have been attending services at the church most mornings and evenings, and helping out with cleaning or administrative stuff. Many people here speak some English and some speak great English, so most of the time, we do not have too much trouble communicating. However, I do feel a blank look creep on to my face every once and a while. There is still a lot to learn. I have been studying Spanish for an hour or two every day when we have free time. I'm hoping I'll be able to pick up enough to understand the basics and communicate before we leave. 

Saturday morning, John Mark (or Juan Marcos :) and I went with Pastor Keith’s 13 year old son who speaks good English to San Ignacio to help clean up the place that they rented for a mission. La Fuenta Riviera, the church we are working with here, began three years ago under a tree. Since then, they have started two churches and five missions in the surrounding communities. And they are growing. They expect to start another church in Vallarta very soon. The missions are places for bible studies, kids' ministries, and meal handouts. The churches are bilingual since there are so many Americans and Canadians who live here part or full time.

Saturday was the first clean up day on the premises of the mission in San ignacio. I swept the top floor while the others picked up trash and swept downstairs. It looked like no one had lived there in a very long time. It was a mess. John installed some light sockets, plugins, and ran wire to the shed/bathroom. We were going to mop too, but apparently the water was out to the entire town! The house has no running water except for a spigot outside and the top floor still does not have any electricity. There is a team of Canadians coming July 14 to work on the building. John Mark will be spending a lot of time with them while they are here. 

It seems that this mission is going to be where John and I spend our time on Tuesday nights and Saturday mornings. I believe that we will be co teaching the 3-5 year old kids' class. That is a pretty powerful motivator to learn Spanish! fortunately, two of the little boys speak English, so we won't be completely lost. 

Thank you for all of your prayers. We are adjusting to the humidity and the time change well. Please pray that we pick up the language miraculously quickly. Communication is the most difficult barrier we have.


Peace Be with You,

Moorea