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 21st 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 18th. 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
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