A day at church

Little boy going to church. How cute is that?



Matthew 6:26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

I caught this mama bird giving these babies their food. It was quite interesting as she kept swooping in and out throughout the entire church service. She didn't care if we were singing or praying or preaching. All she cared about was giving her babies their food. What was even more interesting is that the people in the church weren't bothered one bit by their chirping or her swooping above their heads. So neat!



Inside of the church before many had arrived.


I taught the children the same story Greg taught and then they colored a picture of Jonah and the whale.

Afterward we went to someone's home to eat and this precious lady was doing laundry. She allowed me to take this picture so you could see how her washer works! ;o) What you don't see is that it that it had just hailed and the water was freezing!

The walk from church to where we were going to eat lunch.

We all laughed as we sat down to eat and it started to hail. The hail was falling through holes in the roof and bouncing on the table. The kids thought it was awesome as they tried to catch each ball of hail. I tried to capture the moment, but the hail was too small for my camera to see.

Sunday lunch, fried eggs, salsa and chicken, fried fish and salsa, yum!

This is the family I mention below.

The couple on the right is the pastor of the church we attended and his wife.

Hello everyone! Today we visited a church in another village to say good~bye to them. It was a great visit and we were very encouraged. Greg told the story of Jonah. It always amazes us that most of them have never heard the story of Jonah. Afterward we were so blessed when one man came up to Greg and said he has felt called to be a pastor but wasn't sure what to do. After hearing this story he said he knew he had to accept this call and he was ready to go to a seminary so that he could study to become a pastor. He asked me if I could encourage his wife as she wasn't very excited about his decision. I told her I wasn't very excited about the calling to be a missionary at first but once I realized that all God ever really wants is our obedience, I was okay with that decision. Obedience is never an easy thing to learn! By the end of lunch and hearing many of our stories of how God has alwasy provided for our needs and how He has never left us, she too was excited about her husband being a pastor. Really great day!

Okay, now to answer Amy's question. Do we have to leave? Yes. Why do we have to leave? Because. :o) No, just kidding. We work for the International Mission Board and they require us to take a respit from the field after being on the field for 3 or 4 years. We chose to stay for a 4 year term. The amount of time we take in the states can be different, however we are able to take up to a year if we have been on the field for 4 years. Greg is required to take some seminary classes and because of that we needed the full year for him to be able to complete his studies.

We are also required to go to different Southern Baptist churches and share with them what we have been doing the past 4 years so that we can raise support for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. This is an offering that is taken up in Southern Baptist churches once a year at Christmas time to support all of the IMB missionaries all over the world.

Our plan is to return to the same house we are in right now, to the same village and continue our work here after our time in the states is over. We have arranged with the owner of our house to leave our furniture and all of our things and pay to store our things for the year. Hope this answers your question.

Baby Esther

Read my post below the pics first, so you will understand more about the pics. Thanks! ;o)
Okay, I promised more pictures, so here are more pictures! This is Jerod and Alex playing checkers at a friend's house.


Are you wondering what this is? Well, in our villages it is very normal to have your baby way over dressed and even if it is 80 degrees outside, they cover their babies up like this. I am amazed that more babies don't die of SIDS. I mean this baby is completely covered. Look below!

I pulled back the blanket so you could see there really was a baby underneath!

This is baby Esther's big sister, she is so proud of her new sister and Annie just loves to play with her!

This is their little flower garden. Isn't it cute? They make do with what they have and it always makes me think, "Now why haven' t I done that?"

This is their kitchen. This is the kitchen for 4 adults and 5 children. Now try and complain about your small kitchen! ;o)

Annie and her 2 friends. Don't you just love the plug hanging down from the roof?

Jerod shooting marbles.

This is our friend Luisa's ( the mom of the new baby) mom. She was washing dishes and I just happened to catch her in the act. All you need is some rain water and an old orange bag (you know the green netted bags oranges come in) and wala you have a dishwasher. :o) Oh, and if you have a little soap that might help too. If you have some.

This is me and Luisa. She doesn't like to smile, I don't know why, she is very sweet, but doesn't really like to smile. Anyway.. that is Luisa.

Of course this is precious little Esther. She gave me a half smile.

Today we went to say good~bye to some of our friends. They just had their 5th child 2 weeks ago and we wanted to see this little blessing before we left for the states. Her name is Esther.

How precious! While I was there I tried to capture some moments that would interest you.

Many of you have asked us how long we will be in the states and the answer to that is that we don't really know. It will be between 10 and 12 months. Others have asked when we are leaving. We are leaving our village on June 17th and heading to Puebla, Mexico for a week. From there we will fly to Charlotte and then we will eventually arrive in Wake Forest, NC where we plan on living.

My friend Katie asked me how our children are going to handle the transition from simple life of playing marbles and checkers to the fast paced life of the US. Well, I don't know that either. I am a little concerned about that as they really like the simple life. We are going to try, try, try to keep many of the same traditions we have here. Like, on one night a week, we have movie night where we pop homemade popcorn and watch any movie they want as a family. NO interruptions. Now that isn't always possible, the NO interruptions part but, we try. We eat dinner together as a family every day of the week and oh how I want to make that a priority. I know many of you are rolling your eyes. But... if I don't try, it won't be a priority. That could help us. Anyway, that could be our biggest prayer request in regards to the children.

Okay, if you have any other questions, please ask!!

Graduation pics!

Jerod receiving his diploma from Principal Greg.


Alex receiving his diploma from Principal Greg

Annie isn't quite sure what she is receiving, but she is happy to get a picture with a sun on it because her nickname from her daddy is "Sunny" or "Sunshine"

We were at Sams once again and I had to take this picture. I acted like I was taking this of Alex but since I think that 95% of you are women, I thought you would get a kick out of this picture. Look at this woman behind Alex, she is sitting in the restaurant area of Sams PLUCKING her eyebrows. Now I can understand putting on makeup, but PLUCKING YOUR EYEBROWS??? Gross!!! Click on it to make it larger if you don't believe me!

Here is Annie with Uncle Mark as she calls him. She absolutely thinks he hung the moon!


Yay, no more school! So, today being the first day I didn't have to get up and do anything I thought oh how nice to be able to sleep in! NOT! 7 am the phone rings, "Brother, I wanted to see how the meeting went last night?" Okay I am sooo happy that our new leader is excited about our new church and all that happens there. Prisiliano (new leader) couldn't be there last night and so he decided he would call at 7 am this morning, yes the first day I could sleep in, to ask how our study went last night. Wasn't that nice of him? If you think I am writing with dripppping sarcasm, you would be correct! ;o) So, anyway, our study did go well, but I just wish we could have shared this with him at, oh say 9ish! :o) Well as Greg said as he was wide awake then too, "I guess it's time to get the juicy worm." I for one, prefer the crusty, dry ones, but that is just me!

So, I thought I would share some pictures from our graduation ceremony. We were very proud of our children. They did very well this year. Jerod continues to excel in Math, although he doesn't really love the subject he does very well at it and Alex is an absolute wiz at Geography. He amazes us! I gave him a blank map of the US and he handed it back to me 5 minutes later completely filled in. Then I handed him a map of the world and he handed it back to me about 20 minutes later with about half of it filled in. Oceans, seas, countries I have never heard of filled in , in the appropriate places. Anyway, it's a gift. So, we are proud. Just had to brag a little since we don't really get to do that very often. Oh, Annie did very well too!

We had a quick one day visit from a friend of ours who lives in Puebla, Mexico. His name is Mark and he came to do some work on our storying project. It was a short and sweet visit that as you can see from the picture, Annie thoroughly enjoyed! (as we did too) I am sure we will be busy little beavers this week and I will do my best to fill you up with bunches of pictures that will interest you! Love to all!

Last Day of School!

I took this from the window of our car, so it isn't the best picture but it gives you a good idea of how they travel, and how the mountains look around us.


In the large city about 40 minutes away, we eat at restaurants that have play places like this. It is very common to have some kind of swing set or trampoline or something at almost all of the nicer restaurants. Annie is going to miss that. She met this little boy on the trampoline today and they became fast friends.

This is a man passed out on the sidewalk in front of our house. This is something our children see all the time. It doesn't even seem strange to them anymore. Annie thinks this is just part of life. She asks me why they drink beer if they know it will make them not be able to walk or talk. She says that they should know that it makes them act funny and do bad things. Most of the men who drink here don't drink casually, they drink until they can't stand up anymore. So sad.

Okay, is it possible that I am more excited than my children that tomorrow will be our last day of school? I mean, man am I ready to be done. I really love to home school, but I am really ready to be done for a while!

I am going to concentrate over the next few weeks on taking pictures of things we see and don't realize may interest you. No one gave me any ideas of what pictures they want to see, so I guess I will just have to use my imagination. Some of them are kinda sad, but they give you a good idea of what we see everyday.

Please continue to keep us in prayer as we are starting to realize how hard saying good~bye is going to be. We are going to struggle with this for quite some time I am afraid! Love you all!

A name for our church!

Hi everyone! I only have a few seconds to post. Life has gotten CRAZY around here. We leave our village in 3 weeks and these weeks are truly flying by!! Friday is our last day of school and I am pretty sure I just wrote on here that we had 2 weeks left, but..... now they are gone! Of course, I am happy about that!

I wanted to let you know what the outcome of the vote was for our church's new name. They had 5 choices.

Living Water
The Peace of Christ
Mission of Christ
The House of God
The Body

The one they chose translates to: Komanjicua Tata Diosh~ The House of God

So, we are very excited to now have a name to our church!! On Monday we will be partaking in the Lord's Supper for the first time as a church and we are quite excited about that as well! Please continue to pray for us all! We love you! Missy

Perfect Day!

Celebrating the healing of our Annie. God is good!




The church, baptism, and celebrating the healing of Annie, what a day!




This is Raphael being baptized.

This is Moises, it looks just like Raphaeal, but it really is Moises.

This was Moises being baptized.

This is Greg with Moises on the left and Raphael on the right. This was right before their baptism.

Ever wonder how they heat the water for the baptismals here? Well, here is a hint, it has to do with hot coals, fire, and big buckets of water heated over the fire and coals. This precious lady from the church came early to heat the water so they wouldn't freeze!

Alex playing a strategy game with his friends.

This is Annie and Lupita. This is who she was playing with right before she had her accident. They are quite close!

This was our picnic! Many spread out in different areas. However, some stayed together.

This is Raphael's father. Raphael was one of the men who was baptized today and his dad spent the entire day with us. This was really a BIG deal! We were thrilled and I know it meant a lot to Raphael!

Okay, we had to laugh at this. These women played some FIERCE basketball in their Purepecha attire. I had to loan my shoes to one of them because she had high-heels on, but they played like they were wearing shorts and tee shirts! I have never seen these women have so much fun! It was AWESOME!

You have to click on this and make it large just so you can see their faces. It is priceless!

We taught all of our friends the game of SEQUENCE and they LOVE it! As you can see here it is a game for all ages! It is a little addictive, so be warned!

I think his face says it all!

This is what you call a Mexican sliding board. I guess Annie will have to get used to the ones in the states that actually have boards attached! Can you imagine the law suit that they would face? I mean, there are no ropes to say, don't go or anything, it was just not there! At the top there was a hugh hole as well, so safe!

Today couldn't have gone any better! It was truly the perfect day! We had 41 people join us for the baptism at a church in a nearby city. It was such a blessing to see all of our group come out to celebrate this baptism. Many of them may not be ready for baptism, however they came to support their brothers in Christ. We thought that was ever so special!

After the baptism we went to a nearby park and enjoyed the day eating and playing and enjoying each other's company. I am truly going to miss my friends here. They have become my family here and they are all so dear to me. They really love us and we love them! Thank you all for praying for us on this day. Thank you for your kind comments and for following us on this journey! I thought today was going to be tough for me and parts of it were. I shared with our group how God used Annie's accident and how a year ago today there were 3 separate groups and today we have one united group. It was nice to look out into their faces and see tears in their eyes and know that God indeed did answer our prayers a year ago. He brought them all together and we couldn't be happier!

Look what HE has done!

This is all 3 groups united plus a few new groups that have now joined! YAY God!


Annie showing off how God has healed her!




Hours after the accident in the hospital in Michoacan. Tough little girl!




About an hour before her accident as we prepared the food over a fire in my backyard.



This was a few hours before her accident as she played with friends in our living room.


This was a group of my friends all cooking together. I had just thanked God for how well everything was going!

One year ago we sent out a prayer request asking people to pray for a medical mission team that was coming to serve our people. It was our first attempt at having a medical mission team come here and we were going to use it to try and open doors with our people here in the village. However, our main goal was to try and bring the three small groups of new believers we had been storying with, together in some way. We thought that we could do so by having all the women from all 3 groups make the food for the Drs.

This all seemed to be going well until Annie was walking backwards in our kitchen as she was talking to our friend and she didn't know that the boiling salsa was on the floor behind her. That is when she accidentally sat in the washtub like thing of salsa and was badly burnt. She burnt 22% of her body. Most all of the burns were severe second degree with a small part on her upper thigh that they said were close to third degree. We were flown to Galveston, Texas where Annie received excellent care at Shriners Hospital and we started on the road to recovery, both physically and emotionally.

Now, through all of this our friends whom we had wanted to bring together had been awaiting our return. Some were confused and mad at God and didn't understand how He could allow that to happen to Annie when we were trying to help the people. I must say although I never really blamed God, I didn't really understand either. I guess that is not our job, to understand. I know one thing, He has promised never to leave us nor forsake us.

Joshua 1:5 As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.

And He never did! He was with us each and every step of Annie's healing process! Now I can tell you the rest of the story! Once we returned here to our village we told our friends how we desired to join them together into one group. They agreed to do this and so we started meeting together for the first time. Little by little we grew. Then we moved from meeting in our home to meeting in a room which they now call their church. On Monday night they will be voting on a name for their church. There have been two leaders within the group to rise up and they will lead the group over the next year while we are on stateside assignment. (furlough)

Today we will celebrate the anniversary of Annie's accident with the wonderful action of baptism! There will be two men in the church who have decided to make their decision to follow Jesus public, by following Jesus' example and be baptized by immersion. Both of them were sprinkled as infants but they both decided that since Jesus wasn't baptized as an infant, and that since He teaches to do so AFTER your decision to follow Christ, that is what they wanted to do as well. We can't think of a better way to celebrate this day! God has definitely answered the prayer request that we sent out a year ago today. He definitely used that day to bring our 3 groups together and they are now one strong group of believers. We praise God that He can turn something horrible into nothing short of a miracle!