Visiting Amish country and family

I have wanted to visit Amish country for a very long time and on Friday we did that! I was in heaven! I was able to take some really great pictures from my car, I hope you like them.


We called this an Amish mini-van.

Friday was laundry day and I loved the way it looked as it was drying.

It was interesting to see the different ways they have fixed their buggies.

We ate at an awesome restaurant and this was our desert. I would have taken a picture of the food, but it was gone before I could get my camera out! :o)

Greg and his mom. ( He is always so serious!)

My precious niece, Emily.

Today, Sunday, we spoke at Kingston Avenue Baptist Church. It was a wonderful service and we really had a great time getting to know more of their members. This is Pastor Jamie, his wife, Krista, and their boys, Aaron and Luke. We hope to spend many more services with them in the future.

This afternoon, we gathered at a park and had a small family get together. It was a ton of fun and all of the kids, as well as adults seemed to enjoy their time. This is Greg's dad on the right and his uncle on the left.

Alex and cousin Clay had a great time playing football.

This was after Alex missed the ball. I just had to post it, because it is so cute!

This is Kim, Tanner, Uncle Rod, and Aunt Bev.

No matter where we go, Annie seems drawn to dirt. I guess those are here Mexican roots.

This is Greg and his step brother, Darin.

All the little monkeys.

Oh wait, they weren't monkeys until this picture.

We are continuing to have a great time. We will be heading back towards home on Wednesday. Please pray for our travels, it is a LONG trip. We may do it in 2 days, we are not sure. Love you all and hope you are all enjoying a wonderful summer!

General update....that sounds sooo boring!

Sorry for the sporadic posts, I will get better. It has been a little bit difficult since we have been traveling. I am not going to write much, I will just let the pictures tell you what we have been up to. I will post some more in a few days. Hope all of you are having a wonderful summer. It has been great for us, so far!!

Okay, we have been telling many small world stories. This man is the son of some of our friends in a village that is close to our village in Mexico. His mother made him a blanket and asked us if we could mail it to him once we were in the US. Well, once we were here and we were in Virginia, we called him and asked him to dinner with us because we weren't far from where he lived. We spent the evening with him, sharing with him stories of what is happening with his family and people group. It was like visiting with family. We hope to find many more just like him all over America as we travel. God is good!


When we were visiting with our friends at their lake house we visited their parent's camp. While there we did some team building activities. This is a picture of the boys(with our friend's Ben and Micah) trying to help Annie through a spider web without touching it.

This is Alex trying to walk a tight rope.

One of the things we really looked forward to was going to a fair. That to us, is ALL American. We were given that opportunity here in Indiana as the 4-H fair is going on and that is right up my boys alley. Food, games and animals. Alex played one game and kept winning. He won 3 goldfish. 2 days later we now have 1 goldfish still swimming! :o) The boy in the middle is a neighbor of Greg's family who joined us.

Annie and Caroline have been partners in crime in every area. They have had sooo much fun. They are pictured here with Grandma who they both love to spend time with. The morning after the fair we found them standing over the fish bowl with a spoon and the dead fish on it. They had a frying pan ready for the fish. Hmmm... can you say fish fry?

Jerod, Alex, Jake,(neighbor boy) and Clay ( cousin) are enjoying playing from sun up to sun down. They are having all kinds of good old American fun!

This is my precious niece, Emily. We had lots of fun taking stupid pictures of our faces. We will put them on our facebook so everyone can make fun of us! Heehee!! We have enjoyed long talks and watching movies. I can't believe she is almost 16, that means I am getting old, that just can't be!

Caroline and Emily on the roller coaster.

Annie going back to her Mexican roots, she was happy to be on a horse!

While we were at the International Learning Center, Alex made some really good friends, this was one of them. ( I know, these are all out of order, sorry)

This was one of Annie's very first baby-sitters in Costa Rica, her name is Keverly. She is so wonderful and we love, love, love her. She has spent the last 6 months in Haiti teaching 3 boys for some friends there. We were so happy to have here back with her family so we could visit with her. Annie thinks the world of her and we have to agree with Annie, she is pretty wonderful!

This is Melissa. She has been with me on this wild journey since the beginning. We left the US together and we returned together. (it was her mom's camp in the pictures above) We are great friends and she is a great support to me!

This was our first Sunday with Greg's family here in Indiana. We visited her church and saw many of Greg's old friends. It was a great day. We plan on speaking at Kingston Avenue Church here in Indiana this Sunday. We are looking forward to this opportunity and are anxious to share our vision with them. Please pray all will go well as we speak for the first time. Love you all!! Missy

We're still here!!

Hi everyone!! I know I haven't posted in about a week, I am sooo sorry. We have been really busy and have not had very good Internet available so I haven't really had time to write. I still don't have much time but I wanted to get you up to date on what has been happening. (pictures will come soon)

We spent the weekend at the lake with our friends the Conners. They live in Mexico and work with another indigenous group. We had a GREAT time with them! We all had a good laugh while we were there because a water pipe broke and we spent a day without water. We thought it was quite ironic that the two families that lived in villages in Mexico where they have no water would come together for our first weekend together in the states and not have water. Which was even funnier because it didn't really bother any of us. I really do think God has a REALLY good sense of humor! I mean, after all, He created ME!! :o)

Then on Monday we all headed to Va. to a learning center where we receive training from IMB. We have had some debriefing about our time on the field and received a lot of helpful tips on how to speak to churches about our experiences. We hope to be able to do that as much as possible over the next year. If your church would like us to speak, please let me know and if we are available, we would love to do so! Again, God and His sense of humor, we arrived here and I found rat pellets on the stove and in my drawers. I think someone or maybe something actually planted them there as a "welcoming" gift! Just a little reminder that there are rats in the US too! :o) Oh the blessings!

The kids have had a wonderful week, playing with other TCKs (third culture kids) and have really bonded with many new friends. They love this place, it is the one place where they always seem to fit in. Please continue to pray for our culture shock. I know I have written that on here and for those of you living out of the US you understand what I mean, and for those of you who don't you may be confused. It really is REAL!! I never dreamed it was possible to not feel normal in my own country, but I really don't. I don't know how to do anything anymore. You are asking, "Like what? What don't you know how to do?"

1. Pump gas and pay for it, what buttons do you push? (it is pumped for you in Mexico)
2. Credit card machines at stores..... don't know how to use them. ( they do that for you in Mexico)
3. Movie theatre..... where do you go, who do you give your ticket to? (there were 800 movies and one lady taking tickets, not to mention 5000 people waiting to see Harry Potter and I was looking around like a lost puppy) Okay so my #'s might be a little off! ;o)
4. Automatic sinks, okay, is it a shower or just to wash your hands, or am I doing something wrong, b/c it sprays my whole body every time I try to use an automatic sink to wash my hands. Then I need a MD degree just to figure out the automatic paper towel dispensers.

Okay, that is probably enough for now. I am sure I will think of a ton more. So, when I say I am experiencing some culture shock these are SOME of the things that I am talking about. Most of them are probably because I am just a tiny bit on the ditsy side, YES I said a TINY bit! :o) Anyway, pray for all of us as there are many more transitions to come. I love you all and love meeting some of you in person! It is nice as I travel to hear people come up and say, "Hi my name is so and so (not really but you get the picture ;o)) and I have been following your blog since Annie's accident. " I love that I have all of you out there still encouraging me on through your prayers! Love to you all!! Missy

Mooooooo!

Aren't those just the cutest cows you have ever seen? Annie's costume hadn't arrived yet, so she was just mooin' around with her friends til Dad showed up.


Ya know, times are tough! ;o)


A man's gotta do, what a man's gotta do!

He even had his family begging. Pooooor missionary family. We really did look kinda rough!

The boys look miserable, but they were having a great time, you just couldn't see their face!

Annie and her friend Natalie.

Greg decided for a free meal, he would wear his outfit the entire time! Gotta love him!

We thought this little cow was a cutie!!

This guy went ALL out!

No time to write, just enjoy our pictures! We had fun eating our totally free meal at Chick-fil-a today! It was fun seeing some of the people and their costumes. I am THE biggest Chick-fil-a fan out there! I just love every part of their restaurant. Please pray for our travel tomorrow and on Monday. We are visiting friends tomorrow and then we will be off to the International Learning Center for a week of debriefing. After that we will head to Indiana to speak at a church and visit with family. I will keep on posting during all of our travels and you can travel with me! Love, Missy

Working, climbing and eating....

We have been working for pennies. Whoever bags for me gets all the pennies in my wallet. That could be 5 or it could be 50 depending on the dayToday was Alex's day. He was soooo happy with his 20 pennies he earned bagging groceries. Can you tell we have been out of the states a while? I like it that way!


Annie was born a climber! This playground is very close to our apartment complex and she loves to practice her climbing. She is really good too!


Annie loving the playground.


Nothing like summer, the states and DQ! We are enjoying some things that are just about as American as you can get!!


Greg's childhood friend, Tom, was in town on business and looked us up. We enjoyed a great evening with Tom and his friend Gene at Red Robin. We are enjoying being in an area where lots of our friends seem to be visiting! So, if you are in the area, look us up!!

Sorry I haven't posted in a few days. I think jet lag, (if you can have that 2 weeks later) American culture or the heat have taken their toll on us. We are getting tired and starting to show signs of wearing out. It is so hard to believe that we have only been here 2 weeks and one day. I feel like we have been here for a least 6 months. In some regards that is a HUGE blessing!We have managed to make friends so easily here. Our kids all have friends, Greg has signed up to be on a tennis team and I.....well, I have found a walking partner, a movie buddy and tons of mothers to hang out with. So, we are all happy!

We are still experiencing culture shock. It still seems like we are on vacation. For the past 2 years when we would return to the US for vacation, we would come for 3 weeks at a time. So it just seems like we are here doing what we have done for the past 2 years. Everyone here wants to know what culture shock we are experiencing, so I thought I would share some of that with you.

1. Drinks- a 16 oz Coke costing $1.39, we were used to it costing 60 cents, maybe 75 cents
2. Avacados cost us $1.69 each and we are used to paying about 25 cents each, of course that was in Mexico.
3. A drink at a restaurant cost $2.80 we were used to paying about $1 four years ago.
4. That everywhere you go you see children of ALL ages with some form of technology attached to their body. I saw a little girl about Annie's age listening to some form of music or something while she was eating. Do people talk to their kids anymore?
5. That the roads are as smooth as a baby's bottom! We LOVE them! The boys said they were like driving on a cloud.
6. The choices we have are unbelievable in a good way, most of the time! ( unless you are in a hurry or have a headache or just arrived in the country and need a hair dryer!)
7. The grass is green even when it is dying! :o) It beats not having any grass! I will have to take a picture of the front of our apartment just for laughs.

Okay, that is all for now. That will give you something to think about anyway! I will post tomorrow b/c I will have some pics to post. Tomorrow is dress like a cow at Chick-fil-a and get a free meal so we will be taking advantage of that. We are poor missionaries, so YES we will ALL go in dressed like a cow. Love you all!! Missy MOOOOOO!