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!