Prayer works!

Well, prayer works because for some unknown reason, our computer is typing perfectly now. I am hoping it stays that way. If it starts to act up again, I will tell you because someone out there has some awfully strong prayers! Love to you all!! Missy

Adolfo

This was when our team came. Adolfo is in front. Please pray for him.

\Okazy, pleazsx prazy fvor our cdojmputer. We reazlly dcon't havfe jmoney fvor  a new one andc this is how it types now. It is quite fvrustrating and we don't havfe timje to take out all the bad letters all the tijme. So PLEASE pray we can fvind a solution. Thanks!

Can't keep up!

Hello friends!

I now know what it is like to be a full time, working mother! Home school ain't easy. I went to school long ago to get my certificate in Elementary Education and thought it would be fun. Okay I was only 23 when I graduated and really had no idea what I was thinking! Today I have read a story about someone in History whom I have never heard about, learned things about Rome that made my mouth drop, played with shaving cream, danced around singing an Alphabet song in Spanish, tried to be as good as Annie's last teacher, (Miss Sorensen) and learned about run-on sentences! Obviously I need to re-learn the stuff about run-on sentences, huh?

This was our first day of school. I have to lean my head back to look taller than Jerod, I really am shorter now!  :o(

So as you can see, my days are full and I am trying to figure out how to manage them a little better so that I can enjoy my blog more often. I really want to change our look but don't really have time to do that either. Our church service starts in about an hour and I still have to help Jerod come up with a craft. I guess the good thing is all of the kids seem to like school this year. Well... that is all but ANNIE! On Friday she had a "stomach ache." Then when school was over she was miraculously healed! I am trying to incorporate lots of fun stuff but she still says, " That's not how Mrs. Sorensen does it." Today we were getting ready to pray and we were taking prayer requests from all 3 kids and Annie rolled her eyes and said, " Do we have to do this EVERY day?" It was quite comical at the moment. So, I think we are dealing with some homesickness, or rather school- sickness. She misses the interaction she had with the other children. Please pray!

This was Annie counting bears. She liked this activity.

We are seeing our group grow each week. Our children from the street are coming now. We had 3 new ones come on Friday night. That has brought our numbers up by 4 now. We are encouraging these kids to bring their parents now. Pray that they would come.

Our neighbor, who is also our landlord, isn't doing well. His name is Adolfo and he has diabetes and is just deteriorating daily. He is a sweet man and he and his wife, Mada, have been so kind to our family. Please pray that we could help him to have comfortable last days. We don't know how long he will last here on the earth; but he is growing weary of this life. Yesterday he told Greg he was worthless. Ever since we got back he would hammer a nail in a board every morning. I couldn't figure out why and I have now realized it just gave him something to do each day. It is sad. Please pray for him as well.

This was Jerod on his birthday. Notice we didn't have candles. I thought I would say, "Poor us, didn't even have enough money to buy candles." It really is because I am a slack mom who didn't buy any! He liked the matches better, I think!

Okay my dad hates it when I say this kind of thing because he starts to worry; however, I would appreciate your prayers for our safety. Everything looks the same as it did when we left, but prayer never hurts! :o) Thanks for prayin' and for keeping up with us! Love you all! Missy

Great day, long day!

Hi friends! I have been trying to download pictures but it just takes tooo long. I took pictures to show you just how great they are doing but couldn't download any of them. Sorry, I will keep trying. I must say we had a great day! If you prayed, thank you! We have been having a lot of fun lately as well as doing a lot of work. We have visited many people, and we are still doing our weekly English class with the kids on the street. One little boy from our group on the street, who is 12 has been coming to our church each night. He has helped us with a community service project and has been very interested in all we do. Please pray for Hector as we continue to see him hunger for what we have, a relationship with Jesus!

We visited a woman tonight who has recently lost her husband and we met many people who are interested in what we do. We were encouraged by the strength this widow seemed to have, she has been coming to our services regularly and is trying to figure out her life. It is always tough to go in some of these homes and realize just how little they really have. We are so very fortunate!

I am still not feeling all that great. I continue to itch all the time and my head just feels bruised. I still have a big blotch of red on my face and am beginning to be impatient with this illness. Please keep praying!

My mom and Jerod both celebrated there b-day on Monday and I was happy to see Jerod talking to my mom on the phone as they both wished eachother a Happy Birthday! My mom noticed that his voice is changing and that is for sure, it is strange how quickly our kids change! Okay, I am definitely rambling...so goodnight!I will write more soon.  Love, Missy

1st Day of School!

Please pray, first day of school today with all 3 of my munchkins! I think it could be a very long and frazzled day. I will write more later today. Love to all! Missy

1st Day of School!

Please pray, first day of school today with all 3 of my munchkins! I think it could be a very long and frazzled day. I will write more later today. Love to all! Missy

Missing you all!

Hi friends! I say every day that I have to update the blog and every day passes without an update. I miss writing on here because it is like I am talking with my friends. I miss talking to friends. I have so much to tell you and never have time to tell you. So, even though we just got home from church about an hour ago and it it is 11:15 at night  I  still wanted to talk to you all.

This past week has been good. I hear things that make me laugh from my kids and that is always a good thing. Greg hadn't shaved for a few days and he kissed Annie and she said, " Daddy your spikes are hurting me." I love that! Then she said tonight that she made some kids laugh through their lungs.  Where does she come up with that? Alex said something the other day and now I can't remember for the life of me what it was. They are all very Mexican again. Annie has really started to come out of her shell and is speaking Spanish again quite well. She forgets how to say some things and asks us, but all in all we couldn't be happier with how she is starting to remember. The boys play so well with the kids here. They have been enjoying Hotwheel races. Greg moves the truck out of our carport and they race cars for hours. It is fun to see.

Jerod turns 14 on Monday and it was neat to see how he wanted to spend his birthday. On Monday we have church so we wouldn't be able to do anything to celebrate so he chose to celebrate it last night. He wanted to rent a movie, which was Tooth Fairy, and watch it with our projector, then he wanted me to make homemade pizza, which was quite tasty if I do say so myself! :o) Then he received the gift that he wanted, a few Hotwheels and an ax. I would never have dreamed that at 14 those would be his wishes, but they were. So we watched our movie together as a family after he chopped some wood with his ax. :o) It was a great night!

We have been teaching a few words in English to a bunch of kids on the street and playing games with them for about an hour each week. These kids are precious and range from age 5 to 14. They all love to come and we all have a blast. Today after playing, Jerod invited them all to come to our church meeting. We were pleased to see that about 5 of them came. They sang songs with us, prayed with us and then heard how to have a relationship with Jesus. We were happy to see that their parents allowed them to come! We are hoping that some of them will come soon! Please pray!

At church tonight I was thinking of you all and wishing you could have seen the sight I saw. It was really quite funny. We all gathered in our friends home to worship and about the time Greg wanted to talk, the rain started. We are in the middle of our rainy season and it is going good. It poured! Now why is this funny? Well because we were beneath a tin roof. The noise was so loud that you couldn't hear anything. Finally Greg said, " Thank God for rain." and he sat down and we waited for about 15 minutes for it to calm down, then we prayed and the kids left to do their study and Greg was able to talk again.

After church I took some of our friends home because it was still raining. On the way we passed this little old woman, I would say in her 80's and all she had over her was a piece of plastic. It broke my heart. So, we invited her to get in the truck. She couldn't even hear, I think she was half deaf. She just smiled and did her best to climb in the truck.  So I asked where she was going and found out she was on her way to buy a candle. Her children have moved away, my friends told me that they don't care for her at all and she has no power. She just wanted to see. So after buying her 2 long wax candles like you would see on Little House on the Prairie, we drove her home. That is when I felt so ashamed. She had to first walk through a huge puddle to get to her gate, stand in the water to open it, then walk through what to me looked like a river to get to her home. Of course she did this in the dark b/c there were no lights. My friends said she lives very humbly. Now these friends are friends who have NOTHING so for them to say she lives humbly means she has NOTHING, literally. Our plan is to visit her soon and find out how we can help. Please pray for her. Her name was Eloise. Okay, I know that I have been long winded, my heart is heavy.

Ya know so many people ask about how things are here in Mexico. My answer is always the same, "It looks the same as it always has." Now that doesn't mean there aren't bad things happening. I am sure there are. There are bad things happening everywhere. But... I have been to a lot of places lately and everywhere I go, the people are precious and kind and loving and want to do their best to make a living so they can have water and food and a bed and their kids can have school supplies. I have found that in my opinion the majority of the people here are just wonderful! My heart breaks for them! Times are tough for them but just like that sweet little Eloise, walking through 6 inches of water on a cold dark night, she had the biggest smile. She was used to that life and was just thankful for a shorter walk. Please pray for Mexico. I love it here! Love to you all! I really will try to get some photos uploaded soon! Until then!

Problems downloading!

Sorry, I am having problems downloading my pictures. So... I promise you will see pictures tomorrow! Love to all! Missy

What's Happening?

I have so much to tell you all and I know you don't want to read a lot. Sorry.  I always have these great goals of writing on here a little at a time but then I don't have the time. I really don't have the time now because it is late and I am exhausted. But.... you need to hear what has been happening. I will write like the ADD person that I am so if this goes from one place to another very quickly, you will know why. :o) So, buckle up, here I go.

Our prayer retreat with our company was so wonderful. We got to see many friends that we hadn't seen in a long time and it was great getting reaquainted. Annie loved seeing all of her old friends and had a great time being with some of the older kids for VBS. The team that came was great and all of our kids enjoyed their week. The boys and I stayed up playing cards most nights and Greg enjoyed going to bed early with Annie each night. :o) That is how it usually is in our home. We left the retreat refreshed and educated.

We then headed to one of our favorite cities for a little extra time with the family. We had fun eating pizza and watching movies. We shopped at a pet store and we think we know what kind of dog we want to purchase. Greg has promised us all that we could purchase a dog in October. We shall see.

We then headed back here to our home and have enjoyed hearing the rain outside ever since we arrived. The temperatures have been around the upper 50's and lower 60's. We have loved it! It really hasn't stopped raining since we got home. That would be 4 straight days. Of course our friends have said that it was raining for about 3 days before we arrived. It is funny because if you had told me 5 years ago that I would live in a place where it rains almost every day for about 3-4 months, I would have said, "You are crazy, I will go nuts!" However, I love it! I love hearing it and I love that I get a break from lots of visitors. One thing that changed when we left the US was that Greg became the extravert and I became the intravert. Okay, well maybe not the intravert, but I don't mind staying home! :o)

We have been enjoying our friends. Today I spent the day in town buying school supplies with one of my good friends. We laughed most of the day and I can't wait to put some of the pictures on here from these past few days. We were leaving a store and I was driving, my friend's daughter was in the passenger's seat and she was in the back seat. My friend's daughter had told her that she needed to use her seat belt because it was safer. So, being the obedient mother that she is she used her seatbelt. Okay, I have to go downstairs, get my camera and download this picture, because without that you won't fully appreciate this story. It was TOO funny. She had the strap around her whole body but it wasn't buckled. It was like a harness ready to hang her! I about wet my pants. We showed her how it was supposed to go and she said, "I think I will risk it, this is way to tight." :o)

Then tonight we spent the night with some friends of ours that are extremely quiet people. Can you imagine ME with quiet people? Well, they think we are ridiculously funny. We were playing Jinga and had a blast! Our friend, Alicia who is about to have her baby, laughed so hard I thought she would go into labor for sure! They laughed at the game but they laughed more at Greg. We heard some water dripping from their fridge and Greg, otherwise known as " Mr. Fixit" said, " Hmm... let me see..." and put his whole head in the freezer, stayed there for a few minutes and with all seriousness shuts the door, and says, " No, everything is fine." I bust out laughing because somehow he thought he knew that there was nothing wrong with their fridge. I told them there would be a flood tonight. So that became our joke, Greg says everything is fine. Anyway, this may not be funny to all of you, but we got a lot of laughs out of it!

Now it is time for me to go to bed. I will upload the photos and you can see some of what we have been doing!  Please keep praying for us. Love you all! Missy

Out of town.

No pictures yet. I am sorry I have not been on here for a few weeks. I have been out of town and we have not had much internet service. We are back and I can't wait to share all we did. It was sooo much fun! I will update you all tomorrow but for now, I am smack tired! Love to you all! Missy