What's Happening in our neck of the woods!

 Hi friends! I have to get back into the swing of things and update on here more often. Sorry! I will give you a quick update on what our family has been up to. We have gotten back into our normal school schedule and we are helping 4 different churches here in 4 different villages. We just rotate each Sunday. That is giving us an opportunity to meet many different people and hopefully we will be able to help those already established churches reach out to their communities and grow.

This is a traditional bread made here in our village during Christmas. Don't know if you can tell, but it is a rabbit. It tasted good too!

We had to show you this, just because it shows our lifestyle a little better. I sent Greg to the store to get some eggs. I had to laugh when I saw the feathers still stuck to the egg! Oh how my life is different than it was 7 years ago!

We have had the opportunity to bless some needy friends with warm blankets. A church in Guadalajara donated a bunch of blankets to a church here and we have gotten to give them to our friends. This is Mada, our old land lady, with her blanket.

Annie has been quite busy! She has opened up her own orphanage. They all have their own story about how they arrived at the orphanage and what happened to them in the past. Some are sad stories, some are funny, and some are just simple, "They arrived."

Here she is taking care of a few of her orphans.

They all have "paper work" as she calls it. 

Last month Jerod got glasses and this month Alex got braces. So this is his new look! Isn't he cute?

This was at one of the churches that we are helping. There are some kids that are just too precious for words, this little fella was one of those. 

Jerod really loves working with kids. He always has fun entertaining them. He does a great job telling Bible stories too. The kids all seem to love to hear them!

We were able to give out the last few presents we had to this church. They were so excited!

This little girl is holding her sister's Barbie and she already has her baby doll on her back like all the mamas carry their babies. 

This is our other big news. Annie has been living in a place that isn't conducive to learning to ride a bike   ever since we moved to Mexico. So she hasn't had any opportunities to learn to ride one.  So for Christmas she got a bike. And... she and Daddy took it to the park and wala Annie can ride her bike without training wheels! She is so excited! She wants a helmet but I don't even know if they sell them, and if they do, I have a feeling she will be the ONLY child wearing one! ;o)

The face of determination.

This is my Papa. He is 93 and will be 94 in April and well he is just the most precious Papa in the world!! He had a mild heart attack this past weekend and it scared me to pieces. He is fine now. They put a stint in and I think he feels better than he has in awhile. However, I would really appreciate your prayers for his recovery and just for his overall health. Thanks so much for all you do for us! Love, Missy

Here is a Glimpse!

Hi friends! I do hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! We did so much from the week before Christmas up until now that I will just show you what we did instead of tell you. I will explain so photos but some won't need explaining. I will do better about keeping you updated now, I just took a little break from blogging for a few weeks and did all of the below! love you all! Missy

Our M friends, Charlie and Sharon. They helped make Christmas fun for the kids as we had our second annual gingerbread house contest. Alex and Charlie were declared the overall winners. But... they all had fun!

Greg and Jerod made an elephant from Lord of the Rings, Alex and Charlie made the classic house in the middle, and Annie went solo for awhile and then I ended up helping at the end. She made her house a "Love Chapel." 

I had a women's brunch and spoke of how God has a plan for us all. It was a great day and I was able to minister to many of these precious women who are so beat down by their every day life. I was blessed to be able to give them all presents with money that was donated by many of you. They all said to say thank you to all of you for your giving. 

This was after I was done talking. When I started there were only 6 people there and I was a little discouraged! 

We gave all the kids presents bought with money donated by some of you as well. 

This is Irma. I have mentioned her before. She is blind and walks about 45 minutes each way to get to church. Her husband is an alcoholic and she has a very difficult life. Please pray for her. 

Here we are at the end of our day. My how they touched my heart. I am blessed!

On our way home, we saw this little girl in the street already playing with her Barbie she got. That made me so happy!

We took Jerod and Alex's youth group to our old village and they did a few dramas for them. It went over well. This is a church that we have partnered with and we are so encouraged by how excited they are to help us reach our people group with the gospel.

This was one of the dramas where Satan and his demons try to attack someone but they are unable to do much against the power of Jesus. 

Christmas morning waiting to see what Santa brought. 

These are 2 books the boys bought me for my ipad. ( I got the ipad as part of my birthday and Christmas)

Greg got a grill and this was his grill set to help him use it. The pink strings were Annie's gift. (glasses holders, cute, huh?)

My first all from scratch apple pie. It was good, not as good as some people's but... good. 

We had a day of unity at a park about 45 minutes away. We had 10 different villages come together to bring their churches together and bring unity among all of the believers. There weren't really any problems, just not a lot of unity. This was an awesome way to help bring them all together.

Kids doing crafts.

Some of the kids from the different villages.

A little girl resting as her mama cooked at the park.

Annie and some of her friends.

This was another party we had for kids in a village here. We played games and ate cake and gave gifts. It was awesome to see! 

This is Annie being wrapped up like a mummy. It was a race between the girls and boys.

Boys won. ;o)

Here are some of the kids with their gifts. 

Bless her heart, she was so scared of us. How cute is she?

This is Alex and he is just like my Alex was at that age. Look below!

Little Alex said, forget the truck I like hitting big Alex with the shovel and rake! Must be something in the name! ;o)

This was for New Year's Eve. We had a bon fire in our back yard. 

We invited 3 families and were stood up by all 3. So, our family enjoyed bringing in the New Year by ourselves. It was still a lot of fun! I love that man!!

We know they have problems! 

This was a freak fire. They wanted to start a fire in the bottom of an old pulpit. Talk about hell, fire and brimstone coming from the pulpit, there it is! ;o) It seemed to work like a chimney and got rather high. 

Annie didn't take too well to fire. She stuck with the little fire here. She threw some popcorn fireworks but it scared her half to death and she cried and said she was scared of burning her hand again. It was an emotional night for her but little by little we pray she will get over these fears. 

That is about it. There were a few other things in there, a prayer service, (which was awesome) and lots of games and laughter. I watched a whole series called Jericho on Netflix and am mad that they canceled that series and we all slept in, well all except for Greg who never sleeps in. Hope your Christmas was special and blessed and that God will bless your 2012! We will be celebrating with our old village with games, gifts and cake tomorrow. Please pray that goes well. Thanks