The picture

I know, I know this picture above is NOT the one that looks like it won however, after the poll closed I received a few more votes by email and that put this one over the top. Which I must say I was relieved about. I was having a hard time with number 96 because of the hair on my neck. I know that is stupid, but, oh it bugged me! So, now you know why that one is the winner. Thank you all for helping make this all important decision! You are such a huge part of my life and I really count on all of you for so much!

Please pray for us today. We are going to talk to Salvador again today. He hasn't been drinking for 2 days now, we think he his sick. Please pray he will receive us well. Love, Missy

Last Friday night

This is Jerod with his group of the smaller kids. They made cups with a little man sticking out, and filled it with water to show Peter walking on water. Then they drew pictures of Jesus calming the storm. I must say, Jerod had done an EXCELLENT job with teaching these kids!


Greg and Prisiliano showing how Peter had to keep his eyes on Jesus when walking across the water.

Hi all, Last night was our last Friday night meeting. It went really well. The story was on Jesus calming the storm and Peter walking on water and the faith he needed in Jesus to do so. Angelica was there ( I was SO glad) and she related well to this story. They talked about sometimes how even though we have faith we also have doubts. That although Peter had faith, he doubted he could walk on the water, but how when he kept his eyes on Jesus he could do it. It was awesome to see the group encourage her, wrap their arms around her and pray over her. They let her know that Jesus would calm this storm in her life as well, she just needed to keep her eyes on Him. Greg said, "It's so neat how God planned that, I had that story on the calendar 3 weeks ago, and it just worked perfectly for her!" Angelica left encouraged, teary eyed and feeling as though she had just spent 2 hours with family. Can I tell you how proud I am of this group? SO proud! Please continue to pray for Angelica and Salvador. He is walking on a dangerous path. They are going to meet with the "Mayor" today. Pray all goes well. Love to you all!! Missy

My party on Saturday

They wanted to take my picture. So, there I am!


Eating and talking and enjoying eachother!

Mimica so happy with her little gift, it doesn't take much!

We played the "Missy" trivia game. They were all questions about my life here and in the states to see who knew me best. They loved it! Angelica was thrilled with this bottle of hair gel she won!

They LOVE hot dogs! They were happy, happy, happy!

I don't know if you can tell from this picture but they loved the fun balloon napkins. Most of them saved them and took them home. This woman was looking at it like it was the neatest thing ever!

I love this, because it shows even when there is a bench, they always choose the floor!

My friend Angelica taking charge of making the hot dogs.

Hi everyone! Days are flying by and I still haven't told you how my party went. I wanted to show you the pictures.

This is what happened. I woke up on Saturday morning throwing up and well.... the other and thought... I have to cancel the party. Greg told me to wait because maybe it would pass and I would feel better. So, I waited. I prayed. Then I prayed that someone else would pray. I felt absolutely horrible. I didn't throw up anymore and I was sure it was something I had eaten and not a virus but I had no idea how I could have all these women in my house and have a party. Greg took the kids into the nearest city and told me not to cancel it until I knew for sure I couldn't do the party. Mainly because we didn't have many other days to do the party and we both knew that canceling this party would mean that many would end up not coming and I would have to have a party 3 days before we were going to leave. I did NOT want to do that! So I called the women that had phones to see if they could come one hour later and they said they could. Then I had one friend go and tell the others that didn't have phones. Anyway, I kept thinking of Phillipians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

I made up my mind I could do it and I did. I knew if I told my friends I wasn't feeling well, they would take charge and they did. It all went wonderful and little by little I felt better. Not great, but better. We shed many tears as I told them how much I would miss them. We laughed a lot! Watched a movie, painted our nails and generally had a wonderful time together! God is so good to me! I remember 4 years ago just praying that God would send me friends here. I thought if I have some friends, I know everything will be fine no matter what my living conditions are. He has blessed me with wonderful friends! There were 16 in all! I am blessed! Love you! Missy

What a day!

Well a lot has happened since I posted this morning. I just had to tell you the rest of the story. ;o) Salvador was in no mood to listen to anyone today. He was mad that his children hit him. Can you imagine? Of course he said he would never forgive them and Angelica said, "But I am supposed to forgive you?" To which he had no response. He just doesn't see that hitting his wife is wrong, but oh, hitting a parent, now that is wrong. It was so frustrating! He started drinking again about 9:30am and continued all day.

When I posted this morning I forgot to say that one thing that encouraged Greg and I was that when we arrived at their home at 2 this morning, Moises and his mom and his wife were already there. They have been a blessing!

Anyway, Angelica, Lupita (her daughter) and Olivia ( one of her daughters -in-law) all came to church tonight. It was really good for them all. Of course we were hoping her sons would be there but they all were embarrassed by their father's actions and didn't want to come. So after our study a group of us went to their home to encourage them. It was awesome! All I could think was this is what it is all about! There were 13 of us in a tiny room and they were all talking in their languagae and using Bible stories as examples of how Satan will try to tear us down or how God can encourage us or how we are given second chances. We heard them use the story of Jonah, the parable of the seed sower, The Prodigal Son, The story of the demon possessed man, and many more. It was really awesome!!

I was so encouraged! I saw the body of Christ taking care of part of the body that was suffering. They were all doing this without any help from Greg and I. So although I hate that there was hurt, it gave us an opportunity to see that they are going to be just fine without us. I just know it! We prayed for Salvador as we knew he was a lost sheep and sometime while we were praying he climbed into bed and went to sleep. We are now praying that he wakes up with a repentant heart. Please pray with us. God sure can do a lot in just one day, huh? Love to you all! Missy

While you were sleeping.....

Hello friends, sorry it has been a few days! I have been battling a few things. A cold or flu ( oink oink, just kidding) and a stomach infection after that. Needless to say the past few days haven't exactly been fun. However, life must go on and I did have my party on Saturday. It went well. I will tell you more about that tomorrow. Right now I need to tell you what happened while you were sleeping!

Last night about 2 in the morning 3 (EST) I was still awake and didn't know why. I just was lying in my bed waiting to fall asleep when the cell phone rang. I jumped up and saw it was our friend's number and quickly answered it. I found out that our friend, S (alcoholic) pictured above had started drinking and beat his wife, A. A is one of my dearest friends. She is the rock in this family, precious, precious woman. Please pray. I am writing this with tears in my eyes. I love her. It isn't fair that someone has to indure this kind of life. It isn't fair. When will it stop she asked me. What can I say to her? When he kills you. S is a wonderful man when he is sober. However, when he drinks he is evil. All together evil. This not only effected Angelica but her 2 sons, M and C, their 2 wives, R and O and her daughter Lupita. (pictured here with them) They all live together.

We just so happened to have an overnight guest (another m) staying with us for the night and so we left the kids with him and Greg and I headed to their home to see just what had happened. When we get there everything was calm. A's face was all swollen, she probably looks pretty bad today. Sal was in jail, for the night, and C and M were very sad. We went in and found out that S had started beating A, C (21) went in to defend her and then S started fighting him. Then M tried to stop that fight and he was hit too. It was then the 2 of them against him, with A trying to make them all stop.

Then people from the streets came in to break up the fight and it became one big fight. You can just imagine. The police came, took Sal to jail (this is just customary) to sleep it off and he was released this morning.

Now Greg is down at their home trying to talk some sense into S. It is so hard when Greg stands at least 2 feet taller than S and Greg would like to defend A himself. However, he has gone down there to show the love of Christ and try and talk to this man and see if he can somehow change his way of thinking. Knowing that only Christ can really change this man when this man wants to be changed. It is a tough, all of the kids want to leave and live in other places, however they don't want to leave their mama to defend herself. Oh, my heart hurts. Please pray for us. Love to you, Missy

15 years ago today

Hi! Well, I was going to post this yesterday but we were very busy and it didn't happen. So, I will have to tell you what happened 15 years ago from today instead of yesterday! 15 years ago from today I was boarding a plane named AirJamaica. I was starry eyed and madly in love with my husband of just about 15 hours and we were on our way to Jamaica for our honeymoon. Oh the memories. We were laughing yesterday over a very nice lunch, (just the two of us)about him bringing me all the way to Mexico to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary. HA! That little booger. I told him if he had laid out the plan for me 15 years ago that I would be living in a dusty, dirty, village in the middle of Mexico 15 years later I may have re-thought things. I am so glad we can only see today. I love my life here and love that we have had many fun adventures. I just needed a little push to get me out of my comfort zone! Okay, maybe it was a BIG push! ;o)

I love all of your comments about the pictures it is really helping me! Please keep voting and help make that all important decision! I wish I had all of you with me when I have been at a photo studio!

Please continue to pray for us as we have everyday filled up on our calendar. Tomorrow I will be having a special time with all of my friends. We are having a movie and a manicure in my house! I wanted to do something special for them all one last time before we leave. I will be sure and take lots of pictures!

I sent out our Newsletter yesterday, so if you would like to receive it and didn't let me know and I will make sure you do! Blessings! Missy

Vote for our prayer card photo!

Photo number 84.


Photo number 96.


Photo number 108.

This is number 111. (We didn't actually take that many photos!)

Hi friends! I am asking for prayer as I am not a very good time manager. I remember in elementary school I always got a 3 on mangages time wisely. 1 was best and 4 was worst. If that tells you anything. I think Greg might think the teacher was being nice. I think I may have adult ADD and I really have a hard time focusing on something for too long. Especially when I have 3 children that like to interrupt me every few minutes. So, I am looking around this house and I am thinking, "Hmmmm.... I am leaving 2 weeks from today and it looks like I have done NOTHING to get ready." Can you pray I will have some good time today to pack? People in the village continually come by to see us and that has thrown a kink in the packing process as well.

Yesterday we had family photos taken and we are thinking about using them for a new prayer card. I am going to post all 4 that are in the running for our prayer card and you can vote on which one you like the best. Click on the photo to enlarge them. That will be one less thing I have to worry about. Love to you all! Missy