Sunday lunch

Homemade tortillas, and beans nothing better!

Jerod at church

This was Jerod explaining to the church about the story they heard. As you can see Alex was making sure Annie was paying attention. Is he MY child? :0)

4 months left!

Hi everyone. Our weeks seem to be flying by. It seems like we were just saying "Happy New Year!" and now it is time to say,"Happy Valentine's Day!" We now only have about 4 months left here in Mexico before we return to the states for our stateside assignment. (furlough) We are now on full speed ahead. We have some kind of bible study planned for every night of the week except Saturday. Greg is determined to go out with a bang! We have been trying to visit many of the Baptist churches all around us. They are never close, they are usually about a 40 minute to an hour and a half drive away. Please pray for us as we are traveling in some areas where the roads aren't exactly fun to drive on. The boys need prayer as sometimes they get REALLY bored at some of these visits. If it was, go to church and leave, they would be fine. However it is usually a good 2 hours after church is over that we leave. Everyone wants to feed us. A nice gesture but the kids get tired of this pretty quick! This picture of Alex was taken yesterday after church. We were waiting on the food to be prepared and he was doing his best to entertain himself! Annie always has fun on these days. She is such a "village kid!" She likes wearing her Purepecha clothing and playing in the dirt and generally doing whatever the other kids like doing. That is a blessing! Not much else to report. We will be going to our Monday night group study in about an hour. We are praying that we will have a good group. Thanks for your prayers for us! Some days that is all that gets me through the day!

Celebrating Greg's birthday

We had a great vacation! These are a few photos we took over the past few days.
We stayed at Greg's favorite hotel! He thinks the decor, is just beautiful! This was him, looking at the tile in the bathroom! It doesn't take much to excite him!


Annie did some shopping, this wa her, showing her new dress to daddy!




Me and my honey!




The family overlooking Morelia, Michoacan.





Viva Mexico!







Annie thinks McDonalds is the best restaurant ever!


Alex and Annie having fun!




Jerod trying out the motorcycle





Annie loving the heated pool!





Annie was so excited that you could barely see her scars!

Annie's therapy

It is always fun to hear what our children want to be when they grow up. Jerod wants to be a farmer and have lots of animals. He also wants to be a missionary. Alex wants to be a professional football player, no surprise there. Lastly, Annie has informed us all that she is going to be a Doctor. She has been playing Dr. with her dolls and I thought this was interesting. If you look at every area on the doll that is bandaged, these are the same places where she was burnt. She is always bringing her babies into the "hospital" and saying, "My baby fell into mole." (That is what she fell into.) So, her accident is definitely still on her mind and she is learning how to deal with all of these hidden emotions. She still talks about the Drs. who cared for her, by name and thinks they were all awesome! Which, they definitely are awesome! Thank you to all of you who donated to Shriners this Christmas on our behalf! God bless all of you!!

Not much to report....

Hellooooo,

Not much to report today. Our Monday night went well, although the priest won, as he was holding some party for the statues of all of the baby Jesus' in the village. Most every family has a statue of baby Jesus that they dress in baby clothes and put on an altar and then they pray to this baby. So on Monday night everyone brought their baby Jesus in his finest clothing to the priest and they had a party in honor of these dolls. Many from our group went. Although this is very frustrating to us, we are trying to be understanding and not be legalistic. Hopefully Friday night we will have more of our group back. Pray that we will have wisdom with this situations.

Praise! The priest, the one who had this party, has now left and gone to another village. He is the one who was waking me up every morning at 6:00am. This is why it is a praise! There is a new one coming and I am hoping that he doesn't follow with this same wake-up call idea! ( He was playing loud hymns at 6 in the morning over a loud speaker for 1/2 an hour so everyone would come to 6:30am mass) Please pray the new one doesn't cause us any problems.

Today we are leaving to celebrate Greg's birthday. The boys and I put our money together and got a hotel room for 2 nights in a nearby city. We plan on enjoying a little get away and eating some good American food! Please pray that we can enjoy this mini-vacation, and get a break from the village for a few days. Thank you all for your continued prayers! I will be writing my news letter in the next few days, so if you aren't on our email list, and want to be, let me know! Love you!

"Compared to what?"

This is a little girl in our village. She doesn't look very happy, and in my eyes I saw her as very poor. But... compared to Milienne who is pictured next, she has a good life. She may be hungry but she isn't starving and her parents may not have much, but her parents are alive. She may have clothes that don't fit very well, but she has clothes.

This is Milienne, she is 4 years old and lives in HAITI. She is 4 years old and weighs ONLY 14 pounds. She needs your prayers! If you would like to follow the ministry who is caring for her you can do so by clicking on this link, http://haitirescuecenter.wordpress.com/

Hello everyone,

I am at a loss for words, really. I have had Milienne's image in my mind since I saw it. The thing that has been going through my mind is something I heard at our annual meeting this summer. It went something like this, " I am so poor." Response, "Compared to what?" "I am so hungry." Response, "Compared to what?" If we look at our lives and our complaints and try to see our situation as cup half full instead of half empty, maybe our problems wouldn't seem so bad. I have been listening to the news a lot and it can get quite depressing. However, then I read how things are in Haiti and I think, we are all a bunch of spoiled brats! Me included! At our bible study last night I shared with our group how things were in Haiti. How this sweet 4 year old girl only weighs 14 pounds. 14 pounds. It is hard to wrap your mind around that. Our group who would probably be considered poor in the eyes of the world, cried out to the Lord to help those in Haiti. They prayed that God would bless those in Haiti and save them from their starvation. They said to us, " We have food and water, we have a shelter over our heads, we aren't poor." So, when I think I am living in a "poor" area, I have to ask myself the question, "Compared to what?" When Annie had her accident, it was made very clear to me that our situation can ALWAYS be worse. We need to praise HIM for all of our blessings. I hope I haven't sounded too "preachy" I just want you all to pray for this little girl and all of the ones like her in Haiti. They need a lot of prayer!