Volcano Paricutin behind them

Lupita giving Rachael a gift.

Rachael with Cesilia, Ani and Lupita

Jamie trying to be a Purepecha woman and make tortillas.

Rachael actually got good at this process. They were showing their tortillas. The big one is our friend, Angelicas.

Enjoying typical soup.

Jim washing his hands in the "faucet."

Lupita, Rachael and Annie at church.

The three of us showing off our outfits.

VBS at the start....

VBS at the end.

Jamie preaching.

An older Christian couple, happy to be a part of the VBS day.

 On our porch having devotions in front of a fire. We are blessed. More pictures to come! Love you all! Missy

Tons of fun

Hi everyone! I missed yesterday because we did soooo much. We have been having a wonderful time and have been able to show the team many different aspects of our people! I am going to explain what most of the pictures above are about but it will not be in order. I also have to do it quickly since we are getting ready to leave to do a service project among our village.

First let me say that the picture of the team and our family is in front of one of the seven natural wonders of the world, called, Paricutin. It was impressive for them to see and they took lots of pictures. Then they enjoyed Monday night with our church. I believe Jamie preached a record for himself and it only lasted about 15-20 minutes. ( that is what Greg suggested) It was fun for the people to hear God's Word in 3 different languages.

Rachael was given a rebozo (shawl) by one of our poorest friends who spent almost all she had just to buy this gift for her. They were so proud to be able to give it to her and then Lupita (15 year old in the family) wanted to dress her for church in her Purepecha clothing. Rachael was honored and wore it to church. They were so proud to see her in their clothing. She looked great!! Of course Annie wanted to dress up too!

Earlier that day Rachael and Jamie tried to make tortillas by hand as one of our close friends tried to teach them. They were rainbow tortillas made from two different types of corn and she was so happy to serve us a very typical meal. Rachael who generally never eats many things different ate all of her soup and then ate a lot of the hominey SP? soup that was given to her that night. Unfortunately this came back to haunt her Tuesday morning and she was sick. ;o(  So Rachael and her dad stayed home on Tuesday morning while we went to a village to do a mini-VBS.

We were told to expect about 50 kids and we planned for about that many. We arrived and started with about 20 kids. We ended with 87! What a day! I have tons of pictures of the sweet children we saw but cannot put them all on here today. Maybe soon. All of the kids as well as adults had a blast. There were about 10-15 new believers there from a larger city and one of them spoke really good English. SOOOO... Jamie was in HOG heaven when he was asked to preach  to them through this translater. He spoke to them for a good hour or more and made up for his short sermon the night before! We all laughed when he told us that they asked him to sing. By himself! We asked him what he sang and he said, " I sang, At The Cross, because that is the only song I knew." We laughed and laughed that the pastor could only come up with one song he knew. There are a ton more stories to tell but everyone is waiting on me, so I will write more later! Please pray for health and safety! Love you all! Missy and friends

More pics

This is the team with our precious landlords, Mada and Adolfo. That is their oven behind them.

This lady was trying so hard to get Jamie to buy something from her. However Jamie seemed to think he wouldn't need this little girls clothing. I think he needed to buy it for the future, what do you think Krista?

Jamie with Jerod and Alex before they ate at a RESTAURANT. I say that for a reason.... next picture please........

This was what they were served at our friend's house after we left the Restaurant. YUM!!

This is Cesilia and she was showing them how it is done! :o) Now look at the next post!

This is  Annie, Jerod, Alex and Rachel playing with the kids. They had a blast and missed out on the food! How sad for them!

This was Terry's reaction to the food!

But... he tried it! Doesn't he look happy?

This was Jim's reaction.... "I can't believe I agreed to come on this trip!"

Then I showed them what that foot was really for!

Love you! More pics later today!

Day One, What Fun!

This is the team after they had been awake for 21 or so hours. They were happy to be close to a bed! They slept great that night and were all happy to be able to have church in our home at a rather late time. :o)

I will tell you, I had 100 more pictures to upload, but since the rest of the house is asleep ( it is 12:24 am) and I am still trying to get this done before I sleep, you will have to wait for the rest. The pics were taking about 10 minutes each to download. Sorry! So, we had a GREAT day and then we visited some friends for a "snack." Jamie was thinking, " You're kidding, right?" As you can see Greg is enjoying this immensely!

Greg decided he would have to show old Jamie what real M's are made of, so he dug right in. He was warned to be careful because the toe nails were sharp! Oh how I wish I had time to show you the rest because they are gooood. I mean REAL goood! :o) You will just have to stay tuned until tomorrow. I will try and do that in the am. Oh, it is the am! I am slap happy about now so I need to go before I type something crazy! Let me just say this team has eaten some good stuff today, seen things they have NEVER seen before, laughed harder than they have laughed in awhile and been blessed I am sure! Not to mention how they have blessed us with being here. It has been so good for all of us to have them here. I don't think I knew how much I needed them until this morning in worship when I felt so full! I guess after being sick I just needed a pick me up. This team has been just that! Until tomorrow! I think I may entitle our blog As the Village Turns! So for all of you soap opera lovers.... Like sands through the hourglass so are the Days of our lives. Love you! Missy

Home safe and secure!

The team has made it here safe and secure. And........EXHAUSTED! They have now been up for about 21 hours and they are soooo tired! So, I am sure that tomorrow when the roosters crow (litterally) they will think they are dreaming. We are very thankful that they all arrived safely and that there were no problems.

Here are a few of their funny stories so far.

As you go through customs you always have to push a button to see if you are going to have your bags checked. Green light means you are home free. Red light means you have to let them go through all of your bags. So, Pastor Jamie, and Jim were home free. However, Rachel and her dad, Terry got the red light and had to have their bags checked. Now keep in mind they had put a lot of our things in their bags so they could use all of the 50 pounds wisely. So they open up his bag and he sees Velveeta cheese and candy and other things and says, " This isn't my bag." Praise God it was in English and they didn't understand him! They were sniffing the Velveeta and checking everything out very closely and he finally made it through and lucky for me, he got to keep my Velveeta!:o)

So they made it to eat some burritios with Greg and he told them that you usually cannot take the glass coke bottles with you. Jamie had already thrown his bottle away and so he started digging through the trash to get his bottle. Greg asked the waitress and she said it was fine to keep them. About that time Jamie came back to them and was cleaning off his bottle that he had retrieved from the garbage can. I am sure that made for a pretty picture!

They continued on their journey home and stopped at a gas station to use the restroom and  while they were there Jamie went into the women's restroom, I think that should be told to the entire church for sure!!

Rachel and Jim haven't had any embarrassing moments yet! I will let you know when they do! We plan on having a semi relaxing Sunday so they can rest up for Monday! I will post pictures as soon as I can! Love you all! Missy