Too busy to blog! ;o)

Hi friends!! I know it has been a few weeks since my last post. SO sorry. It just seems like life is flying by and I can hardly hold on. I will try and give you a quick update on the past few weeks. Our visits to our old village continue to go well and we are seeing them grow spiritually each week. We are like proud parents! They mentioned last week that they were thinking of changing the time so we wouldn't have to sleep on the floor at our old home  and we could just come to our study earlier and still have time to return home before it got dark. We are hoping this works out b/c it can be a little taxing on the family to pick up each week and go even if it is just for one night. Sometimes I forget what I have told you, I think I had shared we were doing that, if not, now you know we were staying there each week for one night after our study so that we wouldn't have to travel at night.

Things here are going well too! We had some American friends over here for the 4th and that was a lot of fun! It is always nice to visit with people in your own language and do things in English like play games, and of course eat all the foods that we love to eat. It was a super day and it was needed, for all of us! I am thankful that God has allowed us to meet people that have the same goal as we do and that we all get along so well. He is always so good to me!

We then had some special guests come and visit us at our new home, our boss and his wife. Now for many of you this would be a nightmare, but for us, it was awesome! We had a great time together and enjoyed more good food and fellowship! We have been blessed with a wonderful organization to work for and wonderful leadership.

We then had an absolutely wonderful time getting to know some new friends here in a neighboring village.  I will be honest and say sometimes these events we are invited to can drag on and be quite brutal, however; this was fun and we were the last to leave. Then last night we had our first storying session with a new family here. It went well and we now have plans to continue this every week with a new story. This family is very eager to learn and we are so happy to already have people interested in hearing our stories. God really is doing great things and we are just so happy to be able to be a small part of it! Thank you all for lifting us up, without you, this would be impossible! So, many, many, thanks! Love to you all!! Missy

Enjoy the pics!!



Our 4th of July meal!

                              

The other side of the room eating the great burgers our friend Charlie fixed.

                                    
This is Charlie, he was so good to the boys he actually made a special trip out to try and find some fireworks for our celebration. This that he was lighting sounded like a bomb going off, it was crazy! He told us they were loud, but we had NO idea how loud!!

                                    
                                                     This was his reaction to the bomb!



Sharon's famous homemade icecream. It was sooo yummy!

                                    

We also celebrated little Sammy's 3rd birthday and this was the cake Sharon made.

That is Batman's head you see.

                                       

Greg shooting off more fireworks.

This is a famous church we visited when our boss and his wife came to visit.

As you can see, not your "normal" boss! Love you Alan!!

This is in front of our home. I just thought it was a neat picture.

This is a pastor and his family who we have become close with here.

Okay, this is one of those things you see in another country and realize just how blessed we are. This little girl was on the counter in a public bathroom asleep. Those are all of she and her mother's belongings and they probably both sleep there at night too. I guess you could say that is home sweet home. Feeling blessed?

This is my sweet neighbor. We are getting to know eachother and she is helping me with the language.

This is our "hotel" accomodations when we stay overnight for church in our old village. Not bad after seeing the little girl above, huh?

Meeting new friends.

How precious is she?

and she?

Annie makes friends so easily, she just loves to play, with ANYBODY!!

These two girls were adorable! I think I will become quite close with them!

This is Jerod translating a praise and worship song into English. They had fun doing this. The pastor couldn't say light but he knew what Cocalight is, and couldn't say Power but knew what Poweraid was, couldn't say WE but knew what Wii was, so Jerod was trying change the song some at first to get him used to saying the words. It was funny! "To see you high and lifted up, shining in the Cocalight of his glory, pour out your Poweraid and love as we sing holy, holy, holy." Funny!!

Still raining a lot, as you can see all roads stay looking like this. Greg wanted me to get a picture of this guy but I couldn't. He was in a very nice IU jacket. Of course it is funny to think he was getting ready to sweep that road.

Water......

Which is worse, NO water, or TOO much water? One thing I have learned about living in another country is every day is a new adventure! The other thing I have learned is that more than half of your time is spent just surviving. You learn to say, "If it isn't one thing, it is another." with joy and maybe even a giggle.

If you know me well, you know that one of my lifelong dreams is to be in the Amazing Race. If you don't know what that is, just google it and you can find out pretty quickly. Well, a few years back I decided that every challenging event that came my way I would look at as practice for the Amazing Race. So whether it is packing for a really long trip with limited space in our car, or going without water, or trying to hang a tarp to cover our leaking roof in the pouring rain, I see it as a challenge in the Amazing Race. It has served me well and has drastically changed my attitutude when doing these challenges.

So... when we arrived home Saturday afternoon after being in our old village for our church service on  Friday, we discovered that the rainy season was well underway and was leaking all over our school room and kitchen. Not to mention other parts of our house. So, an amazing race challenge began. Greg and I changed quickly into shorts and sandles and tried to cover the roof with a make shift tarp. It helped a tiny bit, but we had to do a little more work on it today. Then we saw another Amazing Race challenge, our front and back yard. They looked like small muddy lakes. So we then had to try and fill in the small lakes with gravel and rock. I have no idea what tomorrow's Amazing Race challenge will be, but I am a little tired and if it envolves soaking in a hot tub somewhere I would be really excited. Have no idea WHERE  we will find the tub, but I sure would like that kind of challenge right now! ;o)

This was our make shift tarp, to try and keep our roof dry and ceilings from leaking. Didn't help a ton, but it did help.

Greg and I after we had been in the rain for about 30 minutes fighting with the tarp.

We got caught in the rain again as we were trying to fix our roof and then discovered our backyard problems. The fun never stops!

backyard

other part of the backyard

ceiling upstairs showing signs of some problems

school room ceiling

Oops, it has now entered into the house through the upstairs door. This is fun! ;o)

Greg trying to find a solution.

Anyway, if I never make it to the actual Amazing Race, I will just know I have had some really wonderful challenges in this wonderful, AMAZING, RACE, called.... life! I am enjoying each and every day I have whether it be shoveling gravel, or sharing Jesus, I am a very satisfied lady! And.... I do appreciate so much all of your prayers for our family. Please do pray we can find some solutions for our water problems because rainy season has just begun! Love to you all!! Missy

Oh, here are some pics from before that I have been meaning to put on here and just haven't found time, hope you enjoy them.

This was before our roof problems and we were enjoying a nice meal on the roof.

This was Greg's idea of a bon fire, and his way of burning unwanted boxes. Not the best idea, but it was fun. We also burnt all of the kids workbooks from school. They love to do this after each school year!

Burning their hard work.

This is our stairway I was telling you about in the last post.

Busy beavers!

Hi friends! I know it has been a long time since I updated. I am sorry. Our internet has been down for a few days and now we have it up and working so I thought I would take advantage of that and give you and update. We came home to a house with water! Huge praise!! We are all healthy today and that is always a plus! Another praise!

 We have been working away at getting our house organized and livable. It has required long days and lots of hard work. I will post pictures soon.  The boys have been working hard and have definitely proven they are not lazy. One day they helped Greg move loads and loads of rock and gravel out of our front yard. It was back breaking work that they did without complaining. ( or at least they didn't complain too much!)

We have been trying to have our stairs finished for about a month now and well... Mexicans don't really understand the word... NOW. We say we need it done now, that means, 2-3 weeks maybe more, to them. Well, our banister man (Miguel) is now building our banister and today something funny happened. He asked Greg if he could run him down to his house b/c he needed to get some more materials and he didn't have much gas in his car. So Greg agreed and drove him to his house. Greg said they walked into his house and he climbed a ladder onto his roof. Greg watched him to see what he was doing. Miguel started to take down the iron rod that was holding up his antenna for his television. Greg said he climbed down and looked at Greg with a sheepish grin and then looked at his wife and said, "Sorry, no soap operas tonight." The iron rod was for him to cut up and use for spindles in our banister. It was funny! Only in Mexico! I will attach a picture of our staircase soon as well so you can see what I am talking about.

The GREAT news... Miguel ( the banister man) asked us today if we could come to his house next week and share Bible stories with he and his wife. God is already opening doors and we are ready to get to work here in our new area! We have plans to eat lunch with a local pastor and his wife on Monday and come up with a strategy on how we can join together to reach the most amount of people. Please pray for us as we join forces with this pastor and his wife.

We went back to our old village last week and saw everything going great! We camped out in our old house. That will be our plan for a while. The kids loved it and for dinner we ate chips, candy bars and cookies. For breakfast we had doughnuts and juice.  It was so healthy, I am sure that is why they loved this camping trip so much! We are going to pack a cooler this weekend and hopefully eat a little better! We all are happy to return and see our friends each week, even if it is just for a night.

Thank you all for your continual prayers. We need them. Love to you all! Missy

Pictures of Mexican fun

Our trip to Oaxaca and Puebla Mexico.

We had a great time seeing old friends and new places. Hope you like the pictures!

Incredible view on the drive there. The pictures don't even come close to

showing just how breathtaking it really was! Annie kept saying, "This is amazing!"

Jerod and Skippy (Mexican cousin) ready for paintball

This is Jerod and Alex ready for battle and then that is me in the background having no idea what I was getting myself into.

This is a fellow M and he looks really worried, doesn't he?

Jerod having fun.

Annie waiting for us to finish having fun.

Alex showing how it is done.

This is why I named it PAIN ball. ;o) This was taken just an hour after we played.

This was Mikayla, Skippy and our family (minus Daddy) on a hunt for the location of scenes from Nacho Libre, which was filmed in Oaxaca.

This is from one of the scenes.

Me and my babies after paintball.

This is in the same place Nacho Libre was filmed.

This was at the entrance to the alley where they filmed.

We saw this on our way to Puebla. It was an advertisment about the end fo the world happening on May 21, 2011. Of course we passed by it on May 27, 2011. ;o)

This was another sight we saw on our trip. The PPMAN truck. We just love stuff like this!

This is one of our favorites! The bridge to nowhere. Greg says this shows that even in Mexico when politicians run out of money, their pet projects just end. Kinda like this bridge, it just ends. ;o)

This is Annie and another Mexican cousin, Jessica playing Putt-Putt.

Goofballs.

Annie and Daphca playing at the park. Daphca wasn't too happy about all the attention she was getting!

Alex, Mikayla, and Annie playing.

Mexican music, nothing like it!

This is something that is very popular in Oaxaca to eat as a snack.... Grasshoppers. So... I am no a true M!

Cute lil fella

Annie wasn't quite sure.

Going.......

Going.....

Gone!

I really ate it! It wasn't that bad either.

Annie at a water park.

Daphca liked playing with the water but not in it!

Lunch.... It was delicious!

Here is one way to eat it....

and here is another. ;o)

Mexican cousins, Friends for life!

Mexican sisters, friends for life!

We don't have these taxis where we live, but they were so cute we had to take a picture.

Antique market, this was similar to a flea market, really neat stuff.

Annie was drawn to rusty nails, go figure!

Now that is fruit! This is one thing that is far better south of the border, HANDS down!!!

Just ask them.

Well, there you have it, pictures from our wonderful trip. We have had a great time and are really looking forward to having Greg back with us! He will arrive home soon and we will spend a few more days together here before we return home. Please pray for our travels home. We appreciate all your prayers, we feel them everyday! Love to all! Missy