A quiet Sunday

We don't have many quiet days, but thought we might try to take one today.

We spoke via Skype to our former exchange student, Tine, in Norway and caught up with her a bit. She'd just gotten home from her job as a paramedic in Oslo and was about to go have dinner with her sister and her sister's fiance. She was just waiting for her boyfriend to get off work and join her. He's also a paramedic. We've been praying about whether to meet her and her dad in Florida in November when they come for vacation. We haven't seen them in nearly three years and it would be nice to spend some time with them again. We'll see what God has in store for that possible reunion.

Then we had church here in La Cruz, and Pastor Jose was in fine form. We sang some of the older hymns including At the Cross and A Mighty Fortress as well as some newer choruses. The service was over before we knew it and we had a nice time of fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ. We've begun to gather twice a week for English/Spanish lessons with one another and are enjoying that time together as well. We are certainly feeling the bond with our new church family. Praise the Lord. Thank you for your continuing prayers for Pastor and his family.

Turns out the church we visited while in Minneapolis for Briefing Course and our Directorate interview has their complete Sunday services online!! So we can watch and listen from our home here. That's a great bonus for us too. We really enjoyed that church and their staff and have friends who attend there too! Maybe we'll see them someday on the webcast!

We are also patiently waiting to receive a package of Pastor Bill's sermons from our home church too...miss his preaching!! Miss our church family there too...

Much to Ralph's dismay I have acquired a taste for Banda music, which he doesn't care for. This week I discovered there is a 24 hour a day Banda station on our satellite, Bandamax!

Here's a brief description of Banda: Banda ("band") refers to the form of music played by large brass ensembles that first appeared in the northern Mexican state of Sinaloa several decades ago. A typical banda ensemble features trumpets, trombones, tubas and percussion instruments, and may include keyboards. String instruments are used sparingly, if at all. Banda sounds somewhat similar to American Big Band music, but with a distinctive Hispanic twist.

It also ties in with the cowboy culture I've admired since I became a fan of the Professional Bull Riders years ago, as most if not all of the bands I've seen associate themselves with cowboys. Want to listen to a snippet? http://sg1.allmusic.com/cg/smp.dll?r=20.asx&link=x1xv19skeqjzi63mfquz9im

Thanks for your prayers for our continuing language and culture learning here. Our Spanish continues to improve, and I was quite thrilled to walk into city hall this past week, ask for a map, get directed to an office, actually find the office in the building, talk with the staff there and come away with a map of La Cruz! Could not have done that two weeks ago! We are also continuing to meet new people each week and that is always interesting. Building relationships as we go.

And the additional language skills has helped my search in the markets for spices and things like baking powder and baking soda. Canela is cinnamon, albahaca is basil and sal de ajo is garlic salt! (gotta have sal de ajo to make my cousin Julie's "Heart Attack Bread").

The markets in general are great learning experiences, we've gone thoroughly down the aisles in most stores, on the hunt for things we're used to buying but can't find here. For a country that runs on corn, we can't find corn meal for muffins! Tons of corn flour, but no meal or muffin mixes so far. And it was tough to find Worcestershire sauce, though we finally found a small bottle at Walmart in Mazatlan. Chocolate chips...they apparently are scarce and we haven't seen them at all yet. The only chocolate chip cookies we've had since we've been here are ones that Mary Ann made with chips someone sent her! No Skittles either...both Ralph and Tine will have withdrawals as we were her source up to now because they aren't available in Norway either!

We've both struggled to find our medications here...Ralph has settled into a substitute, but equal med, but is taking two a day rather than one because they don't come in the dosage he needs. Mine has been tougher to find. After weeks of having people tell me mine wasn't available in Mexico at all I ran into a doctor at the post office and in our chat with him I mentioned my difficulties in finding the goofy stuff. The spelling was just a little off in English from the Spanish and was causing part of the confusion, so he wrote it out in Spanish for me. It also is mostly distributed in a compound here, rather than solo, and with all my allergies I wasn't up to the challenge of experimenting with a compound. I was at last able to get a month's supply of the solo to tide me over until a shipment from an online pharmacy arrives. Please pray for prompt delivery of that order!

We are also expanding our knowledge of Mexican cuisine, visiting more and more of the local restaurants as we walk through town. Now that we are healthy again, we are getting braver about experimenting! I've gotten away from a soda at lunch and now try to have something more Mexican, such as Jamica (cold tea made from Hibiscus blossoms), Horchata (interestingly creamy cold beverage made from rice and almonds) and sangria...grape juice and I don't know what else, but it's definitely yummy. Given the option of comida Americana or comida Mexicana Ralph will vote for Mexicana every time. Got to get a good cookbook and expand my repertoire of authentic Mexican cooking. This is not the stuff you get at most Mexican restaurants in Washington! But we do miss some of our favorites from the best Mexican restaurant in the state: El Nopal in Olympia! Hi guys!!

Our quiet little town will have an important visitor on Wednesday at 12:30, presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrado will be appearing at our main plaza, giving a campaign speech. He's steadily been tops in the polls so I would imagine there will be people from throughout the district who will show up to hear what he has to say! Not sure if we want to go and listen or avoid the crowd. We'll have to see.

Ralph walks down the block to get his Cokes and he always stops to visit with the teens and the younger boys playing soccer or baseball in the street. They've gotten into a routine of high fiving, low fiving, five on the side, etc. These boys used to totally ignore our greetings as they passed by our house, but now, they not only greet us, but often initiate the greeting. Progress indeed! I remember when we first moved in I was taking out the trash one afternoon and I heard the crack of a bat and saw the ball whizzing my direction. It dropped just behind me and rolled down to me. When I picked it up, I think they all thought I was going to keep it and they were quite surprised when I pitched it back to them. Who knew that was the beginning of budding friendships with these kids.

The work at the camps continues to be interesting and exciting...and we have gotten some notes from folks who are sending us tapes and Bibles to use in that ministry. Thanks so much!

Thanks to all of you for your prayers and your support...been able to get through the bumps in the road because of you and we are grateful.

A national holiday today

Today is Benito Juarez Day in Mexico, and everyone has the day off. Schools and government offices are all closed. Sr. Juarez was a Zapoteco Indian who got a law degree and rose to power in the late 1800s. He was a councilman, judge, governor and eventually president of Mexico. He is still revered today as a hero for the work that he did for the poor and disadvantaged. You can read more about him at: http://www.mexonline.com/benitojuarez.htm

Have a great Benito Juarez Day!

Blessings,

Ralph & Chris

Sights and sounds

Living in the heart of a small farming and ranching community is always interesting. We are a town:

• where the population swells with thousands of migrant workers during the growing season
• with no car dealerships, but two tractor dealerships: New Holland and John Deere!
• with no fast food, but plenty of food options from street vendors to full blown sit down restaurants and everything in between
• that is hemmed in on all sides by acres and acres of crops in various stages of growth, some just planted and others ready to be harvested now: a wide variety of peppers, potatoes, cucumbers, melons, tomatoes, onions, corn, jicama, watermelon and much more
• where a man walking around with an unsheathed machete doesn’t even raise an eyebrow, and I’d guess just about anywhere in the states the cops would use a taser and/or pepper spray to subdue him before he was arrested and hauled off to jail
• where you can wake up to a parade, or to a cattle drive through town, depending on the day
• where a beautiful hand-made saddle hangs from the tree outside a local store and no one would think of bothering it unless they wanted to buy it



• where your electric bill is hand-delivered to your house by an electric company employee
• you pay your electric bill by walking into the office, swiping your bill in front of the bar code scanner, putting your money (paper and/or coins) in the appropriate spots in the machine and getting your change delivered in a tray at the bottom, clinking like a slot machine jackpot!
• where you awake to song birds each morning, and sometimes to the neighbors chickens crowing!
• where there are two postal employees: one mans the post office and the other delivers mail on a motorcycle with leather saddle bags for the mail
• where the vast majority of the businesses close for comida (lunch) between 2 and 4 each day
• where visiting with shoppers is considered to be part of the service in each business
• where you can buy a mango on a stick or a few nice, fresh dates from a street vendor



• where a fruit drink is just as likely to come in a plastic bag as in a cup, just add a straw and you are set to go
• where loud booming brings us outside just in time to see unexpected fireworks from the carnival that visits town…beautiful light show!
• where furniture vendors set up on the plaza to sell their handmade wares
• where your flower garden blooms even in winter!

This week has been one of the best ones so far on so many levels.

• We’ve both been healthy. Praise the Lord!



• Our Spanish is improving and we are able to communicate and learn more and more. PTL!
• We did have a cattle drive down our street, but by the time I heard it and realized what it was and got my camera I just caught the very end of it. Ralph said there were more than 100 beef on the hoof!
• We also had a carnivale parade with a lot of floats and women of every age dressed up in beautiful gowns and riding on the floats, some guys too. Everyone had eggs filled with confetti that they were throwing at each other and cracking on each other’s heads.







• We discovered a tiny lizard on our patio.
• The landlord rented the small upstairs apartment to a guy without a car, so we get the extra cochera to park in, turning our cochera into an additional covered patio! We celebrated by purchasing two metal rocking chairs to sit in out there.
• A neighbor brought her plants to me for safekeeping while she visits in Puerto Vallarta. Praise for the budding friendship and relationship building!
• Another neighbor brought us each a chocolate covered frozen banana with sprinkles that she made herself.
• We got our internet service and had a video chat with Greg, Darane’, Savannah and Nick! Woohoo! We are thankful…
• We called several family members and a few friends using the internet calling service, Skype.
• We also got our first pack of mail from home and were able to do our taxes!
• We got our kitchen cupboards (Genaro made them!) and the guys put them up in the kitchen and I put stuff away at last.



• Next week: The bookcase (also made by Genaro)! We may get completely unpacked yet!

Ralph has been so excited at the openness of everyone they meet at the camps, everyone wants to learn more, they want Bibles, New Testaments and Gospels of John! They want to sit down and study right away, they want Gospel tapes in their languages! It’s amazing. The guys are welcomed with open arms by the workers, but the other night when they returned to Campo Santa Lucia the guard that was there didn’t want them to visit or even to stay unless they went to Campo San Juan and got specific permission. So they prayed their way over there and were shuttled about to loads of people, handing out tracts the whole way and finally got permission to visit both of those camps any time they like. Next week they’ll be going out much earlier, around 2 or so, hoping they can spend more time with the various groups of people.

We made a prayer request to our prayer team this morning for cassette tapes, a tape copier and the Spanish language materials that we’ll need as we visit. There are thousands of people…God is so good to gather them all up here and send us to speak with them and share the love of Christ! We are proud to serve Him!

We’ve begun learning the Evangelism Explosion materials, from a Spanish language booklet and CD and hope to work through the material quickly and be able to begin using it soon.

Thanks for your prayers and your continued support of the Lord’s work here…

Love and Blessings,
Ralph and Chris

Nearly two months in Mexico!

Wow, we’ve already completed our first month in La Cruz and we are sneaking up on the completion of our second full month in Mexico…seems hard to believe.

This has been a week with lots of ups and downs. On the upside Tom and Lidia and the girls have been with us since last Thursday and they were excited at the prospect of getting into their own home again. They left the states on January 20th, and are anxious to get settled. Sadly, the deal on their rental house fell through and they were without a home here. But they now have two prospects, one they could move into right away and one that could take a month or more to finish. They should find out today…they are hoping for the one they could have right away because the other one would mean that they’d need to live temporarily in a small apartment or hotel for a month and they’d like to avoid that if they can.

We also had lunch in Mazatlan with a retired missionary couple, the Knutsons and our neighbors from Olympia, the Krumlands! What a blast! The Knutsons come to Mazatlan for two or three months each winter and then return to Minnesota…the Krumlands usually come for about a month. We had a lovely lunch and a great visit. The Krumlands are on their way back home now, but the Knutsons will be here another month, so we may see them again.

This week Ralph and I both caught some kind of 36 hour bug…thankfully we had it at different times, but man, were we ever sick. It kept Ralph down for two full days and me for a day and a half. Thankfully, we are both doing fine again.

While Tom and Lidia have been here she’s been helping us with our Spanish too and getting us more formally set up on the immersion method we’ve been using, Brewster! It’s so wonderful to expand our Spanish so much more quickly and in a more formal way. I actually was able to ask about a temporary water outage and be completely understood, and using full sentences too, not just the individual words that I know strung together well enough to be understood. It felt great.

Ralph and Darwin went out to Campo Ceuta again last night and spent some time working with brother Ismael. He wants to start visiting some of the parishioners who have dropped out of church of late and see what he can do to get them back, so that may be on the agenda in the near future. On a whim, they decided to see if they could locate a camp that they’d heard about but had never been to, and they located Campo Santa Lucia. The people were very warm and welcoming and the guys actually had a couple of different crowds going as they walked through the area talking with people. The guard approached them wanting to know what they were up to and when they told him said he was glad that they had come and could come any time!! So they began to take orders for Bibles and Gospel tapes and will return next week to distribute them and to get to know these new families a little more. Please keep brother Ismael and the people of Campo Santa Lucia in your prayers.

As we get to know Pastor Jose more and more he revealed to us that he had a serious injury to his leg about 17 years ago and hasn’t had any trouble with it until the last few months when a cyst developed and he had to have surgery. It’s been a struggle for him to get up and going again after this surgery, but he has persevered with the help of God. He wants to get out and visit more, so it’s likely that he and Ralph will go together and just visit perhaps one or two families each day until Pastor is fully recovered. He’s a bit discouraged over the length of time it’s taken him for recover. Please keep him and his family in prayer.

And, Praise the Lord! We did get our phone installed last week! We can only call locally for the first month, but once we get that first bill we can sign up for a package that will include long distance!! The phone installer got my hopes up by asking a friend of his to bring the modem up from Mazatlan on Wednesday and he promised he’d be back by on Thursday and install the Internet! I was so thankful and excited, because I’d been told it would be another month and five days for the Internet installation! But he never called or came back and the modem never appeared either. I was crushed.

Then on Saturday, a different TelMex guy came by and said he’d be installing the Internet that afternoon! Yippee!! I was thrilled. Then he called later in the day and said it was hooked up, and to just install the modem…which of course we didn’t have. So they ordered it and we should have it by Friday…maybe. The Lord must be working on my patience or lack there of on this one. We miss the kids so much I just want to see them. This is our biggest struggle, not being able to use the video hookup to see the kids.

This has been a good week, and we feel blessed, even getting up and finding we had no water in the building this morning didn’t seem to phase any of us…the six of us are just rolling with the flow! We just left the dishes in the sink and we’ll all bathe and do laundry when we have water again, which they tell us will be later today. At least we are all grubby together and we can laugh about it!

Thanks so much for your prayers and support…we appreciate it so much.