Pastor Lupe and his wife Emilia left on Monday for a two week visit to Alberta Canada. They’ll be speaking at some churches and also visiting the Canadian Lutheran Bible Institute for a talk there, and will also be at the annual meeting for WMPL Canada. So their plates will be full. They have a couple that will be interpreting for them during the whole visit, former Mexico field missionaries, the Gomez family. We’ve met the Gomez family a couple of times when they’ve visited here and they are really nice. Lupe and Emilia were very excited about the trip, they’ve never flown before and never been to Canada. They were a little concerned about how cold it was going to be though, but were excited and happy just the same. Please pray for uneventful travel and good opportunities to share about Mexico and the Lord’s work here as they visit our northern brethren!
We did go back to immigration a week ago to get our revised visas and we could not believe the crowd there, more than 35 people in the work area and more loitering about outside. It was pretty crazy. But we still got our documents in less than 45 minutes, not sure what the system is, but there were still about 35 people there when we left too, many of them the same folks as when we got there. But we were thankful to have the visas back with a minimum of hassle and no expenses at all save for the cost of 10 photocopies! Praise the Lord!
Our biggest achievement this week is that after much searching and praying we have found a language school and enrolled…we’ve already had a couple of classes and think it’s going to be great. We’ve learned quite a bit already and we have a wonderful teacher who is quite patient and who has a grasp of where we are and where we need to be language-wise. It’s a very personal approach to teaching, and there are only two others in the class so we all get the attention we need. We couldn’t be happier. Praise the Lord!
The afternoon we enrolled in school we needed to go down to centro to purchase books for the class, the only place in town that has them is a small bookstore near Plaza Machado. So off we go on the bus and then walk from the bus to the plaza only to find the bookstore was closed!! But we discovered the whole plaza had been taken over by booksellers and people lecturing on books!! So we hunted for the stall of the bookstore we were interested in and she happily went down to her closed store and got the books for us. Yippee! Nice to not have to make another trip and also nice to be able to explore the book fair a bit as a bonus!
We were blessed to be able to go with Carmen and Genaro this past Saturday as they visited and evangelized in a neighborhood near here called Valle del Ejido. They are so good at what they do because they are so down to earth and so grounded in the Word!! This little neighborhood will eventually be home to a new mission church, and getting to know the folks here is part of the process. We had some really touching moments and a really funny moment too when one of the ladies we were visiting with suddenly asked Carmen if Ralph was her dad. After we all laughed a bit about it she explained that no, he wasn’t her dad, but a friend and brother in Christ!! Ralph was thinking he wasn’t old enough to be her dad and was about to feel insulted a bit when he did the math and realized that YEP he was old enough to be her dad after all. Pretty funny. We also had an age related comment from our instructor at school too…he thinks it’s just wonderful that folks our age are learning a new language!! We must be getting up there!!
This week also brought farewells as the Jacksons packed up to head north to Nogales, then to Minneapolis for debriefing and then on to Lake Stevens, WA for six months of furlough. They’ll return to Nogales to work with the churches there beginning in the fall. They gave a lot of stuff away, sold a lot of stuff and ended up packing the truck and trailer twice before they got everything down to the essentials of life and were ready to hit the road. Sounds like us in January of 06!! We made a couple of trips over to their house and back with truckloads of stuff for Carmen and Genaro…and also to take them to lunch before they headed out of town. We’ll miss having them around and are praying for good rest and reunions for them and completely uneventful travel as they make their way to the northwest.
And we finally got our taxes done this week…I started them in January, but we were waiting on some docs to arrive from the states, and then you throw in moving and they really got on the back burner. More than a bit I guess. But they are done now and we are thankful. Not sure when I would have found the time now that we are in school.
Last but not least Benito Juárez Day was celebrated here on March 21, and we had a little parade through our neighborhood with all the little girls who were vying to become queen of their various schools…brightly decorated pulmonias were their mode of transportation. Lots of music, horn honking and the setting off of more than a few car alarms…they made sure you knew they were in the neighborhood!
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