Friends and family update

So much is going on with our friends and family, including a lot of pictures so we thought we’d share some!

Aaron, Angie and new daughter Aly!



The Ekkas settling into their new home


Ethan’s 5th birthday!



Abby’s baptism!



Jonny and Marina in China


Rod and Sharon’s wedding:



Greg and the kids



Kiesha and Elleah



Amy and Daniel on the night they were engaged

It’s the little things…

that can get us down, such as:

We are pretty much up to our eyebrows in laundry these days because the onset of the rainy season has made it more of a challenge to get it done. The washer is on the low spot on the patio, and even though it is up on three-inch high bricks it still is surrounded by water most of the time, so you are standing in a puddle every time you use it.

Then just getting the clothes up on the line and dry is a challenge between storms. It took four days last week to get everything from one load dry because of the rains and humidity!! But I’ve followed the leader of my neighbors and I now hang shirts and t-shirts on hangers as they come out of the washer. Then I hang them on the line that way. Much easier to grab and run indoors with them when the showers come, and they are already on hangers so they can go right on the curtain rods in the shower and the kitchen to continue drying.

Then our water has been off again a lot lately, complicating laundry, bathing, cleaning in general. Tough to do with the water off. Japame says its temporary…it always is, but we are on day two of our latest outage, just not fun. And it’s all of town this time, not just our end, so we can’t sneak over to the Lumppios for a shower because they have no water either!

The latest storms have been doozies. The worst thunder and lightning I can recall. And for hours on end…the last storm parked itself over us from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. and boomed and flashed the whole time. Of course, we lost power, so no air or fan, but the rain cooled it down enough to be tolerable with the windows open. But with the huge rain came a new channel in our road out front, moving closer to the house…we hope that trend doesn’t continue. And the wind driven rain made it’s way into the kitchen through the window and door frame and so we had minor flooding. Thankfully, the floor isn’t at all level, so it was contained to the “L” that forms the outside wall and the wall between the kitchen and the guest bedroom. Plus the guest room wall got wet again, same place, smaller wet spot!

We’ve both been bitten a ton from the onslaught of mosquitoes, flys and Lord knows what else…I bet I’ve got 30 bites on my legs alone, Ralph’s got more. We have just become food for these critters. We use bug spray in the house and apply “Off” and that does help, but it must be the rains that have encouraged them as we haven’t ever had this many critters about.

We even had a ant invasion. Got up one morning and noticed this gritty gray circle near the front door. On closer inspection it was full of tiny little ants…and the gray grit was the remains of the tile grout they had excavated in order to get inside the house. So I got my trusty bug spray and administered a good dose on the circle and the area where they came in. Instantly I had a huge outpouring of much larger ants and flying ants from inside the wall…hundreds and hundreds of them!! I kept applying the spray until they stopped coming out. Yuck! Had one more episode with them a few days later, but none since.

Then we had our first scorpion! It was a small black one only about an inch or so long, and outside, not in the house.

But even with all this we had one really cool critter made a temporary home with us…a big beautiful butterfly. Her wingspan was nearly as large as my entire hand, she was dark brown and spotted. She came inside and stayed all day…out of the 100-degree heat I’d guess. Night fell, she didn’t go out again, so we shut the house down and put on the air. Then came the big storm. She didn’t like the storm and fluttered about the house like a crazed mini-bat, wearing herself out. When we opened the windows we tried to encourage her to go out, but she was too freaked out. She finally made her way out the next morning.

But, even though all of this stuff can bug us and get us down, we also know how completely blessed we are to have a God who loves us and cares for us, and family and friends who do likewise. Thanks for keeping us in your prayers…those prayers keep us going from day to day and we are blessed to have so many of you helping us via prayer! Praise the Lord.

Various technical difficulties!!

These recent blog entries are going up with the date they were written noted because the date they were published is different. Several of you have written noticing that the blog site has been down a lot of late. WMPL has been hit with viruses that take the site down. It does come up and then go back down, and as of today, they think they have it resolved. It's been the whole WMPL site, not just the blogs! Wouldn't hurt to keep it in prayer as it could be a means of attack by the enemy against WMPL.

Door to door sales

Lots of things are sold door to door here: newspapers, cosmetics, fruit, veggies, fish, pottery, wind chimes, ice cream cones and mattresses all come to mind. Yes, mattresses. This floors me every time the guys come around. I just don't think of mattresses as an impulse purchase! Oh yeah, I've been meaning to get a new mattress. Thanks so much for stopping by! I mean, who buys these? We have loads of furniture stores in town that will sell you a mattress and deliver it to your house, most of them are open seven days a week and delivery is free and same day normally, so it's not that mattresses are difficult to come by. One of those things I'll probably never understand. But someone must be buying, they are paying for three guys and a truck to roam around town and that's not free. Just an oddity from my point of view.

Romans 8:28

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

Earlier this week as we were leaving for Mazatlan the gate of our cochera swung shut in the wind and hit the passenger side mirror breaking the glass…bummer. But we thought, okay we are going to Mazatlan anyway, we'll just get it fixed there. We couldn't find anyone who had just the mirror, which was all that was broken, the mechanics of the mirror were fine. One place did have the whole mirror, case, wire harness, etc., but it was $600 pesos, plus we'd have to find someone to install it at additional cost. Bit over budget this month. So we did our errands and came home with the mirror mostly gone. We've been praying about what to do about it and yesterday God led us to one of the three glass shops in town. The guys there were happy to replace just the mirror for us while we waited and for only $30 pesos…woohoo! And we discovered it is a Christian owned business, and all of the guys (Juan, Augustine and Hector) there go to a small church over near the MZ. They invited us to come and worship with them and are interested in maybe working together in the camps. What a tremendous blessing!! Pray with us as we explore this new relationship.

Neighborhood stuff

Our upstairs neighbors, Luis and Diana moved away. They are a really cute young couple pregnant with their first child, a little girl. The apartment above us is really small, and I must admit I wondered how they would manage with the new addition to the family. But they had a plan in hand!! There was space with Luis' family on their ranchero about 40 minutes from here so they made their move. The baby is due in about six weeks, so Diana will still need to come to La Cruz for checkups and for the birth of the baby. She promised to let me know when their daughter was born. So, now we have a "casa se renta" above us. Please pray with us for a great person or couple to move in there.

Speaking of babies: Our other neighbors Luis, Candy and Luis pequeno just returned from three weeks vacation visiting Luis' folks in Sonora and during that time they found out their second child, due October 14, is a girl! They are thrilled. They have an apartment about our size, so they should manage fine. Their biggest problem is their only mode of transportation is Luis' motorcycle that he uses for deliveries for work at Rin Rin Pizza. It's fine transportation for three people, not so good for four. They are thinking there is finally a car in their future. Pray for something cheap, safe and reliable for them please.

One of the other neighborhood couples are Theo and Lupita. They live next door to the church and in the evenings they run a little food stand in front of their house. Once in a while we'll head over there to get a snack in the evening and visit a bit. Additionally, Lupita works during the day at Comida Mary's…one of our favorite places to eat in La Cruz. Theo is a painter.

When we were over visiting the other night Theo announced that he has landed a job as a painter in the states and will leave for a year beginning in December. He'll be working in the LA area painting all kinds of new construction houses. And he's waiting on his visa…and waiting, and waiting. He had to go to the US consulate in Hermosillo, quite a ways north of us to apply and pay. He had to pay a lot, just like us, and do a ton of paperwork just like us, and now he's waiting, just like us. Seems the visa thing is universal. Hurry up and wait.

A little minor surgery

Most of you who know us know that the sun in not our friend…we both come from Scandinavian backgrounds and are fair and freckled. Ralph has way more trouble with this than I ever do and before we came to Mexico he had a lesion on his scalp that our doc in Washington froze off, twice no less. But the thing has come back again so a visit to the doc here was in order. He took one look and wondered aloud why on earth the doc in the US didn't cut it off to begin with, and he proceeded to give Ralph a bit of a funny haircut and then cut the lesion out and stitched him up and sent him home. He'll get the stitches out next Thursday, and while the doc doesn't really think its cancer he sent it for biopsy to be sure. Those results will be back in two or three weeks.

Dr. Maldonado is an interesting guy. Born and raised here in La Cruz, finished school here and went off to university to become a doctor. Upon graduation he had offers to work elsewhere, including a big hospital, but in the end he decided to come back to La Cruz and help his people. He has a great practice. No insurance forms to fill out, no three weeks waiting for an appointment to see him. No appointments at all actually, just come on in. He does his own triage as to who gets seen first, first come first served if there's nothing serious. Efficient office too, two exam rooms, waiting room, bathroom and his small office. He has one woman to help him out. No nonsense cut to the chase kind of guy. Funny too. Works 9 hour days, six days a week. Office visit, surgery, biopsy, three kinds of medicine and another office visit for stitch removal. $2,000 pesos!! Less than $200 US. You won't find that in the US.