Washington in winter, Part 2

We had a whopper of a wind storm while we were there, knocked power out to over a million people, including us. And it happened the night of Savannah’s school program and the school was one of the many places without power. The power company/fire department set them up with a generator just for the gym so the show could go on!! Here’s our little star after her great show.

The storm was over 65 miles an hour and was so severe many were without power for more than a week. We were blessed to have power return in about 24 hours, but living with an electrician means not having to do without. Greg managed to hook up the refrigerator, furnace and big screen TV to the generator for the motor home and so we were quite entertained and toasty until the power returned!! Here are the guys relaxing with his handiwork:

Cookie day is an annual tradition in Darane’ s family and it is a very big day! They all gather together and whip up batches of their favorite cookies and candies and then divide them all up to give as gifts for neighbors, family and friends. It’s a great tradition with all kinds of yummy stuff: almond bark, peppermint bark, fudge, date nut bites, Ritz peanut butter cookies, coconut, butterscotch and chocolate chip bars, haystacks, vanilla wafers with caramel, chocolate and pecans, pretzels with Rollo candies, chocolate dipped pretzels, chocolate covered cherries, chocolate peanut butter balls. I’m sure I’ve left something out. Here are some of the pictures:

Aunt Nancy, Grandma Iva and Darane’

Gena and Lucy hard at work on my personal favorite

Savannah and Nick giving Aunt Nancy a hand

Cousin Jordan and Nick putting the finishing touch on the barks

Darane’ and Gena working their fingers to the bone

Just part of the finished product for the day

And then of course there is Christmas morning! Here’s the tree and some of the favorite gifts:

Nick’s big boy bike!

Savannah’s color explosion

Savannah’s sign language puzzle

Nick’s train puzzle…when you get it together correctly the whistle blows!

Bouncing, bouncing, bouncing…for hours on end!

Obviously we had a blast!! Blessings to you all.

The turtle refuge!

Well, it took a year of living here and an invitation from the Jackson and Gomez families but we finally made it out to the turtle refuge and it was pretty interesting. It’s right on the beach at Ceuta, but a little more than a mile north.

We had a pretty walk along the beach picking up shells and rocks as we went…there always seems to be an abundance of pretty ones! The Gomez clan was visiting from Alberta, Canada. They had served here in Mexico but have been retired these last couple of years. We actually met them the day we first arrived in Mexico as they were visiting the Jacksons then too!

There was a good sized flock of pelicans on the shore. Ralph gave them a bit of a scare just walking toward them and they took off.

There were a couple of fishing boats used by local fisherman just pulled up onto the beach, ready to go for the next days catch.

The turtle refuge has two buildings, one is under construction and will eventually be a museum/learning center type of facility. It’s shaped like a giant turtle and can be seen for quite a way down the beach. They also have a small seating area where they give lectures to local school kids about the turtles.

The workers here collect turtle eggs from their beach nests and then move them to the incubation area where they can be protected from predators. When we arrived the workers were just helping to collect a batch of hatching turtle babies! They had uncovered the nest in the incubation pen and were helping each of the babies out of their soft shells, cleaning the sand from them and then placing them in a cooler, out of the wind. They intended to hold them overnight and then release them in the morning. They said that only one of many, many will survive.

This is an example of how large these can get, and I believe this one isn’t even full size.

We had a great time visiting with the Jackson and Gomez families and visiting at the turtle refuge…made for a pretty great day! We felt absolutely blessed!

I'm SO not a good sick person

Those of you who saw us while we were home know that I was in various stages of sick the whole time we were there, even seeing a US doc and getting a shot and some antibiotics didn't seem to fix me totally. And since we've been home I'm still struggling with stuffiness and fluid in my ears and that lovely morning cough! This even after a nebulizer treatment and a cocktail of five different drugs given by the doctor here to knock out whatever seems to be ailing me. I must admit though, I'm finally feeling better. FINALLY! But I'm not a good sick person, never have been. I hate it, I want to just be left alone, don't relish visitors, plus I get bored easily while I'm trying to "rest" as prescribed. Maybe I'm just not a good "rester", who knows. But at any rate, I'm getting better, have more energy and feel like I've turned the corner on two months of various sickies. Thanks so much for your prayers.

Have to comment a bit about Christmas in La Cruz, even though we missed it. There was a rather large Christmas tree in the municipal plaza, beautifully lit! (Later, in the daylight, we discovered it was a huge ad for Coca Cola, complete with their polar bears and their red bottle tops as ornaments.) Many of the houses had fresh coats of paint, which Lidia says is a custom around here and most houses have some sort of decorations. Lots of lights on houses, garlands around front doors, swamp coolers decorated as Christmas packages, plastic Santas, decorations on the municipal building and lots of Nativities! We even have Christmas lights strung across city streets! Remember when they used to do that in your town? Maybe they still do. It really brought back memories for me.

We were blessed to be invited to our little neighbor Luis' 6th birthday party last week and were delighted to attend. He's such a sweet kid! They had the party in their little apartment, three rooms! And he was joined by his seven little cousins and a friend or two plus mom, (dad had to work), grandma, two aunties and and uncle plus us! Pretty good crowd for that little place. They served pizza, cake and jello and handed out candy treats to all the guests. We had a good time visiting but with all the kids it got rowdy pretty quickly, I was thankful that the Professor and Rosie, the downstairs neighbors, were still on vacation. Of course, if they'd been here they would have been invited and it still wouldn't have been a problem!

A friend sent us home with some school supplies for the orphanage in Mazatlan and we took a day to drop those off. We met with Ophelia and got the full tour of the facility. Modest, but very nice and clean and comfy. They have 42 children there from tiny ones to teens. She was very happy to have the supplies! Thanks Erv and Sue!

We then took off to go visit with Tootie and Alton who winter in Mazatlan each year. We went to lunch at a new place (to us anyway) and it was great food and very reasonable prices. Walking distance from their apartment too. After lunch we walked back to their place and spent the afternoon catching up. She also served us an afternoon treat of coffee and tea and Rosca de los Reyes! King's cake. Didn't realize it was an Epiphany tradition in Mexico but it certainly is. We really enjoyed this sweet pastry, and neither of us got the baby in our slice so we won't be hosting any parties in the near future.

Thanks also for your prayers for Erv and his recovery from his stroke on December 5th! He's been released to home from rehab and it looks like he's making such great progress that he'll be able to return to work in February! Praise the Lord!

Our team from Minnesota Valley Free Lutheran that visited this past summer has gifted our field with an AWESOME portable sound system. It's an amazing yet portable piece of equipment that will be useful in many ways for us! Thanks so much guys!! Thanks also to Scott and Javier from Vision of Glory Lutheran Church who graciously included it as part of their luggage when they visited this month! We are so blessed by your kindness and generosity! We thank God for you.

As we've been out and about in La Cruz we've noticed there are at least five new little restaurants here, a new meat market, a new pharmacy...a regular boom of new businesses. The area around the MZ (the big grocery) has become a hub of activity too. They built a new Coppel (department store) next door this past summer and now there is a little strip mall of sorts nearly finished up there too with room for about a dozen small shops. Plus there's a new commercial building of some sort on the property a block away that has no signs yet, so we have no idea what that will be. We've gone from a two cash machine town to a four cash machine town. There are rumors that a theater will be built soon.

And the big news, at least to all of our neighbors, is that La Cruz is finally getting cable television! There is much rejoicing over this! Up to now you could use an antenna and try to grab a scratchy signal from either Culiacan or Mazatlan or you could subscribe to satellite. Satellite tends to be too expensive for the average family here, and the cable promises to be much more economical! We've seen the guys out laying the cable, but haven't seen any solicitations yet, but everyone is excited anyway...soon they will have cable! The little joys of life!

Please continue to pray for Jose and his family and for the church here in La Cruz. For many months now church has consisted of just us and Jose and perhaps Adolfo on occasion. Sometimes Jose's wife and daughter join us, but more and more in recent months they have not. Jose just celebrated his 65th birthday, but he just seems unhappy and not interested in "doing church". We've asked him if it's time to close it and he says no, never. Rumor has it they didn't even have church while we were gone, which kind of confirms our suspicion that they are only having church because we are here.

Also please pray for a scheduled workers meeting in Ceuta on January 20. Hopefully all of the brothers will come! Jose (La Cruz) , Juan (El Castillo), Ismael (Ceuta), Lupe (Mazatlan) and a representative from the little church in El Rosario. The purpose is for them to get together and fellowship, and perhaps chart a future course of the churches in Sinaloa. Perhaps the beginning of an alliance of the churches in this state. The WMPL personnel director is coming down to participate.

After much prayer, reflection and advice from people we know, love and trust, we have come home to La Cruz with a new attitude. Instead of constantly worrying about what we should be doing, might be doing, could be doing, we are being quiet and listening for what God has to say. It's taken a lot of the stress off of us. We would always dive in and react immediately to everything, and we've stopped doing that. We've stopped struggling, stopped trying to guess at what God's doing and what our part ought to be, we are now waiting for him to tell us. What a concept!

Thanks so much for your continued prayer and financial support...it makes all the difference in the world to us. Bless you all.

Back home again

Ah, yes. Home in La Cruz. Thanks so much for your prayers!!

We had a fabulous time in Washington seeing family and friends, but have to admit we were ready to come home. We were pretty exhausted but happy to have had so many wonderful reunions with everyone. It was great. Still we didn’t do everything and see everyone we wanted to, but I’m not sure how we could have squeezed in more.

It made us sad to see our grandkids crying as we left…broke our hearts. Savannah has decided we need to move closer so they can drive to see us like before. She needs to talk to God on that one! Thankfully, we’ll get back into our video routine with them to lessen the blow of not being together.

Our travel home was interesting but on the whole pretty uneventful. For the first time since 9/11 our luggage wasn’t searched by the TSA when we’ve flown!! And in Phoenix we discovered (actually the airline discovered) that our boarding passes issued in Seattle were not the right type, so us and several dozen others lined up at the podium to get new passes and have our documents inspected again. All in all it went pretty smoothly.

Arriving in Mexico we stood in a very long line of folks waiting for the three customs agents. When we got to the head of that line they moved us to another line! Then we got to see the customs guy, he stamped and inspected all of our documents, handed them all back and sent us on our way. We got all the way to the end of the hall near the baggage claim when they called us back…seems he forgot to collect the little papers we had to fill out at the airport when we left. He looked at them, dated them, initialed them and handed them back. Oooops. He should have kept them. We handed them over and were back on our way to collect our bags. Then another long line to put our bags through the one giant x-ray machine they have. Then we collected them and entered yet another line. Finally our turn came and Ralph walked up to the little stop light, hit the button and we got a green!! So we were off and running. Thankfully no inspection of our overstuffed bags. My big fear was once we got them open and rummaged through we’d never get them closed again!

The Jackson family met us at the airport and it was great to see them again. We had comida together and then they dropped us at the bus depot to head home to La Cruz. Just as we arrived the luggage guys said we needed to hurry as the bus was just getting ready to leave. They rushed our six bags around to the bus as we ran inside to get tickets and then out the back and onto the bus…just made it. We reached La Cruz just as the sun was setting and took a moment to enjoy God’s handiwork. Then we hauled the bags up the hill from the highway to wait for a taxi or arana to take us home. One came along soon enough and within 10 minutes we were home!!

We unpacked just a little, both grabbed showers, changed the bed linens and hit the hay by about 8:30. We were totally running on empty after sleeping only two hours the previous night and then traveling all day. It was good to get a nights rest in our own bed.

Tom had given us a heads up that our water was mostly just a drizzle still, so we were prepared for that, but were thankful to get even a drizzle of a shower after such a long day!

Candy came by first thing yesterday to show us how much Kitzia has grown! It’s amazing how much that little one had grown in just a month. Luis seemed his same happy self! They were happy that we were home. We mentioned the water problems and she said, it’s fixed…and showed me that Eva was watering down the end of the block. We looked and found that someone had turned our water off at the meter! One flip of the handle and we were back in business! Yippee!

Ralph wandered down to Norma’s to restock his cokes, and she too was happy that we are back! We wandered over to the Tom and Lidia’s and had a good reunion with them and brought them all the goodies they had ordered from the states. It was sort of like Christmas all over for them. They brought us up-to-date on the happenings in La Cruz.

Then we were off the the MZ to pick up groceries and semi-restock the kitchen. It was good to get back into some routines! As we were driving through town we were able to greet several people that we know, and even got a look at the giant Christmas tree in the plaza!

When we got home we couldn’t get the door to unlock!! Try as we may, it wouldn’t budge! And our landlord is in Culiacan and won’t be back until later today. What to do? Ralph walked down to Juan Manuel’s and he came back and tried but had no luck either. They finally decided to see if Juan Jr. would fit through the bars on the windows, and bless his little heart he did slide through just barely and got us inside!! We rewarded him with candy and granola bars. It’s such a blessing to have such great neighbors!

Darwin will be spending Saturday, Sunday and Monday with us and has two fellows visiting that will be bunking in with Tom and Lidia. They will be visiting the camps.

Bottom line is, we are happy to be home and are looking forward to our next year in Mexico. We appreciate your prayers so much and thank you for them! Blessings in the new year!

Washington in winter

One short year in a tropical environment and you really forget what winter is like in Washington. Cold, dark, gray, windy, rainy, and throw in a little snow and ice. But amazingly, we are adapting again. The rains have been reserving themselves mostly for night, which is good, because the traffic is pretty awful and adding rainy conditions to it would make it worse for Ralph. Yep, I’m still not driving. Thought I might when we got up here, but I’ve decided to continue my role as passenger!

We are having a blast with the kids and with friends and family. It’s been kinda of crazy busy, but good. I’ve had a nasty sinus infection and finally went to the local doc in a box location and got a shot and some humongous antibiotic pills and I’m doing much better.

Our friend Erv had a stroke a few days ago and gave us all a scare, but he’s doing great and is moving today to a hospital rehab where he’ll be for the next three to five weeks. He’s making great progress and has a great attitude about his recovery and we are thankful. Please keep him and his family in your prayers as he recovers.

I’d like to share just a couple of pictures of the trip so far…

The turkey chef



Building the gingerbread house



Snow day…too dry for snowmen though



Hours of playing with Thomas the Tank Engine!



Nick’s third birthday!

Let’s see now…

314 days, 940 photographs, five tropical weather systems, two visas, loads of miles, zillions of bug bites and hundreds of people we’ve met. That’s Mexico in a nutshell so far.

But it’s so much more. We’ve loved some of it and flat hated some of it. We’ve been happy and we’ve been depressed. We’ve been physically sick more than we’ve ever been in our entire lives, and we’re not spring chickens!

We’ve learned language, we’ve learned culture. We have much more to learn. We’ve learned a ton about ourselves, our fellow workers, our community and our God. Amazing that as long as we have known Him we are still learning things about Him. Amazing doesn’t go far enough in describing life with Him.

Tying up loose ends before vacation is always interesting, particularly when you are going to another country for a month! We needed to pay two months of telephone, internet and satellite and happily the light bill just came too so we can take care of that! You can’t just drop a check in the mail here…never that simple. Most things have to be paid in cash, in person. And since we are paying this months rent a few days early our sweet landlord, Jacobo, is allowing us to pay a couple of days late next month, so we can wait until we get back, rather than paying two months now! We had our mail from the states cut off temporarily, so hopefully we won’t get too much in our mailbox while we are gone.

Our calendar is filling up with all the things that we’ll be doing at home: Thanksgiving, two weddings, some birthdays, Christmas and loads of dinners and lunches with friends, former co-workers and family. Worshiping in our home church. Getting our prescriptions for the next year. Doing a little shopping for us and for the Lumppios…we always have a U.S. wish list at the ready!! In fact, we’ve already ordered some things and had them shipped to the kids’ house!

We are trying to take very little with us, as we have a lot to bring back. But in our packing we’ve been unearthing all the winter things that we never use here. Our heavy coats and gloves. My wool hat. Socks. Sweatshirts. Long jeans (well, we do wear those here occasionally, but not often!). Tennis shoes. No more shorts, t-shirts and sandals for a while. We are going to the land of wet, cold and gloomy weather…but lots of sunny relationships to brighten our days.

These last few weeks before vacation have been interesting. We got pulled over for going the wrong way down a one way street in town. We were beeped by a cop in a car and then waved over by one of the street corner cops. Thankfully, the cop who pulled us over is one of the Christian brothers we’ve met along the way here and we are friendly with all the street cops. This particular street cop was one who ended up with a balloon critter when we had the team here in June. And when Oscar got out of the car and saw it was us he just said “it can be confusing here brother”! Case in point: only two blocks of the street we were on are one way, the rest is two way, and the corner we were stopped on had a stop sign for us, even though traffic is only supposed to go the other way!! Thankfully they both just blessed us and sent us on our way. Yes, it can be confusing here and we aren’t talking just about traffic!

We’ve been out to Campo San Juan two more times and actually made it past the guard barricade the second time, only to find out that Benny was gone for at least a week and to come back “mas tarde”. Mas tarde is getting to be like manana. Always mas tarde or manana. Never anything too specific, even when pressed. We are praying about what this all means in the scheme of our work here…if we can’t get in to see Benny, then we can’t get into Campo San Juan or Campo Santa Lucia. Then what?

On the way to one of our visits out there we ran into another Christian brother who’s truck was broken down. We looped around and went back to see if we could help. He couldn’t get the truck started and needed a push. We parked, Ralph got out to push, laid his hands on the vehicle to give it a shove and it started! The brother was so thrilled…a healing! We stood by the roadside and prayed together, then each went on our way. This brother has a church about 7 miles north of here and has services twice a week there. Plus he has a service at Campo Tayoltita and at Campo Santa Lucia once each week as well. It always does our heart good to see the Mexican church take an interest in the camps. Many don’t even acknowledge that they exist, let alone visit.

Had a thoroughly wonderful 45 minute chat via skype with Dave McMullen a great Christian brother from Arizona who has been coming to northwestern Mexico for more than 30 years, working in the camps spreading the Gospel message via the Jesus video and Gospel Recordings tapes and CDs. What an amazing faithful man! He and his lovely wife will be coming through our area in February sometime, and will be stopping in to meet us. We are really looking forward to it. What an inspiration these folks are!!

Our water system is still struggling along more than two month after Hurricane Lane sent it into a tizzy. Water only from 10 pm to 5 am. Nothing like doing the laundry in the dark!! Therefore, we were pretty thrilled to have water all day and most of the evening for the last week and a half, but then today…nada!! This is a town-wide problem affecting the whole system, although some areas are doing better lately than others, it’s obviously still not fixed. Please pray that this would be resolved soon as it makes everyone in town nuts.

I decided I was long overdue for a haircut, so I wandered over to Judith’s across the street and got my cut. Her mom and auntie were there, and of course her little daughter Ivana, so I got a haircut and a nice long visit in the bargain. When I was finally ready to head on home I twisted my ankle on a big stone in the road. Thankfully it is not a severe sprain. I hobbled around a bit for a couple of days and it is much better now. I still can “tweak” it once in a while and then I hobble for a while, but all in all it could have been much worse.

We were blessed by a visit by one of my former bosses, who also happens to be a friend and former neighbor to boot. Marie arrive last Monday on a cruise ship in Mazatlan and she and her friends spent the day with us sightseeing, visiting, shopping and, of course, eating. We had such a blast. It was wonderful to see her and catch up with her and to meet her traveling companions. We have worried a bit after they left us as Hurricane Sergio formed off the coast in the areas they were sailing. Hope all is well with them.

We’ve been blessed with the use of a car while we are home. Greg’s in-laws have offered up their truck. Praise the Lord. And we’ve been blessed by a work fund donation that will give us a little extra cash as we head out on vacation. We’ll be staying with the kids, and the grandkids won’t be going to the sitter the first week we are there just so we can have the extra time with them. Video is good, but there’s nothing like live and in person when you are talking grand babies! What a blessing. God is good.

As we prepare for a month away we ask that you would pray for completely uneventful travel for us. No flight delays (weather, mechanical or anything else) and a green light at customs going and coming. That all of our luggage would arrive with us. For good rest and good visits with family and friends. That our home and vehicle here would be safe and sound for our return. That we have ample time for reflection on our first year in Mexico and for God’s clear direction for this coming year.

We can’t thank you all enough for all of your prayers, cards, letters, e-mails and financial support. We are so appreciative of all you do for us. We thank God for you all.

Day of the Dead

We knew this was coming up, had read about it, heard about it. The stores in town were filling up with flowers and bread of the dead. We’ve seen Day of the Dead arts and crafts both here and in Arizona, and the little skull candies, etc. but never experienced it ourselves before. This was our year.

For weeks the shops in town were gearing up. Never have I seen so many flowers in so many shops!! You could buy ready made floral coronas and crosses, or you could buy the floral foam and artificial flowers and make your own. The coronas included a picture of either Jesus or Our Lady of Guadalupe, or you could provide a picture of your departed loved one for the center.

There were altars set up in some stores, even in the WalMart and cathedral plaza in Mazatlan and in the our plaza here in La Cruz. The one in La Cruz was dedicated to Christopher Columbus and the one at Walmart had flowers, candy, food and bottles of liquor and it was stacked high with containers of pan de muerte, bread of the dead…

On the actual day, which is a national holiday, the road to the cemetery was completely blocked off. It was lined up and down with food vendors of every kind. The streets and vacant lots around the cemetery were teaming with cars and people.

Walking through the cemetery I was stuck by how the grave sites had been cleaned up and in some cases even painted. There were flowers everywhere, balloons on the graves of children, lots of candles and lots and lots of people eating a wide variety of food and drinking everything from sodas to beer to booze. Friends and families had their lawn chairs neatly arranged around the graves, they had shade structures up to protect them from the sun. Boom boxes were blasting favorite tunes. One large family grave area had a big tent with a banda band. There were balloon and ice cream vendors wandering through the graves. I avoided taking pictures of family celebrations, focusing on the quieter areas of the cemetery. Interesting and beautiful.