The conference was a success!

Thanks so much for your prayers for our conference last weekend. We had a lot on the agenda and were able to get through it all and have time to share devotions, worship, pray and have communion too. We even had two meals together! Even while Lidia was sick all weekend. God is good, she endured and is doing better.

Taking a break:

We did all the normal business type stuff…how to deal with the archives, scheduling vacations for this year, reviewing and approving all the treasurer’s reports, tweaked the by-laws. We also elected new officers for the coming year: Darwin will continue as Field Director, with Tom as Vice-Director, Mary Ann as Treasurer and Lidia as Secretary (with a promise from me to be her backup!). Each family gave a work report for the past year and each person gave a personal testimony.

The biggest news/change is in work assignments for the coming year. The Jackson’s will be on furlough part of the year, much of it in Washington State. When they return in the fall they will be living in Nogales and working along side the churches in the state of Sonora, training the existing pastors and looking toward an additional church plant there. The Lumppios will continue here in La Cruz, concentrating their efforts on the church, town and camp at Ceuta with Tom continuing his language study. We will be moving to Mazatlan to continue our language and culture learning and will also volunteer at some of the local orphanages as well as participating in the church in Mazatlan as opportunities arise. Yep, you read that right, we are on the move again.

You know that we have been praying about why God had us here, particularly since last October. You have been praying along with us!!! You all know we were frustrated. But, we should have known that God is faithful, He does have a plan, and that plan is being revealed to us now. We are so thankful that we serve such an awesome, patient God. This is such an answer to prayer for us!! The orphanage thing had been on our hearts for a long time, but it is definitely outside the box for WMPL and the church here. God worked all of that out in His time. Golly, that hushing up and waiting and listening thing seems to have worked pretty well.

Know that this change was no small thing…it required approval by our office in Minneapolis, the church here in Mexico and all of our team members. The first hint we had about the changes God had wrought was when our Personnel guy arrived a couple of weeks back and let us know that HQ had been praying about this since last fall same as us and they were now ready to talk to us, the church and our team about it! We were so blown away! After much prayer all we can say is Praise the Lord and wow!

So, since we had planned to stay over in Mazatlan after the conference to visit with our neighbors from Olympia, Ted and Mary Louise and with Jan, retired WMPL missionary after 35 years in Mazatlan who are visiting now, when our team gave their final approval this past weekend we decided to try to house hunt a bit too. I’ll write more on that later, but we just had to say thank you so much for your prayers!! You are such a blessing to us.

Please pray for the COMIMEX Annual Conference 2007

This weekend will mark our first real conference since we’ve been here. The six of us will hunker down for two days of meetings covering a wide variety of business for the field such as:

reviewing job descriptions and electing new officers

reporting on what’s been going on the during the last year with each family

doing some strategic planning

tinkering with the field goals and by-laws a bit

getting our new and/or continuing job assignments for the next year

getting vacations for the next year at least penciled in on the calendar

discussing items like rent caps, mileage reimbursement and the disposition of the field archives as the Jacksons prepare for their home furlough

We’ll also have time for devotions, worship with communion and for breaking bread together. We certainly need your prayers during this time as there is a lot to do in just two days!! This will also be the first time all six of us have been together for any real length of time, so there will be significant opportunities for strengthening our bonds as a team.

Please pray also for the littlest members of our team: Gracie J., age 6; Cristina L., age 4 and Gracie L., age 2. They will be spending the two days with a loving sitter from the Mazatlan church. It is our prayer that they will have a wonderful two days together as well.

Though this is not related to COMIMEX business, please pray also for little Kitzia, Candy and Luis’ little daughter. She has some type of tumor behind her right ear. Dr. Maldonado is in the midst of doing some testing, including a biopsy. We hope to hear the results of that within two weeks. This little one was just born on October 9th. We appreciate your prayers for Kitzia and her family as well.

Blessings to you all…thanks so much for your prayers and support!

The Sinaloa church leaders meeting!

Thanks so much for your prayers regarding this meeting, held on January 20th in Ceuta. We were concerned that two of the four pastors wouldn’t be able to make the meeting due to work obligations, but, praise the Lord, all were in attendance. It was a long meeting, about five hours with no breaks, water or food! But they were determined to get through their worship and agenda and did a fine job.

Each of the pastors shared their hopes and concerns and visions for the future of their congregations. They had a time of worship and shared communion together.

Pastor Lupe from the Mazatlan church advised that his church is looking into a major community outreach for them: a home for displaced elders. Lupe and his wife Emilia have already taken a 90 plus year old lady into their home, and their work with her over the past couple of months has helped them to see the need of other elders in Mazatlan.

Traditionally, families have either had a family member return to the elder’s home to help them as they age, or have moved the elder in with their own family. But those traditions are losing ground all the time, leaving many elders either on the street, or living alone in a home they can no longer manage. Many are at a minimum lonely and at worst, unable to care for themselves. There is apparently a big deficit in community homes for older Mexican folks, and the Mazatlan congregation hopes to step into that gap. They have been working with DIF, which is the government assistance arm here. They hope to find a surplus building that can be renovated into a home for elders. DIF may also have grants available to help with the renovation and may also have some small aid available to the elders themselves who would be situated there. Lupe and Emilia are very excited at the prospect of this new ministry and are educating their congregation of the need and the opportunities for them to participate. Please pray with them regarding this venture. It is a big undertaking for them!!

The leaders also talked about organizing some continuing education for the pastors, something intensive over a weekend that would fit with their work schedules, since three of the four pastors are bi-vocational. These education segments would be lead by Lupe and perhaps by guest teachers as well. They would be held in the institute in Mazatlan.

Additionally, they would like to gather together for an annual conference in which they can exchange ideas and catch up with one another’s ministries and lives. A conference for them is long overdue. They will have another meeting on this subject in May. They are also talking about converting the unused church in El Salto to a retreat center to be used for church training and conferences for church workers.

There is also some interest in networking with other Lutheran organizations in Mexico. Presently, the Alianza Apostólica Luterana Mexicana does not communicate with or fellowship with other Lutherans working here, such as the ELCA, LCMS and AFLC to name a few. They would like to begin relationships with these other Lutheran bodies. Perhaps attend their conferences or hold joint conferences in the future. Please pray with them as they seek how to contact and interact with their brother Lutherans in Mexico.

All in all it was a great time of fellowship for the workers in Sinaloa, and it is our prayer and theirs that it will continue! Praise the Lord. Thanks for your continuing prayers for them!

Back row: Darwin, Lupe (Mazatlan), his wife Emilia and Juan (El Castillo)
Front row: Lidia, Tom, Ralph, Jose (La Cruz) and Ismael (Ceuta)

And then there were the two weddings!!

The main reason for our trip home was that two of our nieces were going to wed the men they loved! What better reason to go home in winter than that??

Billie Jo and TJ met at work and fell in love. The rest of us fell in love with TJ during Ralph’s sister’s final illness during the summer of 2005. TJ was an absolute rock for Billie Jo and hung in there supporting all of us in the little and big things that go on during such a bittersweet time in the life of any family. They are an amazing duo who are an absolute joy to be around, truly a match made in heaven. Here are a couple of the pictures I took at the wedding and a link to their online proofs if you’d like to see all the pictures:

http://www.digiproofs.com/ecom/page_view.pl?p=9NoT3h

Daddy Ron walking his lovely daughter down the aisle

Beautiful Billie Jo

Billie Jo and TJ, their first dance as Mr. & Mrs.!

And then there is Amy and Daniel. They met while attending Portland Bible College, and became friends and then the friendship turned to love. Daniel was very traditional in that he asked my brother and sister-in-law for permission to propose to their only child! They, of course, gave that permission because they had come to know and love Daniel as Amy had. All of their pictures are online as well:

http://kkstudioconnect.com/apps/customer/index.php

Papa Randy walking Amy down the aisle

Amy and Daniel’s first dance as Mr. & Mrs.

Amy and Daniel, trying to get a bite to eat at the reception!

What a blessing it has been to add these two young men to our family!! We love you guys.

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.