The death of Don Luis

Our neighbor across the street died during the night on Tuesday. We saw the funeral SUV arrive early Wednesday morning and the funeral home awning went up in front of the house. Later in the day we heard it was Luis who had died. We didn’t really know him, he’d been sick the entire year we’ve been here. We were never really clear what as ailing him, it was never brought up. He’d have his good days and his bad days. He spent a lot of time sitting in the rocker out in the yard, just enjoying his garden and his family. If they went anywhere in the car they’d always smile and wave as they went by.

After a couple of days of non-stop company at the house the funeral was yesterday afternoon. The funeral SUV was back and the large crowd of mourners walked behind it from the house to the cemetery. There were three pickup loads of flowers. He was the patriarch of a large family, but the one’s we knew the best were his wife Yolanda, daughter Judith and granddaughter Ivana. Please keep the family in prayer as they adjust to life without him.

Life here on earth is so fleeting…are you doing what God would have you do? Anytime anyone around me passes any more I think of Pastor Andrea’s sermon about the dash, the little symbol between the numbers of your birth and death. Mine are 1951-???? What are you doing with the dash God has given you?

Blessings to you all.

The house hunt…

What a stretch for us personally, culturally and in language and navigation in and around Mazatlan!!! We’ve now been to neighborhoods that we never knew existed and we met a lot of nice, helpful people in the process! Interestingly enough, people rarely wanted to tell us up front what the rent was, when we would ask they would say “you have to see it”, even when we explained that we have limited resources!

Carmen and Genaro really wanted us in their neighborhood if possible, so they took us to see several houses, all of which were either too small, for sale rather than for rent or Carmen declared the neighborhood as “no bueno”. She was frustrated that she couldn’t find anything close to them. Our attitude was “God will provide”. We ended up taking off and looking on our own. We had several adventures over two days.

One experience was asking at a small neighborhood store if they knew of any houses for rent, which they did, a yellow house within sight of the store, owned by a lady named Carmen who lived just up the street from the house. So we ventured off, peeked through the gates of the potential rental and tried to find the owner. Another little store on the block was called Carmelita’s so we knocked and sure enough she was Carmen with a rental. Turned out it was a tiny studio apartment above the little store! The OTHER Carmen was across the street to the left…so we were off again. This Carmen invited us in and introduced us to her daughter and her brand new, 15th grandchild, a darling 13 day old little boy! We visited for quite a bit and then she got around to the house…$4,000 pesos, well above our rent cap! Bummer. But wait! They have another house, presently occupied, but she thinks the Canadian who is living there now plans to leave soon. She would find out and then call us and let us know when we could look at that. Alas, she never called us back!

Then we had the phone number of a lady who had a house for rent in an area that was new to us…when we called she sent her son and son-in-law to meet us. We waited for them for about an hour and the house was really nice, but again, significantly above our rent cap!! But they also had another house, a smaller two bedroom in another neighborhood. Currently being renovated, but very nice. So off we were following them a few kilometers through new territory to the other house. Nice older neighborhood…and walking through the door I was thrilled! Beautiful old floors, brick arch between the living room and the kitchen/dining room. The kitchen and bath were being completely renovated and brought up to date, the first bedroom was fairly spacious. We were excited…maybe this was it. But when we asked where the second bedroom was they just said, oh I guess it only has one bedroom! Three rooms is not big enough. So we were on our way again!

Our best adventure God saved for last…we found two houses in a neighborhood near Carmen and Genaro, but across the highway. The first house was a duplex owned by a nice Christian lady named Yolanda, but it was way too small, muy, muy chica!! The other house was just two doors down and the neighbors across the street knew the owners and offered to call them for us. They couldn’t meet us just then but would call later to arrange a time. In the meantime we had a nice visit with Roberto and Virginia, who made the call for us. Really lovely people. They’ve lived there six years, been married for 18 years. They allowed that there are very good neighbors, not a lot of parties and its very quiet. They love it. They are both teachers, and in fact he used to teach at El Bollio, which is a little pueblo just a little bit outside of La Cruz. They told us how nice the house was, even though it needed work, and how nice the owners were. Really doing a sales pitch! But, the owners never called back and we finally had to leave…we went back to the hotel hoping they would still call, but they never did.

We continued to pray about what to do: stay another day and keep looking or head back to La Cruz. As we prayed this house kept coming to our minds so we thought we’d run back out there and take another shot. Again, Virginia made the call and yes, the owners had tried to call us but didn’t realize that our cell was long distance for them and couldn’t make the connection! They agreed to meet us, and again Roberto and Virginia entertained us while we waited.

The house is very nice, and so is the family that owns it. It’s been empty for a while, owned by the brother who was disabled in an accident and can no longer live there. We loved the house, it has kitchen cabinets and a bathroom with a sink!! And Sandra, the owner’s sister, was trying to explain that the kitchen cabinets were set up for a small stove and that you could not cut the cabinets for a big stove. Not to worry, we have a small stove. She was apologizing for the condition of the house because it was dirty, the dining room floor is unfinished, they were painting, etc. As we continued to look we kept asking how much…and finally she told us and it was way above our rent cap. Arrrrggggghhhhh!!!

We were sad and discouraged, but as we talked she decided she wanted to call her mom and talk it over with her. Since part of the house (one bedroom, one bath and sun room) are unfinished with concrete floors and no fixtures, and since we will not be using the little store front that is built into the back corner of the house she thought perhaps they could drop the rent a little. Then Sandra told her mom we are Christians and that sealed the deal for her mom. They dropped the rent to just below our cap!!! Praise the Lord! We now have a home in Mazatlan! We are going to pick up the keys later in the month and can move in any time after March first! We can scarcely believe that we are moving again but God has definitely paved the way.

This is a view of the house, the unfinished part is above the cochera, all along the outside wall to the back, basically half the upstairs. All along the orange front is the cochera and a small patio. There is a living room, small dining room (concrete floor), kitchen, half bath and service porch downstairs and two finished bedrooms and one finished bath up, plus the unfinished space. You can see the tiny little store front at the back of the house. The hole in the wall by the side window upstairs is for the air conditioner. The stairway is curved and tiled and has no hand rails so pray we don’t crash too much on the stairs!!

Thanks so much for your prayers as we struggled along, particularly these last five months. We thought we wouldn’t make it, and on our own we could not have…we need our Lord and we need your prayers! Bless you for praying for us!

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.