Leaving Mexico

Most of you know that we were pretty discouraged when we went home for vacation last December, so much so that we thought we might not return. However, after a little rest, counsel and perspective we came back with a new attitude determined to make this all work.

Now nearly eight months have passed and we have continued to pray about our role here. We also enlisted the aid of our prayer partners seeking what we should do here next term since we couldn't really continue at the orphanage as our designated work as this is not a ministry of either the Alianza or WMPL. We received a lot of e-mails and letters from folks as a result of our prayers and theirs and have decided to return to Washington next month. When it came to the point of making a decision it came easier than we expected and we have great peace about it.

So now we are busy trying to finish well here and in the meantime pack up the house and sell all the excess stuff again so we can get everything we need to take back into the pickup!! So far we are balancing things pretty well, but we do need your continued prayers.

Please pray for completely uneventful travel. The trip will take us five or six days of driving and you all know that road trips are NOT Ralph's favorite thing! Also we both need jobs and we need a rental house in the Olympia-Tumwater area. We expect to arrive in Washington around August 20th or so. Mas o menos as they say here.

We've had an interesting and educational experience here these last couple of years and we could not have done it without your prayer support. You've made all the difference for us on many occasions and we thank you for it!! Bless you all.

The Church in El Rosario

As part of our additional work here from Pastor Lupe we are to visit the small church in El Rosario a couple of times a month. We got a bit of a shaky start with them however as we arrived late for the first visit, essentially arriving just in time to see them going out the door. Sadly, Lupe had given us the wrong start time for services. But we did get to visit with a couple of families and got an invitation to one woman's home for some ice water which we gladly accepted because it was scorching hot that morning! So we proceeded to the modest little home and found that she wanted to show us a beautiful mirror and mantle that were salvaged from an old house in the area. Goodness, the mirror itself had to be six or seven feet tall and four or more feet wide. It was surrounded by a carved molding about six inches wide. It was balanced on a carved mantle at least a ten feet wide and a foot and a half deep. Gargantuan thing but very beautiful. It absolutely overwhelmed the small home we were visiting but obviously was a great source of family pride!

Smack behind the present church there are the remains of the old church, now just a ruin where iguanas live. You can see how close it is to the back wall of the present church, that's that gray strip in the right of the first picture.





On our second visit we arrived prepared to hear Pastor Ignacio preach but discovered that several members of the Mazatlan church were there doing the service and had brought along a guest preacher! Foiled again. Then we were saddened to learn that they just sort of invaded, didn't ask to come, weren't invited and didn't even tell the pastor they would be there. He was upset but handled it graciously, so much so that we didn't learn of the problem until after the service. When our friend Carmen realized what happened she apologized profusely to Ignacio for the intrusion.

Our third try was this past Sunday and again we didn't get to hear Ignacio preach because the folks from the Mazatlan church were there again with one of the Mazatlan parishioners preaching, Amir. We were determined to get to know Ignacio better though and settled in for a good visit with him and hopefully sometime soon we'll be able to hear him preach!!

He works full time at Citrofruit, a huge concern here in Mexico with plants in three states (Sinaloa, San Luis Potosi and Veracruz) and one in Texas. They produce nothing but frozen fruit juice concentrate and are in their busiest time of the year right now. He's presently working seven days a week, so he doesn't mind having the folks from Mazatlan come and help out at least until September when things will settle down a bit for him at work.

Citrofruit produces juice from just about any kind of fruit you can name and 70% of the frozen concentrates they make here end up in the US used in all kinds of products marketed under all kinds of brands. Pretty amazing enterprise!



He is married to Mari and they have two kids who are completely adorable. His mother-in-law is also part of their family. They live in Rosario, close enough to walk to church. Which is a good thing in that town because it has the most confusing street structure we've seen yet in Mexico and that is saying something!!

We've gotten lost in one way or another each time we've gone there, and likely will for a while. One of our team members says people joke about even the devil getting lost there it is such a confusing and confounding little town. Very narrow streets, lots of one ways, very little in the way of signs. This is the one way street the church is on, at the end it turns left into an even more narrow street where no parking is allowed and because straight ahead they have turned the street into a plaza. Complete with trees, flowers and a non-functioning fountain. Just beyond that little plaza is the small centro mercado with it's own little plaza surrounded by shops and including a strange statue that even Carmen could not explain and she went to school in El Rosario!







On the highway going and coming from El Rosario you pass through prime mango growing country, but we've also discovered it is also the prime area for cireula, a small, sweet plumb no bigger than the end of an average thumb. There are red and yellow varieties, but they tasted exactly the same to me. They are only available from the very end of May to the middle of July. Roadside stands are set up to meet the demand from passers by and from those who make the trek just for them. They are also sold on a limited basis here in town. They are good, but extremely perishable. The roadside stands also have big bags of mangoes dirt cheap too!





And on the way there this last Sunday we saw our first snake since arriving here. We'd heard tales of big snakes, five six feet or more, but haven't seen nary a one in nearly 19 months. Can't say that anymore. This guy was very long and slender and dark. He took up three quarters of the traffic lane on the highway before he retreated to the shoulder as our truck approached. Let's see, if a lane is about a dozen feet across or so that would make him very long, like 8 or 9 feet. Glad we were in the truck! There is always something interesting in our travels here.

The haves, the middle class and the have nots

I guess most communities are divided by economics, everyone pretty much knows where the rich folks are in their towns and where the poor folks are. America and the world now have tons of not just millionaires but billionaires. The Forbes ranking of billionaires each spring sort of seems like a competition...who will beat out who? Who'll be number one?

Mexico certainly has those economic differences and in fact local media are now reporting that the guy who was #3 on the last Forbes billionaire list is now #1 bypassing both Bill Gates and Warren Buffet! He is Carlos Slim. This guy owns Telmex, Mexico's national telephone company, a chain of restaurants, bars and stores called Sanborns, all the Sears stores in Mexico, a cell phone company and a bunch more. He's definitely a "have" and yet he doesn't have the philanthropic side that the other two big US billionaire guys have and his attitude is that it's more important to make jobs than to give things to people. Plus there's pretty much no incentive to give under Mexican tax law. I don't know, maybe giving from the heart hasn't occurred to him yet. Perhaps it will someday. I find myself praying for Carlos Slim sometimes. He is definitely among the "haves" in Mexico.

Mazatlan is known world wide as a resort city. It's also home to many wealthy Mexican families. But it's also a working city. An extremely active port, fishing fleets, commercial canning, coffee roasting (the bus downtown goes right by the coffee plant, the aroma is great even though I can't stand to drink the stuff!), a brewery and tons more. Lots of jobs here, therefore lots of houses being built to accommodate those families coming here for jobs. And of course those houses being built make even more jobs. The folks who work in these jobs are mostly among the middle class. They live in neighborhoods similar to ours. Sometimes a little nicer, sometimes a little less nice, but usually good homes in good neighborhoods.

Some of the nicer homes here, there are many more that are much bigger and nicer, but those communities are gated and guarded and you can't get in there!!







If you come here and only stay at your posh resort you'll probably never get see the other side of Mazatlan. It's tempting to stay at the resort, it's quiet, green, clean and serene. Not to mention beach front. You'll miss the trash and graffiti, the people on the street corners risking life and limb in traffic trying to beg a few pesos or dollars from folks. You'll miss the folks who live in pallet houses and those who have no homes at all. You'll miss the "have nots".







I know there are probably extremes like this pretty much everywhere, but in a town with this much money floating around you'd think it would be better. Lots to pray about here every day!

Blessings,

Ralph & Chris

Missing the grandkids!!!

One of the hardest things we deal with here is missing our grandkids. When we were on the mission field before we didn't have 'em, and this time we figured it would be a struggle not seeing them as we wanted to and we were right. We have video cameras on our end and theirs so we do have video chats from time to time and that is a blessing. But lately their camera is on the fritz and so they can see us, but we can't see them. Bummer. Darane' has been just awesome in keeping the photos coming though. Here are some of the latest and greatest.

Savannah's ribbon and flowers for placing second in her group in her gymnastic mini-nationals!



Nick with a slug on a stick, every young northwest boy's dream



Savannah and Nick at Pioneer Park at the site of Ezra Meeker's original Puyallup home



Nick climbing



Helping dad mow



Savannah's last day of school



Not only was it the last day of school, but it was warm enough to run through the sprinklers!

Flashing, booming, pouring, flooding

We’ve had cloudy days of late and nights with thunder and lightning, all signs of the coming rainy season. About midnight Friday morning a huge storm broke and lasted about 90 minutes…it was a lively one. We lost power twice and the thunder was so loud that it shook the house. Not an easy task with a concrete house! Even our telephone service went out.

We noticed that water was leaking in around the air conditioner in our room and wondered how that could happen, but it was too dark to see. And the ceiling in our room was dripping…not a good thing either.

When daylight dawned we first surveyed the damage upstairs and there were leaks not only around the air conditioners, but in the ceilings in the upstairs bath, the stairwell, our bedroom and the big unfinished bedroom in the front of the house.

When we went downstairs we were looking a what remained of a little thin river that ran from the dining room, through the kitchen, bath, living room and then out under the front door. Not a pretty sight!

That is about a half an inch of water stuck in the dining room.

Notice the water marks on the wall behind the fridge and in the downstairs bath!

It was enough water to float the wastebasket!

We called the landlords and they came out within the hour and found the drain on the service patio in the back was hopelessly clogged, so the water had no where to go but into the house and also into the beauty salon next door. They started working to clear the drain and had the worst time of it, it just wouldn’t clear out, so they went next door to the beauty salon and opened up a foot square access in the floor and found it clogged with roots and mud. As they started digging away trying to find the opening for the drain several dozen rather large cockroaches zoomed out of the hole and into the beauty salon setting the girls screaming and running for their bug spray. Ralph stomped the ones that came our direction!!

As they worked away they finally got a hold of a large root from the bougainvillea in the neighbors back yard that had worked it’s way into the pipe. They yanked and yanked on the thing and finally dislodged this huge four foot long, three inch wide glop of root, mud, garbage, a yellow bouncy ball and more cockroaches…yuk! The debris from the pipeline filled two five gallon buckets! They then started on the much longer length of pipe from the beauty salon under our cochera to the road…and it was stuffed with tons of dirt, leaves, plastic bottle caps and mud. But at last they got it free flowing.

They returned on Saturday and put a protective coating all over the rooftop to prevent further leaking and to investigate how water could have leaked into the bedroom via the hole for the air conditioner. Turns out the house next door (which has been under construction for more than three years) added a vaulted roof that forces all their rainwater right down on to our patio wall and also right inside our bedroom!! Our landlord couldn’t believe it when he saw it. Guess it’s completely illegal to build that kind of roof unless it drains onto your own property. Can’t have it drain on anyone else’s. So looks like he’s going to make them change the roof, and he has his property rights behind him to make the change happen!! It will be interesting to see what happens with that!

In any case, we were blessed with just some wet and muddy floors, walls and ceilings and they are already drying out quite nicely. We are so thankful that none of our furniture or electronics were ruined by the little river!! God is good!

The church in La Cruz is closed

We had been hearing rumors from a couple of sources that the church in La Cruz had closed it’s doors and we just confirmed this with Pastor Lupe. Jose has pastored that little church for more than two decades and while it never had a large congregation he consistently served those who came.

The year we were in La Cruz the church struggled mightily. Jose had health issues, the congregation whittled itself down to us and one other man. Finally, it came down to no one coming and Jose decided to close it.

So, the church in La Cruz joins the one in El Salto…shuttered. Of the four congregations that remain in Sinaloa, three are very tiny with only a few families and the one here in Mazatlan has about 25 families. Actually, there is one large extended family and all the brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins and perhaps two other families as well.

Please pray for Pastor Ismael in Ceuta, Pastor Juan in El Castillo, Pastor Ignacio in El Rosario and Pastor Lupe in Mazatlan and their congregations.

The ant wars, the train crossing and reading for fun and education

The local ants were not too thrilled when the patio area was converted from dirt to concrete recently…they apparently had a happy little home there. Of late they have erupted in the dining room, the downstairs bath, the stairway and two spots in the cochera. So we have been actively spraying for the little rascals. For a while there, they seemed to be winning the war, but I think they have retreated at least out to the street. While taking the garbage to the curb yesterday I noticed no less than five anthills at the curb around the tree. Hmmm. Sprayed them too, maybe I can get them to move even farther away from the house!

There is a railroad crossing that we pass several times a week in our travels, though we rarely every catch the train itself, perhaps once a month. The train crossing has lights telling you to stop because the train is approaching and has rather sturdy crossing gates to prevent you from trying to cross in a brave but stupid moment. The crossing gates are very heavy reinforced metal and are operated by counterbalance with a guy coming out to push them down and lean on them to force them back up again once the train has passed. There is a little building along side the tracks where there is someone on duty 24 hours a day just to work the gates.

Of course, while waiting for the train to pass all that empty space on the right of the traffic fills up with motorcycles and bicycles and they are the first to get across once the train is gone and the gates are lifted, beating all the backed up traffic by several minutes sometimes!

We have discovered of late that there is a book exchange in the Golden Zone! We sometimes get starved for English reading materials so this is really an answered prayer for us. The paperbacks are $56 pesos for new releases, $46 for older books, but only $23 with a trade-in and we have trade-ins!! So we recently went down and browsed their racks and came home with some new books to read. Yippee!

In our Spanish classes this Spring Javier encouraged us to read in Spanish as well, particularly the newspapers so that we can be aware of things happening around us as well as build vocabulary. It also gives us something to talk about with the neighbors! So we’ve been buying the paper more often, and now rather than taking the dictionary and a week to get through it, it now takes the dictionary and a day or so! Not too bad.

By reading the paper though we learn more about the bad stuff happening around us, like a breakout of Dengue Fever to the south of us, which prompted city officials to come to every home and inspect possible sites for standing water (mosquito breeding ground) and to make sure we had insecticide powder in every one. They also wanted to know if our tinaco (water reservoir on the roof) had a cover on it as they can also be a breeding ground for mosquitoes. We knew it didn’t have one because the telephone installer told us it needed a cover. The Dengue folks encouraged us to get it covered soon. Since we have no access to the roof and no ladder, we talked to the landlords and they have installed a spanking new cover for us.

There’s also been narco-violence aplenty and a plain old fashioned murder at a business near our neighborhood. But also lots of weddings, baby showers and quince anos, which is a huge party given for a girl on her 15th birthday. All of these are covered in the paper with photos and stories…a whole section of the paper devoted to them.

One of the famous Getty family recently visited to produce and debut a play he’d written. They are talking about starting passenger train service from here to Tucson. That would be pretty awesome if they get it off the ground. They are starting to think about the problems of traffic and access as they have a huge housing boom happening here and no real plan in place to deal with the increased traffic. Pretty cool to have a better working knowledge of what’s going on around us.