The ethereal fog around the mountains from the early morning rain has been replaced by the beautiful sunshine that will soon take the chill out of the air and make the kids wish they had worn their shorts to school again today.

My friends, this is Parras. It’s not what we were expecting. It has rained part of the day almost every day since we have moved. You won’t hear anyone complaining though. In talking to Jenrri, husband of Glenda (the director at Vida Nueva), he said it normally only rains once every two months or so. God has blessed!

We have now been in Mexico for just over two weeks and are beginning to settle in and find a routine. Our days are filled with sweeping (Glenda even bought me my own broom!), dishes, computer work, helping in the kitchen, odd jobs, and keeping our curious daughter out of trouble…and then the kids come home from school! That is the highlight of our day, especially Chloe, when all our little friends come home. We sit with the kids through their lunch at 3pm, homework until usually about 5pm, and then *finally* have some playtime. 🙂 The games of choice right now are still futbol (soccer), marbles, and now riding bicycles. There are seven children in the home and four bicycles, plus Chloe’s trike, which Miguel (the eight year old and youngest) will sometimes ride on the back of while Chloe pedals. The kids are (mostly) very good about taking turns on the bikes, though.

Among other things since we have arrived at the children’s home, we celebrated two birthdays in one week. First was Jenrri’s on August 22nd and then Osiel turned 10 on August 26th. We celebrated Osiel’s birthday on the 27th with junk food, jello, chocolate frosted cake, and a piñata. It was fun to celebrate with them the Mexican way: Loud and with lots of sugar, which we do pretty well. One other interesting thing that has happened with the kids was that on maybe the second day of school after all but Andrea were finished with their homework, I found them sitting outside the boys dorm. Someone had some leftover contact paper and the six other kids, Luis, Cristina, Pedro, Mario, Osiel, and Miguel decided it was a grand idea to wax their legs, arms, and faces with the contact paper. Much hilarity ensued

Last Sunday August 25th, we attended church with Migui and Marta at Iglesia Betania Bautista. We were made to feel quite welcome and loved by their family of believers. Yesterday, September 2nd we went to Iglesia La Huerta (The Garden Church) with Pastor Candelario Nataren, with whom we have worked and will continue to work with in the future in the area of church planting and ranch ministry. Our family was so blessed by how welcoming everyone in the church was. Pastor Candelario invited Adam up front to introduce us, pray over us, and asked the church to continue to pray for us. In the meantime, I took Chloe to the Children’s Sunday school time. It was really wonderful to see the number of children in the congregation. There were fifteen in Chloe’s age group alone (my guess is that the age group was two to five years old). It was beautiful to watch her play with kids her own age again during the kids’ time and after the service. We are very blessed by the Iglesia La Huerta family and especially Candelario and Carmen.

Out of everyone in Parras, Candelario and his wife are the two people that seem to understand our move to ministry the best. They used to live in Matamoros, just across the border from Brownsville, TX. When they moved to Parras, they left many family members, including all but one of their children in Matamoros. Carmen told us on Saturday, when we got together for breakfast here at the Home, that she understood the sadness of leaving that mixes with the joy of doing what God has called you to do. It’s such a blessing to have people here that understand. Jenrri and Glenda have also reminded the kids that what we have done is hard and specifically to work with them in the Lord.

Many people have asked how our transition is going. I would say that it is going relatively well, for which we are praising the Lord! The biggest adjustment has certainly been for Chloe, who had quite a hard time when we first moved. She still gets frustrated about not being able to communicate well with the kids. We are grateful that playtime is a universal language! I have had some issues with the altitude, which is something I wasn’t expecting, since it had not happened on our short term trips. We are excited to begin to get past these initial little humps in the road.

That is basically what is going on here. It is chilly in the morning and hot in the afternoon, Chloe plays outside ALL the time, Adam has a beautiful farmer’s tan (burn), and none of us drink enough water. Though, we’re starting to get there.

Love y’all! Thank you for your many prayers!

God is on the move! Thank you for joining Him with us!

(I apologize for the tardiness of these posts. I’m still really new to wordpress, and for some reason I can schedule things to publish, but they don’t actually publish when I set them to do so. I am working to fix the issue. Thank you for your patience!)