May 2010
Behind the Scenes
May 24, 2010
Barring some sort of miracle taking place, this will probably be the last post I write while still in Mexico. My schedule is such that this whole next week is stuffed to the gills with everything I've been procrastinating about for the last month. I've mostly got my stuff packed but there is still that general flotsam floating around my room, stuff that I'll need right up to the day that I leave that for some reason never quite fits in the suitcase. I've got my family coming in (Wednesday!!) and so going to be with them plus final exams and graduation (they've already ordered my diploma so I simply must pass). Tonight is going to be a cram session because I've been reading the complete works of Sherlock Holmes for the last two weeks instead of studying. I always, always, always do that to myself. I find this great book right at the time that I'm supposed to be actually working. At least now I've finished it and can get down to studying. I've got Cults, Personal Evangelism, Revelations, Teaching and Christian Family exams to take, most of which require some sort of verse memorization. Plus we've been practicing guitar songs for specials we're doing for the graduation and memorizing four sections of Psalms 119. And here I've got the world's greatest detective floating around occupying valuable space in my head. Plus Watson who is most likely the greatest side-kick ever. Anyways, I digress.
I'm going into official hiatus status because I'm not going to be able to update until after Steph's wedding on the 12th. (By the way, everyone must watch the opening of the World Cup on the 11th. I'm recording it.) I'll be graduating this Friday, saying goodbye to the Jeep the next Monday, hanging around town with Brittany the following Friday, in New York the following Monday and decorating the church the Friday after that. Bleh. But after all of that all I'm doing is working summer school so I can update again. So yeah, after this one, most likely no updates until the fourteenth. The week after that is camp though so..well, just don't expect anything very reliable until July. Now that I think about it though, the only people who actually read this blog (other than my aunt) are all going to be with me anyways. lol.
OtterFiles is going to take another turn this summer. I've got some stuff in the works that will drastically change the site and I'm looking forward to it. It'll be a good chance to practice my dying PHP skills. And an excuse to buy PhotoshopCS.
So, in the spirit of farewell, (today was the last kid's club -sniff-) I just want to say thank you to everyone who has followed me while I've been in Mexico, it's been quite the trip. But more about that later.
Praying for you all! Have a great couple of weeks!!
Reality Check
May 21, 2010
It's been a crazier than normal week with the quincenera and exams and stuff so I didn't have any time to come up with a good post for today. I was, however, fascinated by a portion of scripture from Pastor Dorr's Revelations class that I figured I'd post up here for you guys today.
Revelation 21:18-27
And the building of the wall of it was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass.
And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald;
The fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst.
And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.
And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.
And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.
And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it.
And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there. And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it.
And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life.
I always get homesick when I read those verses. It's amazing, y'know, to think that you'll be actually living there someday. Incredible to the point that I can't wrap my head around how beautiful it's going to be and almost annoying how long I have to wait to get there.
Getting everything finalized. Started packing yesterday, got most of my stuff taken care of, determined what I'm giving away (most of it) and what I'm taking to MD with me (very, very little. Surprisingly little). I'm going to actually be able to fit everything into my two suitcases this time around, and probably have room to spare.
For anyone who is wondering, the World Cup is really gaining momentum down here. No one I've spoken to expects Mexico to win but they're all really excited about it and the World Cup theme song is pretty awesome, although relatively beat-y. I'm buying a Mexican jersey before I leave and Brittany and I are recording the opening ceremonies to watch later on.
Right, well, anyways. More exams next week, graduation, frenzy, la-de-dah, and that's that!
Behind the Scenes
May 17, 2010
Was driving around with someone yesterday and they commented that it really wasn't all that hot outside. I stuck my hand out the window and agreed. Then I checked the temperature on the Jeep console. 95 Degrees. I'm probably sitting in at least 90 degree weather right now and it's really not all that bad. There's a slight breeze and I'm in the shade though so that might be helping it. Point is, I'm going to freeze to death in Maryland.
Anyways, I've been spending the morning doing random errands and I see know why they are so repulsive to some people. lol. Mostly because they took me to all corners of Navojoa and I had to keep spending money. That's the worst bit. Laura's quincenera is on Thursday so we've got a lot of work to do for that. She's got her dress and I made her hair appointment (my gift to her) and that pretty much includes my part of the party because I haven't been given anything else to do yet. Thursday is going to be a mess. It'll be fun though.
Misael got kicked off my bus route and Jennifer is now the almost official Captain. I made the announcement on the bus yesterday and she's going to pretty much be in charge from now on. I'll still ride and everything, but she's going to be doing all the work. I've only got four more routes anyways and she needs to learn sometime so this is for the best. How Misael got kicked off is a long story and something I don't really want to get into right now because it mostly just frustrates me. All this drama. It's like being in High School except we're all adults. lol. It's practice for teaching Spanish in High School. Yuck.
On Wednesday one of the druggies in Nogalitos grabbed my hand. It was really rather funny and there was no danger, just a really weird situation. We were running late (again) and I was trying to get everyone back onto the bus and the guy who thinks he's a goat came towards me with his fingers in an 'X' (the two pointer fingers crossed) and kept saying, 'De la cruz! De la cruz!' The only reason I can think of for that was that he knew I was from the church. Anyways, he was getting way too close for comfort so I moved to brush his hands away and he grabbed my left hand and wouldn't let go. lol. But in the end he did of course let me go and we all got back to church safely. Poor old guy. I feel so bad for him but he's always, always, always out of it. He isn't even coherent most of the time. It's a huge liability to bring him on the bus with us so all we can do is try to witness and hope he remembers some of it. I don't know where he lives, he just wanders around Nogalitos. You might pray for him. No one even knows his name.
The guy who bought the Jeep is going to pay to get the headliner fixed so I took it in this morning and met a really nice guy named Ramon. He is going to fix the headliner with original cloth for only around $80. I thought that was a phenomenal price. He's a great guy. I asked him for a receipt (so that I can prove to the guy buying the Jeep that I'm not just ripping him off for 1000 pesos) and he didn't have a receipt book so he just wrote it off on a piece of notebook paper. I might keep it, it's really cool looking. I think it appeals to my sense of propriety because he signed it and everything. Very old fashioned. Also got the driver's side door fixed (because it wouldn't open) for only 50 pesos though it actually needs to be opened up and re-soldered. I wasn't really in the mood for doing that though. Bleh. It opens now which is enough for me.
Top Three Things I'm Looking Forward to Doing in Maryland:
- Buying new clothes.
- Having hot water.
- Having spending money.
Thanks for reading everyone! I'll see y'all on Friday!!
Reality Check Sorta
May 14, 2010
Love how no one noticed that Barcelona isn't even a country. Portugal is supposed to be the country of the week, a place that doesn't even include Barcelona, not sure where I even pulled Barcelona from. Maybe all the soccer talk going on around here what with the World Cup taking place. None of the Mexicans even support their own team, Italy seems to be the safest bet at the moment.
Things are coming to a head with Misael and his druggie house. There's a few sides to the situation, the most popular one being that maybe he's still too young of a Christian. Pray that Pastor Dorr would have wisdom concerning this situation and that it doesn't get too bad. We genuinely want to help these people but as none of us really have any experience with this sort of thing (except Brittany) things are kind of getting out of control. We discovered that Claudia, a 16 year old girl who has been coming fairly faithfully, is actually living with a 43 year old man. They're married according to what we call the law of the bush which is absolutely horrible when you think about it. I guess were just all at the point where we have no idea what to do and it's up to God. Which is was from the beginning, but you get what I mean.
We've been having this really great Revelations class on Tuesdays going chapter by chapter through that book. The thing that really got me last Tuesday during class was chapter 20 when it talks about all the unsaved people being thrown into Hell forever. Forever is forever is forever. Imagine! That's awful!! It just made me think, that's all. Everyone must have a chance to not go there. It's our job to give them that chance, that's why we are here. We're not required to force them to get saved, simply to give them the opportunity.
Graduation is coming up the 28th of May, a Friday, not sure what time. I've got to go rent the graduation gowns sometime here in the coming week, clear out my room (hard!) and get the Jeep finally sold. Bleh!
Thank you everyone for reading!! See you Monday!
Behind the Scenes
May 10, 2010
Happy Mother's Day, everyone! In Mexico it's actually Mother's Day today. The 10th of May, not the second Sunday like they do in America. So I don't feel too guilty about not being able to call my mom yesterday. Love you Mom!! If she's around, hug your mother today. lol
Been craziness this week, I mean, really. On Thursday I was put in charge of getting 80 bouquets for our Mother's Day service so that was kinda crazy. It worked out though we ended up with 77 bouquets instead of 80 but that was okay because we had about fifteen extras. Sunday was nice because we had a lot of new mothers at church, pray that they'll come back.
There was no update on Friday because we started a new woman's visitation that starts at three-thirty on Friday so if I'm going to update on Friday's it's going to have to be in the morning. I hadn't realized that until around three-thirty on Friday so..no update. lol But it'll all work out, I like the new visitation.
I'm such a horrible maid of honor. Every week I go over things with Steph for her wedding but it's hard being in another country and planning a wedding when I can't see the things that are going on. But it's working out, it'll be great. I'm all panicked about actually going back to Maryland though, those first three weeks are going to be hectic crazy. Brittany will be there and she wants to see New York and D.C. which I do too but Steph is then getting married the 12th and it's like...aaahhhh! Plus I won't have a job at that point in time and I'm running out of money (not like..running out of money I'm almost broke or anything but I won't have crazy amounts of spending money until I actually start to work, imagine that, lol) so finances are going to be weird. No worries though.
But no really, every time I talk to my dad I get more and more excited about going back to work in Maryland. I'm finished here, my time is over, I've done everything I'm going to get done here, now I just need to find someone to give all of my stuff to, pack, graduate and get home. There's so much new stuff going on in MD that sounds absolutely fun, things that will utilize skills I have (I have skillz!) that I am not using now and it'll be a good place to grow, to start the next portion of my life, you know? I'm officially closing a chapter here, ready to start another one and for the first time I'm ready to not be here in Mexico. Finally. lol
Have a great week, y'all! Pray for us!
Extra! Extra!
May 5, 2010
Quick update on Kimberly, she's fine. Apparently it had nothing to do with intestines being twisted up, it had to do with the small intestine getting sucked into the large intestine. !!!! But apparently this isn't as serious nor rare as it sounds so Kimberly made it through the surgery with flying colors (red and blue) and is still in Obregon but will be returning sometime in the week I believe. Thank you every one for your prayers.
Behind the Scenes
May 3, 2010
Before you start reading the rest of this post, please stop and pray for Kimberly Kuefler, Annie and Jon's daughter. They took her to Obregon today to operate on her intestines which, from what I understand, have been twisted around or something. They were to start operating at 5:00 p.m. Pray that the operation is successful and that Kimberly heals quickly.
Welcome to May, everyone! Did a bit of site maintaining earlier, spring cleaning if you will. I love the new logo, the whiskers are my favorite although the graininess of it is GIMP's fault. As much as I love free and open source not a whole lot beats Adobe Photoshop CS. It's obvious I'm going to have to invest in a copy for my Mac. Investment that will probably pay off though. (-Goes to price check on eBay-) Alrighty, well the prices go from not too bad ($280) to no-way-am-I-ever-paying-that ($600). So we shall see. -cough-graduation-cough-present-coughcough-
As you can see I have a picture for you all today! Those are the mimes! (I'm the one in the skirt with the curly hair in case you were wondering. LOL!! Kidding...kidding...) I was born to be a mime, I'm sure. I do so well with not talking. (Hard to imagine, I know...hahaha.) Seriously though. We had the best act. Misael, the one to my left, is so expressive! In fact, all of the guys are super expressive with their faces. Alan, the really, really tall one on my right, had it down even to that peculiar walk mimes have. Uriel (the one to Misael's left) is a natural actor. It was pretty sweet. The one on the far left is Fernando, a new kid who came to live with us last Thursday. I swear he has only said one word to me this whole time, poor guy. That word was 'Gracias' because I gave him some coffee. He's really sweet, has a sad story. I printed off five copies of this picture and handed them out to the whole group of us and he kept looking at it and smiling. He already fits in really well, is a hard worker. With time he'll open up, everyone does.
Quite a lot of updates today. We'll start with Carla. I originally mentioned her and asked for prayer. Well, she still needs prayer but we've learned some things about her that are good. We thought she'd lost her baby but she hasn't, I talked to her on Saturday and she's still working at a taco stand in the market and she took my number from me so if she needs something she can get into contact. Really pray for her, she doesn't want to come to church anymore but that's okay. We still want to help her. Marcos, the other kid I asked for prayer for in the same post has come back to church. I haven't heard anything about the drugs but he's definitely doing something because he's a changed kid. But he's still coming to church which is something. We have a door.
As for Misael's druggie house, he's started a small service there on Mondays but we're looking to extend it to two days. The kids, Claudia and Martin, who live there keep coming to church and aren't as shy as they used to be. They still need a lot of prayer though, only three of them are in any condition to actually attend church.
New things! There's a guy on the route now named Andres who is really attending faithfully. I say faithfully and he's only come two services but he did attend the all day conference last Saturday and is helping Misael out with his Bible study in Pueblo Nuevo (the druggies). Pray that he'll continue to come faithfully and keep helping out. We need more workers.
We had 98 (noventa y ocho, ninety-eight, 10 x 9 + 8!!!) yesterday on the bus. (Can you say exhausting?!) The best news about that number? Only 10 of those people came because it was a special day (we had cake and celebrated Kid's Day). Then there were four first time visitors (which, granted, might never come back) but that still leaves at least 80 people who come faithfully! And we were still lacking a few of our regulars. So, all that to say, if everyone on the route would come at the same time (which very rarely happens) we would have pretty close to 100 people every week. Not sure I could handle that. lol
Well, that pretty much concludes this post. It's been a good week, only have about three more, give or take, which is absolutely shocking. Four years. I've been here four years and it all comes down to the next three weeks. That's amazing.
Take care, everyone! Have a great week!
