Different Seasons

Its HOLY WEEK here in Mexico... which means everyone is heading to the beach! Most Mexican families do family vacation this weekend at the beach... every beach in all of Mexico will be swamped with people... so we are going today too. It will be Ko and Jan's first time to see the crowds. I'll try to take a few pics of us in the crowds.

Also, HOLY WEEK has its own weird traditions, all through lent, and right up till domingo de resurreccion, and in this area it is very weird looking with the MAYO indians and the catholic church. Every night we hear drums going on somewhere and weird music. There are firecrackers every night to show which home is having the party. I think each town does this, and there are about 4 towns around us... not all that close, but close enough to hear the parties going on. We see these guys called "Pharisees" dressed up with the masks and all sorts of traditional garb every day... just walking down the street, or walking past our place, or in town shopping, or on the highway. They are everywhere this whole month and especially this week.

Yesterday we were commenting that it will be great to have them gone. Just today and tomorrow left, and the whole Indian dancers with masks will be over, for another year anyway.

The seasons are soooo different down here. Jan was mentioning she would like to have some tulips. Sadly I had to share that we can never find Oregon flowers like that. I dont think I have seen a daffodil in 5 years! We are lucky missionaries that we get to go back home every year, but it turns out to never be in the spring. This is our busy time here with the TOUR and lots of printing books. So, instead of Easter bunnies, chocolate eggs, family time with a Ham dinner, and an awesome church service.... we get weird Indian dancers, and BEACH FUN!

We couldnt find a ham anywhere, but we did find a pork roast, so that will do for a nice meal, and we will enjoy our internet church tomorrow for Easter Sunday. Plus, a fun trip to the beach today!

Thank you God!

It has been an exciting few weeks ministering in guadalajara at a National Congreso, as well as events in Guad, Tepic, Mazatlan, and Culiacan. Dwight couldnt make it with us on this trip, so my brother and his family joined us to help with the ministry; Jon and Angie with Monique and Aria. My inlaws Ko and Jan Krauss have been living with us and working with us in the ministry and they were a huge help on the trip. After the ministry trip was over, everyone went home, and Dwight met me in Mazatlan as we celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. We had a great time... but first a little about the ministry. I dont have a ton of pictures, but what I do have is thanks to Ko, Jan, Jon or Angie. They were awesome!!

Praise God we finished the first part of the 2010 tour!!!

It has been a crazy few weeks!

We spent two weeks touring for the ministry, starting with a congreso in Guadalajara...

Everyone made a puppet for childrens ministry, and it was a lot of fun to see all the creativity.

The exciting part of this congreso in Guadalajara was that it was our first National event! People traveled from all over Mexico to attend. The vision was to teach the leaders an event that they could use to train teachers in their area.

They responded great, and asked me to do it again next year; something specific for the leaders so that they have something to do with their teachers. I was thrilled to meet them and to be able to minister to them.

Below you can see a picture of me with the territory leaders. Each one of these ladies is responsible for the childrens ministry in 50 to 300 churches! They represent more than 1000 churches from all over the country of Mexico! Praise God for this awesome opportunity.

After the congreso we had a fun visit to a pyramid where we got to see some really old rocks. :)

Then a whirl-wind week of ministry where we passed out free childrens ministry packs and sold a bunch of student books to hundreds of teachers from hundreds of churches from lots of different denominations.

I really enjoyed sharing the vision of the new 2010 material.... something that took me 9 months of work in the office to make!

Each city had a different flavor and a different group of teachers.

Im sooooo glad to be home. But Im mostly thankful that God protected us as we traveled, and gave me what to say to these teachers to inspire them to continue serving at their local churches.

We are thankful to be a part of something God is doing for Childrens Ministry here in Mexico.

Praise God we made it thru this first part of the tour!