Día de Niño (Kid's day)

Almost the whole Gang

We got to help out our church celebrate kid's day. Kids came both from Anahuác and a new outreach being started in Cuauhtémoc.

Chowing down

I was the chauffeur for the day. It was a lot of fun. They did a thing called 'Raining Balloons' (no description needed)

Up they went

Down they came!

We had about 50 kids. What fun!

Guadalajara

It feels like just yesterday we threw the idea out there to have our staff retreat in Guadalajara while combining it with a trip to check out our future home. Tomorrow is the day we fly there to spend the next 9 days. We are extremely excited to be spending the next week with our fellow missionaries here in Mexico, and also to see some of Guadalajara. We fly tomorrow evening at 9...thankfully a direct flight so not a long time...along with Dallas and Tara and their boys. Please pray that we will have safe travels and a great time down south at our retreat.

Goodbyes

God is so Good

Today we had our final kids' club in Vista Hermosa...it was hard for both us and the kids who are regulars. The young man who recently became a Christian cried and stayed around to help us clean the house and said over and over how much he was going to miss us. We got many hugs and lots of pictures were taken until our batteries died.

It was a party day to end things off so we sang favorite songs, played games outside (thankfully today there was no wind so it was possible), enjoyed pop, donuts and chips (our traditional kids' club party food), and of course handed out prizes for all their stickers which today also included candy bags and cards from us. The kids thoroughly enjoyed it, but didn't want it to end. We do hope in the future kids' club in this area can continue but the lady that was going to do it for us is on church discipline...which means she can't be involved fully by herself right now.

Exciting things are happening within the hearts of these kids. Today we saw the excitement of many of them as they were told about an Adolescent group at the Ebenezer church that gets together after the service. A few of these kids have gone to church the past 2 Sundays with a willing lady in their area. Last Sunday 3 kids had to be turned away due to lack of room in the vehicle (never knew that was possible in Mexico) so thankfully the pastor has arranged one other man will come by to pick up whoever wants to go. This all kinda makes me ask...why do we only get to see these extremely exciting things happen right when we have to leave? But then I also think...maybe I just wasn't seeing it before.
God is so Good!!!

Passports

We just received an answer to prayer once again and thank you to all who prayed for this. I just got a call that the girls' passports have arrived and we just need to go pick them up:) Now we have this peace of mind as we travel next week, and one less thing to think about.

Accepting Jesus

The last few days we have started slowing down our ministries in preparation to leaving in 5 1/2 weeks. Wow, the time has flown and we can't believe it's the time to be ending some things, starting to pack up in a couple of weeks, and move on to another adventure.  Friday I had my last study for one of my Bible Studies, and this coming Tuesday I will have the last of my other Bible study. I hope to visit these ladies still a few more times before the final good-bye, but I'll have a bit more time to focus on preparing my family for a big move both physically and mentally. Yesterday was our 2nd last kids' club...and LeRoy went alone due to myself and the girls both fighting some kind of bug and colds and due to the wind storm we were having and didn't want to mix that with the colds to make it all worse. It feels so weird to be finishing these things. Weird, sad, hard, and yet exciting to know what's ahead both in a few weeks and in fall with moving to Guadalajara.

LeRoy is preaching this morning in Santa Tomas once again for the final time. Because we're still fighting something, the kids and I, we stayed home. We've been having a great morning..cuddling, reading books, the girls painted, and now they are playing mommy and baby once again. And Nolan is happy in his jolly jumper:)

Yesterday when LeRoy went to kids' club we learned of such exciting news. One of the boys, 12 years old, who has been coming to club faithfully accepted Jesus as his Savior this past Monday with one of the local store owners who is also a Believer. We have been seeing this boy growing and hungry to learn so much more, and he has now made a decision to follow Jesus!! Praise the Lord!! We have also been seeing a few young girls around the same age paying so much more attention to the stories we've been teaching. We did hear that one woman who attends the Ebenezer church brought 3 of these girls to church with her last Sunday and we weren't suprised to hear which girls these were. Pray that these kids will continue to be hungry for the Word, and that someone will be teaching them and encouraging them day to day...Leaving kids' club is probably the hardest ministry here for us to leave as that's where we have seen the most growth, and we don't know this club will be able to continue. But we know that God is working and will continue to work long after we have said good-bye.

Please continue to pray that Brooklyn and Emma's passports will arrive this week. It would give us a huge peace of mind as we are planning on flying next Monday to Guadalajara for our staff retreat. We are so excited for this retreat. To reunite with our fellow missionaries for 8-9 days, fellowship together, relax together, dream about our future there, and have a first impression of our future home. And of course it will be a nice change to the busyness of packing up and prepping to leave.

Very relaxed

This weekend was a relaxing weekend with a full house:) My uncle Ken...aka EMC Foreign secretary...was down here for some meetings to explain to the conference why we are moving down south...and some other things to address. These meetings also involved LeRoy and Dallas some so Dallas, Tara, and boys joined us this weekend as well. It's always fun having a full house with great people. Between meetings we were able to visit about lots of different things which included some things that have been on our minds a lot and making us feel stressed. Now it feels that we are less stressed as we were able to bounce these ideas off of those we work with face to face and get feedback.

One of our thoughts taking up space in our minds was with when exactly and how we would move all our stuff to Guadalajara, since we're going to Canada in between...and where to store it in the meantime. Now it's looking like we have a perfect solution, and we're praying it works out. Our co-workers John and Connie Reimer who are in GDL already, are putting an offer into a house to rent for themselves tomorrow. We are praying they get this for themselves so they can stop thinking about this factor, and at the same time it would benefit us. They have offered that we can move all of our stuff directly to their house. While we are in Canada they can make use of our stuff so we don't have to try storing it somewhere expensive, and they don't have to rush finding furniture and things they'll need:) Win win situation...pray with us this can all work out.