Where is a cop when you need one?

Where is a cop when you need one? Pulling over Marcel! For the second time in three months, Marcel has been pulled over. The cops tried three other times but it was unsafe to do so, so he kept driving. Because of smog problems in the Federal District, the government introduced a law that restricts driving your vehicle by one day a week (hence the reason everybody has an older, more polluting second vehicle to use during that day). The last number of your license plate will determine which day of the week one may not drive. Our license plate ends with a seven; thus, we can't drive on Tuesdays. Unfortunately, the police take advantage of this very convolluted law to pull over foreign vehicles and try to "fine" people for circulating on Fridays; the reason I was pulled over. People are often threatened with large "fines" or even seizure of the vehicle. Fortunately, we have made ourselves quite familiar with the law and we also threaten that we will call our boss, who is Mexican, so that the police can explain the law to him and can thus better translate for us the problem. At this point, the police suddenly have a change of heart and let us go. A missionary with another missions agency told me he threatens to call his embassy and they immediately let him go. I am so grateful for the better policing we find in the US and Canada.

I should note the picture above was not the police officer that pulled me over. The picture above was taken by an old college friend, Claus, who quickly snapped this photo of one of the youths from Killaloe, Ontario.

After our police incident, we went home and did a second day of paper work: filling out forms for our Mexican visas, expense forms, embassy registration forms and doing change of address forms. Desk work is boring but a necessary part of our job.

On the flight path

Besides being on the base leg of Mexico City International Airport which lets me see all sort of great aircraft everyday from around the world ( Iberia Airlines A-340s and KLM 747-400s for example), then there are these two aircraft. The reason that they are noteworthy is that they are very loud, not because of their engines but because of their speakers. The picture of the little yellow plane (a Piper Super Cub) in noteworthy because almost everyday the plane buzzes our neighbourhood at low level with a loud speaker that is advertising homes for sale in a new development. You can hear the thing for miles. The picture of the helicopter is of the police helicopter for Atizapan which today flew over our kids' school at about 300' above ground level with its siren blaring. That right, it has a siren...a very loud siren...and bad guys can hear it from miles away. I don't think they ever turn the siren off.

Who puts a play ground in the middle of a boulevard ?

Marcel and Ingrid spent the school day hours meeting with the Barons and the Ruizes. Marcel was able to help the Barons with some computer work while Ingrid received a lesson on menu planning for the mission teams from Sue Baron. Ingrid heard many new Spanish words for kitchen items ranging from "sweetened condensed milk" to the names of various delicious Mexican dishes. The most shocking discovery today was that "avacado" is NOT a Spanish word! The correct word in Spanish is "aguacate". We also discussed and assessed the NAB's current three areas of work in Mexico: 1) the retreat centre/camp, 2) the Christ Lives Bible Church, and 3) church planting.

The photo we are posting is just for a bit of fun. We came across this Kodak moment while driving our children to school. (You'll need to click on this photo to be able to clearly see the humor of this situation.) Just ahead of and to the left of the semitruck, there is a large excavated area, dug out to allow work to be done on the plumbing below the street. This street is lined with various stores, leaving only the center boulevard "free." Therefore, the excavated dirt was dumped on the boulevard in spite of the presence of a playground. This slide has a tall ladder but only a very short slide down to the "ground"!

A new day at school

It is not in the classiest neighbourhood in town (pardon the pun) but our children's school is a nice safe place to be that wonderfully combines faith with learning. Today was our kids first full day of school and yes, most of them received homework. So far they really like their teachers and seem to be very keen to do good work for them. All the teachers are from the United States and Mexico and they are Christians. The student body of about 60 students seems to be evenly made up between Americans, Canadians, Mexicans and Koreans. The parents of the students are mostly missionaries but some are also living here for business or they work at a diplomatic mission. The children engage in all the usual subjects one would have north of the border but have the added benefit of learning Spanish from a wonderful Mexican teacher. English is used in class but Spanish is the language of choice on the playground.

Hanging out with the Hamilton team

While we were at the beach, a group from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada was busily painting at the retreat centre in Acolman. Royce and Sue Baron supervised their work on the boys dormitory rooms, the dormitory hallway, and the three families/couples rooms on the main floor of the house.

We were able to join this group early Saturday morning and we headed downtown for a tourist day. We visited the Basilica of the Virgin Guadelupe, the Artesans' Market, and the central plaza that is called the Zocalo. At the Zocalo we saw the huge Mexican flag in the center of the plaza, we visited the Metropolitan Cathedral, and inside the National Palace (federal government building) we saw some famous murals. The murals were painted by Diego Rivera and depict events in Mexican history. We also enjoyed lunch at the famous Sanborns restaurant, The House of Tiles. This building is one of the beautiful historic district buildings that are a part of the 1,500 historic buildings of downtown Mexico City that were given UNESCO recognition in 1988.

The group then went to the Christ Lives Bible Church to have some fun with the Mexican youth group. This Gateway Team visiting from Hamilton, Ontario was lead by Randy Schmor. They led us in some singing (Spanish and English) and new friends were made as we ate Dominoes pizza and then played some games. The picture is of the Canadians and Mexicans playing a game called "Wink".

A few more pictures of our trip to Puerto Vallarta

Picture 1: The secluded beach of Yelapa.

Picture 2:Brittany enjoying a Pacific sunset.

Picture 3: The old church at the town center.

Picture 4: Swimming with tropical fish.

Vacation time in Puerto Vallarta

We apologize for not updating this blog over the past week while we were on vacation; our first vacation in three years and the first one our family has taken at a resort. The Ruiz' have a membership in a travel club and they got us a sweet deal on a vacation package in Puerto Vallarta. We stayed at the Mayan Palace resort where we were well served and stayed in a very nice two bedroom suite. Unfortunately, the price at just about every American-style restaurant in the city is more expensive than north of the border. It is a good thing we know which Mexican restaurants to go to get more reasonable prices.
The top picture is of the resort hotel in which we stayed. It was sure nice to be here to re-heat our bodies because contrary to popular opinion, Mexico City is not warm (so much for global warming). The city is so high in altitude that the temperature in summer is not as warm as many Canadian cities in summer.
The second picture is of the damage to one street in Puerto Vallarta after we got some rain from the remnants of Huricane Dean. One hotel host told us that the water in downtown P.V. got up to two meters (six feet) deep in some places. In our state of Mexico, where we live, ten people died from the huricane weather.
The last picture is of the girls in front of the Arches on the P.V. boardwalk. The downtown core has a rustic colonial apeal to it. P.V. was nice, but now its time to get back to work and get the kids in school.
We have one more missions team coming to help with construction at the camp in about a week. They are from Ohio and we are looking forward to having them here. Pray for their travelling mercies and a good missions experience for them.

So you want to know what the camp looks like

I know many of you are interested in the camp ministry that the Mexico field has. It is in a colonia (neigbourhood) called Granjas in the village of Tepexpan in the Municipal District of Acolman in the State of Mexico. It is maybe a couple of acres big and has several buildings to accommodate campers.

The top picture is of our family dorms that are currently under construction. We have eight such rooms on the bottom floor that are unable to be used yet because we lack the funds for completion. The last group that came to us from Killaloe, Ontario did a tremendous amount of work plumbing the rooms but more work needs to be done. On top of the family dorms is a future recreation room that is very large and will keep the kids entertained when the summer rains come.

The second picture is of our future kitchen and dining area (bottom floor). Currently we can use the space for worship but it is lacking all the finishing work and large industrial kitchen wares that a camp needs. Atop the kitchen area are the boys dorms. There are three large rooms that each have bathrooms to accommodate the large crowds that we get. Currently the rooms are used but they are very rustic. A group from Hamilton will be joining us this week to paint the boys dorms among other tasks we have for them.

The third picture is of our field. This is where we play games with the kids and often have soccer tournaments. Juan, Carolina and their two sons (our care takers) live in the little house in the top left corner, partially obscured by the tree.

The final photo is of the main house which is used to house the girls and serves as the kitchen and dining area. Frankly, the house is too small and the kitchen is not able to properly service large groups.

It has been estimated by the Mexico field that we need $100 thousand dollars to complete construction and thus help the camp to become self sustaining so that the camp could be utilized year round.

If you would like to help in this matter please contact us directly or contact the headquarters of the North American Baptist Conference:

North American Baptist Conference

1 South 210 Summit Avenue

Oakbrooke Terrace, Illinois

60181

USA

Or call 630. 495.2000

That sinking feeling

Mexico City is for the most part built on a dried out lake bed. Over many years the Lake Texcoco was drained so that this ever growning city would be accommodated. The problem is that Mexico City is built on very porous earth; thus many buildings in the city are sinking, including the one you see in the picture. This building, the second of three basilicas to the Virgin Guadalupe, is listing about 2 or 3 meters lower on the one side than the other. The church is under some major renovations to stop futher damage. Since the ground is so porous, the other problem is that earthquakes, which are frequent here, are amplified. In 1985 a strong earthquake leveled many buildings, killing between 10 and 14,000 people. Even a large heavy truck driving by can shake a building, as we experienced last night at a store.

Feliz Cumpleaños

Yesterday we celebrated Marcel's 39th birthday. Our family tradition is that whoever has a birthday gets to decide supper for everyone. Marcel chose to go to Chili's. The girls got a telescope for Marcel's birthday so he can see, from our mountaintop home, all the buildings and landmarks across the city. Ingrid wanted to make a cake but time ran out and so a Black Forest cake was purchased at Costco.

Cena...Supper

The group from Killaloe, Ontario enjoyed two evenings at a restaurant near the camp called The California. It is a family run restaurant that offers very good food at excellent prices. A plate of BBQ ribs and fries will cost you under $5. These guys deserved a good meal. They worked very hard and helped the camp tremendously over the two weeks that they were with us. One of the waitresses is going to Victoria, British Columbia for a month to study English. I think with all the groups that we bring from the US and Canada, she will be able to put her learning to good use.

Time to build an ark

Mexico City is situated in a high mountain basin and when it rains, it pours. All the water from the mountains comes down the slopes and floods the lower valley areas very rapidly. This past week we entered one of those storms and saw a rapidly growing and fast flowing river on the main street that we must take to get home from camp and church. Enjoy the video!
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-1978913866201851228&hl=en-CA

Swimming home after work in Acolman

A couple of weeks ago, we were driving to our home in Atizapan from the retreat centre in Acolman when the traffic inched to a crawl. We progressed only a couple of blocks after an hour and a half. The truck driver beside us stood on his running board to look ahead down the street and we asked him if there was an accident ahead. He told us that the water is very deep, up to our truck window! That was enough for us. We gave up and turned around. That meant an extra two hours of driving around the mountains (back east, south, then west again) to get to our house.

Tonight, we were able to continue driving through this same stretch of road after a heavy rainfall. Wow! There was a river running down half of the street, being fed by other streets joining from mountainsides. There even was a current that could sweep you away if you should try to walk across the street. Small cars were overwhelmed with water and quit.

Other than this adventurous trip home tonight, we are doing very well. This morning, our girls had free medical exams as part of their entrance requirements for the school they will attend in a few weeks, Mexico City Christian Academy. The clinic was put on by a group from Baylor University in Texas. Then we went to camp and discovered that the paint we had bought was not a milky coffee color but rather, terracotta. It turned out to be a color we liked even though it was a mistake. Besides painting, the group from Ontario, Canada also did a lot of roughing in of plumbing today and we are delighted with their progress. We enjoyed Enchiladas Verdes for supper.

Artisans' Market - Artesanias de Ciudadela

This is a picture of a large artisans' (craftsmen's) market in the historic district of downtown Mexico City. Crafts are brought from all over the country of Mexico to be sold at this market with just a few extras that have been made in China. Surprisingly, the prices at this market are very good. Marcel has been bringing groups to one particular booth that sells pure silver items. The vendors are two Methodist ladies and they have been very generous! Our visiting tourists are able to purchase items at exceptionally good prices.

Marcel bought Petra a pair of silver hoop earrings, a necklace, and a bracelet made of a chain of little sombreros. Above Petra's head hang a Mayan calendar and a Day of the Dead skull mask. You can also see hammocks, zarapes (colorful woven Mexican blankets), toys, ceramics, t-shirts, windchimes, and puppets. This market also has a luthier's shop where mandolins and guitars are made by hand. Someone from our current group bought a mandolin with a case for $60 U.S. dollars.

Mexican Mounted Police

On Saturday, I (Marcel) took a group of summer missionaries to downtown Mexico City, as we often do, to let the group buy touristy things at the Ciudadela de Artesanias (Artisans' Market). When time permits, we will walk to a nearby Christian bookstore, the Palacio de Bellas Artes (Palace of Fine Arts) and eventually we arrive at the Zocolo or city centre where we can see the Catedral Metropolitana (Metropolitan Cathedral), the Palacio Nacional (National Palace - government house) and the ancient Templo Mayor, an Aztec temple archeological site that was accidentally discovered in the 1970's when Mexico City's Metro subway was being built. We had an interesting suprise this last time. We were right by the monument to Benito Juarez when we saw two mounted police from the Distrito Federal Policía. Maybe the uniform is not as crisp as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police with their red coats and Stetsons, but the sombrero and mariachi-like uniform sure was cool!

Snail Wrangling

Hmmm... aren't little BOYS made of "snipes and snails and puppy dog tails"? Our three youngest girlies had a blast catching this scoopful of snails in Royce and Sue Baron's backyard.

New Dormitory Roof

Our new dormitory roof was completed in mid June - and just in time for our rainy season! Actually, the rainy season in Mexico City is not as difficult as I had imagined. It begins to rain each afternoon at about 4 p.m. and will continue to rain, usually for two hours but sometimes right through the night. (At our house, we haven't had to water our tiny patch of new backyard sod even once.)

The new roof seems to be holding off the water very well so far. Both floors of this end of the dormitory are empty concrete rooms that we weren't able to use yet for camps this year.