Feliz Navidad and Happy Boxing Day today! We have had a full month. The Camrose Alberta Team finished their time with us with a prayer walk around the Lago de Guadalupe (Lake Guadalupe), a subdivision where we hope to have our new church plant. The girls finished their semester of school and we were off to Texas to have some Mexico field meetings and do some Christmas shopping where the prices are much better.
After various trips to the border, I have finally captured some photos of an interesting sight that you see between Mexico City and the border: semi-trailer trucks without cabs being driven by Mexican men, often sitting on a wooden box! The cabs are available here in Mexico but the chassis are far more expensive. For this reason, it is economically worthwhile to drive these "vehicles" across the desert. The first truck we ever saw like this passed us near the Retreat Center in Acolman. The driver was wearing eye goggles and had a long scarf around his neck. As we gawked at him passing, he yelled, in English with his Mexican Spanish accent, "Look at me in my flying machine!" The guys we got pictures of this time had to pass through a half an hour of rain. We saw about 15 of these contraptions during our drive north to Texas.
During our meetings in Texas, the highlight was a morning spent with Paul and Roxanne Wilson. They are currently attending the language school we went to in South Texas and will be administering a camp in Cuernavaca, a city just SW of Mexico City. They have years of experience with Christian Camping in Wisconsin and were a wealth of information and an inspiration to us in regards to the Lily of the Valley Retreat Center. Since we've been back to Mexico City, we've been working on planning a campfire area at the Retreat Center that has seating.
Just after we returned from Texas, the Quinceanera of Frida arrived. Frida is the 15year old daughter of Jorge, our driver when missions teams come. Jorge invited us to this event over a year ago. A quinceanera celebrates the 15th birthday of a girl, symbolizing that she has now become a woman. We got a kick out of the invitation, an orange colored puzzle that said to come bathed, perfumed and on time for the party. Frida loves to dance and had been practising three special dances with her dance troupe for about two years. Jorge also practised dancing with Frida for his father/daughter waltz. Our girls told me that when Jorge was dressed up in his tuxedo, he looked like a Mexican James Bond. Jorge's wife, Lilia is wearing the teal gown and their younger daughter, Alexis was also all dressed up. Frida made a dramatic entrance from a stairway that lowered from the second floor. Two young men escorted her to the center of the room to join her parents. Besides Frida's dances, Jorge hired a live band and another female soloist. We recognized and knew one of the soloist's spanish songs "Como La Flor" from the "Selena" movie and of course, the Achy Breaky Heart line dance song. As it sped up at the end of the line dance, the singers had to work very hard to fit all the Spanish lyrics in!
