Volcano Popocatépetl is Active (Click Here to see live Volcano Cam)

We have noticed over the past few days that the volcano on the other side of the Mexico City mountain basin, Popocatépetl, has been smoking very actively this past week. Perhaps this is the sign of a major eruption ready to happen; who knows? It is one of the most active volcanoes in the world. So for your interest, I have linked this post with a live cam of the volcano. The above picture is a still of the live cam. Click on the title of this post to see the live cam.
I, Marcel, saw an eruption three years ago and it was one of the most awesome sights that I have ever seen with ash being shot miles into the atmosphere.

The Shock of the Second Commandment

Our ladies' Bible study group is going through a panorama of the Bible. This week, we got to the chapter that tells of the Ten Commandments. We have a beautiful study book with an accompanying workbook. There are also CDs with recordings of a man's dramatic readings of each chapter and some occasional sound effects. I'm particularly grateful for these CDs as they save me taking my turn and poorly reading out loud in Spanish. The ladies are all very kind and only laugh that I always get the long passages to read - "More opportunity to practise for me!"

We have happened upon a new witnessing technique. One day, we accidentally dropped the CDs off at the wrong house (correct house number but wrong street). It was several days before we realized the error. Then we were a little worried but burst out laughing at our mistake. Those people must have wondered where these CDs came from and they MUST have been curious and listened a bit, don't you think? This situation also provided opportunity to invite this family to our study.

So now that we are again listening to our lovely CDs, we paused at the end of a section to see if there were questions or comments. "Are the Ten Commandments the same in every Bible?" "Well, you have a Catholic Bible there. What does Exodus 20 say in your Bible?" We discovered that yes, each Bible said the same thing. Then the ladies looked at each other in silence for several seconds. "Why does the second commandment say not to bow before a false idol and yet our Catholic churches are full of statues and pictures? Come to think of it, our whole country is full of statues that we pray to. It says very clearly here that we are breaking God's law to do this! Haven't the priests read this?"

Three weeks ago, we were surprised to see the Martin Luther biography movie was being shown on Mexican television. Just as it came to the part where Martin Luther sent his letter to his bishop explaining his deep concerns with current Catholic practise, the movie abruptly stopped! There was a test pattern for 20 minutes and we decided that we'd have to find a DVD of this new movie of Luther's life and watch the rest another time. We flicked back to check if the test pattern remained. It did but then, we saw Luther once again. We watched and realized that they were playing the previous 5 minutes before the interuption of tranmission. We were delighted and watched the movie through to the end.

Like the ladies in our study group, Luther wondered if the other priests had read the Bible as well.

"Word of God speak. Fall down like rain. Causing my eyes to see Your majesty."

Mexico Team Meetings

We've had a 14 hour trip, with stops, from our home in Mexico City to Puerto Vallarta where we had Mexico Team Meetings with fellow NAB Mexico missionaries, the Ruiz family. It was a bit of torture to have meetings indoors at a hotel beside the beach but we did it. We spent hours over several days writing and editting as a team and ended our meetings with a renewed vision regarding how we would serve in Mexico City.
As we arrived in Puerto Vallarta, we went to the store to buy bread and milk for breakfast. Our truck broke down but a kind Mexican mechanic helped us. He changed our fuel pump right in the parking lot! In the process, the gas tank slipped and fell on the pavement, splashing gasoline into the mechanic's eyes. The next day, we had further mechanical problems. Another mechanic discovered that a small seal was missing near our fuel filter. As I helped Marcel back the truck out of the narrow parking lot, the German Shepherd guard dog chained to the wall nudged the back of my leg with his nose. That was because he had lundged with his mouth open to bite me! God blessed me with a chain an inch shorter than what he needed to bite me.
Our two families spent a few hours at Punta de Mita, north of Puerto Vallarta. The pelicans were huge!
We listened to a sales pitch for whale watching or fishing trips. We had supper at a restaurant on the beach and ate a local fish specialty that is baked whole. After Marcel's offer of 10 pesos (1 dollar), Daniel offered to, for free, eat the fish eye. Not to be outdone by his little brother, David ate one, too. The things competition can drive you to do!

We especially enjoyed the last three hours of sunlight at the beach on the night before we drove back to the city. Dylan, Kirklyn, and Emma went bodysurfing. The older Ruiz boys played soccer on the sand, and everyone swam in the ocean. It was nice to spend a few smog free days at the warm coast.

The New Psycho In Our Yard

Our new black labrador puppy is dealing with culture shock. His name is Psycho. Or rather, Saicou. He spent his first night at our house last night and it went quite well with just 10 minutes of crying and howling! Psycho came from a litter of 11 puppies from a white Canadian lab father and a black German lab mother. Where did the unusual name come from? It's Japanese! The Mexican family who have cared for 11tumbly labrador pups for two long months had lived in Japan for 6 years. Each puppy received a Japanese name. Our little Psycho's name means "awesome" in Japanese. We cracked up laughing at this falsely intimidating name! Then we had to explain that it is a slang word in English that means a psychotic person. Then the Mexican family joined in on the laughter:)
We were blessed to have spent New Year's Eve with this family and the Ruizes. Their daughter is Kirklyn's age and their son plays soccer with Dylan Ruiz. We had fun learning how to play a wooden table game that I can pronounce but don't know how to spell (crow-ken-al). We also enjoyed the end of the live broadcast from downtown Mexico City. We saw the fireworks out our window and then would watch them "up close" on the television broadcast. We learned about the Mexican tradition of "12 wishes, 12 grapes". As the countdown approached midnight, we realized that everyone else was frantically stuffing each person's 12 grapes into their mouths. Guess you're supposed to eat one grape for each of the last 12 seconds of the year as well as making 12 wishes. It was a "you had to be there" moment but us Canadians once again provided some laughs as we totally messed this up.
A couple months ago, Marcel and I had some fun visiting record counters where Marcel would sing part of a familiar romantic song that we hear all the time on the radio. We knew that the soloist was an older singer with a strong, rich voice and that it was a mariachi style song. We ended up buying a couple CDs that weren't the right ones but at the last store, all the youth who had gathered to listen to Marcel's mini-serenade unanimously agreed that the song was from Vincente Fernandez. The original writer of the song sang at the New Year's Eve celebration in downtown Mexico City but everyone in our livingroom agreed that Vincente Fernandez' version of the song was far better. Be prepared: Vincente Fernandez's mariachi suit on his album cover has inspired Marcel regarding the Mexican clothes Marcel will wear when we are on home assignment in 2011. Oooh la la!
Besides the 12 grapes, we had some other special food on New Year's Eve. The Mexican family who had lived in Japan brought "Japanese tacos" for us to enjoy. Seaweed wrap + sticky rice + slivered cucumbers + salmon (no tuna was available) + wasabi horseradish sauce (to disinfect the salmon and add flavor) + mashed plums = delicious! This is apparently a regular everyday lunch in Japan. It was interesting for us to hear how their children came back to Mexico with their parents and didn't like Mexican food. The parents make a special trip to a Japanese market downtown and load up on the special Japanese rice and other groceries that they need in order to have their children eat SOMETHING and stay alive here in Mexico:) I'm trying to think up a little gift for this boy and girl who have so generously given all those adorable puppies away to other families and are now feeling sad over the loss.