Uneventful Earthquake

Each year in August, Marcel gets a meteorite shower for his birthday. Yesterday, I got an earthquake for my birthday. Marcel was typing at the computer and felt his office chair slowly and rythmically move 6 inches, forward and back, forward and back. For a couple of seconds, he felt dizzy. Ahava was watching tv and felt the sofa move similarly. I was on the next lower floor of our house, the floor that is built against the side of the mountain. I didn't feel it but heard Marcel calling for me to come outside because we were having an earthquake.
Petra and Kirklyn were at school on a different nearby mountain. Petra was working in the computer lab and said she felt banging. Kirklyn's chair was moving as well.
Our neighbor's office is on a third floor of a university. He felt up and down movement although we are on the same mountain and his office is only about 10 blocks away from our house.
It sounded like our missionary friends SW of Mexico City felt this the most. Their bookshelf banged against the wall and they said it was quite a ride.
Still waiting to talk to Brittany briefly by cellphone. The lines went down right after the earthquake yesterday afternoon at 2:24pm. Brittany went to Six Flags Mexico City with her school class. The standard practise is for the rides to shut down immediately in the case of an earthquake. She may have had a short day at the amusement park but we trust that she is okay. I was just able to get through to her cellphone mailbox and left a message to please call Mom.
People here in Mexico City are still dealing with the trauma of having lived through the devastating earthquake of 1985. Downtown buildings were evacuated yesterday and many people were teary-eyed because of their fear and horrible memories from 24 years ago.

This afternoon we plan to attend the New Tribes Mission graduation of just one student here in Mexico City, their newest training center. The student, Diego, has been Marcel's Spanish tutor this year. In the fall he will move north to Chihuahua to complete his last two years of training before heading off to the mountains of Mexico to learn a new tribal language and share the gospel with an indigenous group within Mexico.
On Sunday we will be meeting in the "Park of the Deer" for a picnic day to enjoy with our friends as a goodbye party. Rainy season has begun so we aren't sure how long we will last before we get soaked.
The girls have only one more week of school left because they have an American school schedule and are very excited for Friday to arrive. Mexican children will have an extra two weeks of school in July to make up for missed time during the influenza outbreak when schools were closed.