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.

The newest member of the family

By popular demand, here are some pictures of our new puppy. She is a four month old German Shepherd born in San Juan, Texas. She answers to the name "Scout" (a name which is difficult for Mexicans to say) and she has already shown that she will be a good guard dog for the girls.

What kind of snake is this?

What kind of snake is this? Our camp caretakers, Juan and Carolina found this snake about two weeks ago. They described it as a "field snake" but that could be anything. They could not tell me a specific breed. They said it is venomous but not deadly and that adult snakes, which get up to one meter long, are often found under the Nopale Cacti. This one was only five or six inches long. If anybody knows specifically what kind of snake this is, let me know.

Popocatépetl

Today, for the first time since we moved to our new house, we were able to see the top of Mexico City's volcanos. That is rather amazing because of all the smog here. (Yesterday the smog was so bad that all foreign vehicles were not allowed to drive.) Popocatépetl is the largest of the two volcanos at over 17,800 feet and is the volcano in the picture. Yes, that is snow at the top of the mountain. Last July, when Marcel was here, the volcano had about a 30 minute eruption that went for miles. The cross section chart of the Mexico City's topography is from north towards south. We live on a mountain to the right of downtown and the volcanoes are on the opposite side of the valley, to the left.

Hecho a Mano video

Linked to our blog site is a short (1 min. 5 sec.) video of the theme song for the recent VBS at Christ Lives Bible Church. The song is called "Hecho a Mano," meaning Made by Hand. The lead singer, Nayeli, has an increadibly good voice. Enjoy!
http://video.google.com/videouploadfinished?docid=5058779841072329446&cid=2bc67b05d672fe97

Teotihuacanos for a day

One of the really cool things about living in Mexico are the pyramids. About 15 KM from the camp in Acolman is the ancient city of Teotihuacan which means "where men become gods" in the Nahuatl language. The city was started approximately in the year 100 B.C. but scholars hotly dispute who started the community since there is no written record. Various native groups settled there over the next thousand years but for reasons unknown, they more or less abandoned the facility before the Spanish conquest. At its peak, over a quarter of a million people lived in this city. It is thought that only 10% of the city's archaeological ruins are uncovered today.

When missions teams come here to help at the camp or at a VBS, we often take them to the pyramids to get a sense of the history and culture of Mexico. The picture you see here is of our seven year old Kirklyn standing on top of the Pyramid of the Sun (the largest of the three pyramids) with the pyramid of the Moon in the background. Almost 400 feet up from the valley floor, one must ascend 248 very small steps to get to the top. Unfortunately, many people continue to come here to practice native worship of the sun syncretized with the Catholicism.

Vacation Bible School 2007

Hecho a Mano - Made by Hand was the VBS theme. 270 little voices sang that we are not the result of an explosion but that we have been specially created by the Designer of the Universe. The leaders went all out and had the church incredibly decorated. The children learned about how Peter grew to completely trust Christ. We enjoyed black light puppet plays, tacos for snack time, an outdoor obstacle course, skits with huge paper mache costumes. One girl who was dressed up as a mother canary and had live baby chicks in her basket that she wanted to protect from "Avian Flu". A big hit were the live minnows that each child could take home in a styrofoam coffee cup.

I (Ingrid) helped with the 3 and 4 year olds - all 38 of them! This is a picture of them fishing for magnetic fish with the help of Pierre. We caught Pierre unaware as he glanced up to see who was calling him. A couple weeks ago, Pierre preached for 20 minutes or so and then another young man from church took over for the next 20 minutes. Not only does Pierre have a nice wardrobe of various soccer jerseys (including Petra's favorite Dutch player Ruud Van Nistlrooy), but Marcel liked his example of "Tag Team Preaching". Wonder if that could catch on back home in Canada...

To promote the VBS, the youth from the church and a group from Manitoba walked around the neighbourhood for four hours handing out invitations. A mom who received an invitation brought her little ones and joined the small adult class of 10 people. She accepted Christ and just a few days later, told us that her life has all ready changed noticably for the better!

Albondigas! Meatballs!

This is a photo taken at our retreat center in Acolman during Youth Camp (ages 16 to 25). A group from Bridgeman, Michigan have been with us for the past two weeks and the camps went very well! Our first week of the summer was VBS, then last week was Adolescents Camp (ages 13 - 15), and we have just finished our third week at Youth Camp. We're a little tired but having fun.

Our camp food has been traditional Mexican dishes - all delicious yet inexpensive. We especially enjoyed Mexican meatballs with a small piece of hardboiled egg in the center of each meatball, served with a tomatoe sauce and white rice with vegetables. The Spanish Word of the Day quickly became "Meatball". The campers laughed when we guessed that the name was "Ball of Meat" (pelota de carne). "No, no, no :) Al-bon-di-ga!!" Someone would walk by and Marcel would say, "Hey - meatball." The reply would be a giggle and "Albongida!" After much repetition and laughs, this new word is now in our nogins!

The campers have also had some traditional camp fun. They moved their counsellor's matress, sleeping bag, suitcase, and lamp our of their room and into the hallway. A couple days later, the same man was tied up, stuffed into an inner tube, decorated with a Welcome sign across his forehead, and then given an application of foot powder to his head. Funny how youth always know when you really love them and that you will put up with their affectionate pranks.

The Camp at Acolman

We are off to the retreat center in Acolman this weekend to be with a missions team from Manitoba. They will be conducting a VBS at our church in the nearby Mexico City suburb of Ecatepec. For those of you who have visited the camp, you may notice that the second floor has been added to the family dorms. Moises and his crew have been working very hard to finish this camp. We need many more work teams from the US and Canada to have this camp fully operational...hint ...hint.

Room with a view

We have our new home in the Mexico City suburb of Atizapan! It is a house built onto the side of a small mountain. This is the view from our balcony looking to the south towards downtown Mexico City. You might note that the smog and approaching rain come up the valley from the downtown area. It is rainy season now so we will add a "clear day" photo after a cleansing rainfall.

We Made It

Estamos aqui! We are here! Our border crossing that so many of you were praying about, it went very well. No taxes, no inspections, no fines, no "fines" (bribes)! At the second inspection point 20 km inland, we were directed to the inspection area. The state police officer read our letter of invitation that explained that we would be using our items in the trailer for our personal use and for ministry. He had a brief look in our trailer and sent us on. Our new little guard dog, Scout (9 wk old German Shepard), our tools, piano, clothing, books, and family of seven were all permitted into Mexico! Thank you for all of your prayers! We made some stops on the way in at Saltillo, Matahuala for the night, and San Luis Potosi on the second day of driving. The trailer was heavy (piano, tools, and theology books!) so we were often in the slow lane with the big trucks while going up the mountain roads.

We think that we have found a house to rent in the suburb of Mexico City that is called Atizapan. It is very close to Moises and Carolyn Ruiz. They live near a corner. Our house isn't on their street but on the one around the corner and about 10 houses down. The house is built on a hillside and has the bonus of an amazing view of downtown Mexico City off in the distance. You could likely see for miles if it weren't for the smog! The house needs a fair amount of work to be done on it. It also has been unoccupied for some time as there was an inch of dust on the floors. The yard is tiny, smaller than many master bedrooms in Canada or the United States. They have all ready cleaned up the dusty floors and tore out the weed "garden", leaving nothing but a small lemon tree. Wonder of wonders for us: another house on the flight path to the airport though Marcel doesn't mind a bit! The neighbourhood is close to a large technical university and on Mondays, a market is set up on a street just 3 blocks away. There are many community and kindergarten programs available in this area that should provide us plenty of opportunities to connect with our neighbours aside from being a family with a bunch of blondes walking down the street.

The girls are doing very well so far with the change from living in Texas to Mexico. Three of us have had a couple nosebleeds from living high up in the mountains. Carolyn told me that spaghetti noodles take 15 minutes to cook at this height rather than the usual 7 minutes. Marcel saw an airplane altimeter last year that said that the airport is 7,800 feet above sea level. Our home is well above that. We hope to calculate just how high in the mountains we really are.

Having visited here two years ago really helped us. The traffic is not nearly as scarey as it was our first day two years ago. The trip from our Christ Lives Bible Church in the northeast of Mexico City to our area in the northwest of Mexico City takes one hour. We were able to drive back home on our own without following the Ruizes. We didn't get lost and things are beginning to look a bit familiar. Another exciting new thing for us: we can better read the Spanish road signs!

There are not enough words...

Hi everybody!!! I thought I would give you all a brief update to let you know how we are doing.
First, the girls finished their first year in public school today here in the great state of Texas but they do so with mixed feelings of happiness and sadness. Happy, because they can be home with Mom and Dad and they are looking forward to the move to Mexico City and to be helping at the camp this summer. Sad, because they made good friends in school and they all really liked...I mean, loved... their teachers and the school nurse. They were all so very supportive and encouraging. So to remind the teachers of the little blonde Canadian girls that were in their classes, we gave the teachers a gift: the book Anne of Green Gables, a classic in Canadian literature. One teacher even had a special birthday party/going away party in her class for Petra! We like Texas but our calling is elsewhere and despite the pleasantries of being here, God has placed a desire in our heart to go to the mission field.
Second, we have been packing and cleaning for the last couple days in anticipation of the move and the temperature has been hovering around 100* F. I don't know what that is in Celsius but when its combined with humidity its real hot!!! What is worse is that for two days our air conditioner was not working!
We thank all of you for your prayers and support but please don't let up...we are anticipating crossing the border this coming Sunday. Pray that we will not be hassled by the guards or charged any "fines". Pray that we and the Ruizes will have a safe drive and arrive in Mexico City in good time. Finally, pray that we will quickly find housing in Mexico City.
Until next time...adios!

"Film at Eleven..."

Hi everyone!
Sorry, but we don't have a picture this time. We are temporarily in NeverNeverLand between our internet connection in Texas and our internet connection in Mexico. (When our neighbours, also The Mitchells, moved for the summer, the school campus here in Texas accidentally disconnected the wrong Mitchells' internet.) We will just save up a bunch of photos for a couple of weeks in the future!

What's new with us?

• We graduated!!! We think... Grades and diplomas are to follow provided all is in order.
• We've had two weeks off and have still been getting up every day at 6:30 a.m. to get the girls off to their schools.
• We enjoyed a day in San Antonio at Six Flags Fiesta Texas -- along with about 15 choral and band middle school groups.
• We were able to visit our NAB church in Crawford, Texas and during the drive back south, saw the actual Texas state flower growing wild on some beautiful Texas pasture land.
• Marcel has rediscovered rollerhockey and has the injuries to prove it.
• All four girls have received academic awards at their schools. This was such a blessing after wondering how they would transition from homeschooling to public schools.
• Petra and Emma both auditioned and got solos in their school concerts.
• Our prayers have been partially answered with the purchase of a 6 X 12' trailer that we will use to move our household things to Mexico City. Please keep praying that our license plates and registration will arrive quickly.
• We celebrated our 17th anniversary on the 19th of May!!
• On May 22 Ingrid experienced her first birthday celebration in 90% Spanish.

Anticipated moving days: June 5th and 6th.

Please pray for ease crossing the border. Six more days of classes for the girls so it's pretty much packing and cleaning for these last days in Texas.

Ahava sings at Chapel

Thursday, we had our final day of chapel for the year and it was a special day of music where people from around the latin world, the US, and Canada used their talents to praise our Lord. Our three year old, Ahava, sang with her preschool class. Accompanied by The Accordian Man, they sang a medley of songs including one in Spanish.

B.T.W.: Have a happy "Cinco de Mayo"

The Perfect Storm

Last night a warm, moist storm came in from the Gulf of Mexico and mixed with a cool, dry storm that came in from the Texas hill country. The two storms collided right over Edinburg. The result was four hours of tornado warnings. Such powerful thunderstorms are infrequent in our area of deep south Texas. Most storms occur north of San Antonio. This storm did remind us of summers back in Alberta, Canada.

We awoke after a tremendous clap of thunder. Within a minute, heavy rain began, the lightning flashed and thunder roared with great frequency. Our new alarm for our truck was activated when the concussion from the thunder rattled our windows. A bolt of lightning hit the tree you see here, a tree that is right behind our house.