Into the glorious unknown...: October 2008

The title of this blog post pretty much says it all. The past week of my life has been a little tumultuous to say the least. Let me fill you in on a few things that have been happening:

Last Sunday:
I was was watching a movie with my fellow GFMers and eating a tortilla with guacamole in it when, I bit into the tortilla and was surprised by "crunch, crunch" unfortunately there wasn´t anything crunchy in that tortilla, instead it was my tooth that had broken somehow. Luckily it didn´t break down to the nerve, but still a little irritating. Especially since my insurance is less than spectacular.

Last Tuesday:
The past couple of weeks have been Tlaxiaco days where they celebrate their city and part of that celebration included a carnival complete with rides that have been rejected from the US carnivals. After taco Tuesdays a group of us decided to go to the carnival and check it out. We had churros with chocolate inside they were delicious and oh so fattening. It reminded me of the State fair I felt like I was on the midway. After we had churros we began to walk around and see the rides. I was determined to ride on one of these "rejected rides" and then we saw it in all its glory, the mechanical bull. (singing: ahhhhh). For those of you who were with me on my birthday last year, it was like finding the holy grail. I had to give it a go, so I paid my 20 pesos and got on. I have to say here that the ride was not all that I hoped for it was not what I had dreamed it would be but it was fun for the memories. Up next: a real bull (I´m convinced it would be better on a real bull).

Last Thursday:
I returned home from being in town all day only to turn on my computer and err, umm, it didn´t turn on. I thought ok this is only a fluke thing it will work if I try it again. No, it did not. Bummer, so folks I´m without a computer for the time being. Right now I´m at a Internet cafe and will have to rely on them and the generosity of friends probably until I come home for Christmas.

All this to say God is still good and even though things like computers crashing and teeth breaking are extremely inconvenient God is still there and he will use it for his glory. I know that there are lessons to learn in the midst of problems and will probably look back at all of this and see quite clearly what God was doing. In the mean time I choose to laugh and continue on with life.

On a positive note I have been meeting with three girls in the park on Wedensdays and thursdays to teach them english and have them in return teach me spanish. I am excited about these new friendships that are in the making. Please pray for them that the Holy Spirit would be working in their hearts and also pray for me to know what to say to them and that I would learn spanish fast.

I hope you are all doing well. Love and miss you all!

Ok so I am failing miserably at this updating business. I am terribly sorry, but you are going to get the condensed version of the past 3 weeks (!).

Freedom Camp
A couple weeks ago I went to "freedom camp" with the other MTS students here. It was a 3 day fast and camp retreat. Basically it was a time where we all could focus on getting ourselves right with God by identifying sin in our lives both past and present and repenting from them one at a time. Let me just say here that repenting from a lifetime of sin (that I had asked for forgiveness, but used a blanket forgiveness statement) is exhausting and a little overwhelming, but incredibly freeing. I would love to tell you more about this experience, so ask if you want to know more.

Last week
Last week we talked about personalities and how they fit into ministry and a mission team, being a psych major I thoroughly loved this week. I love finding out what everyone's personality is and also learning more about the way God created me both with strengths and weaknesses.

This week
This past Monday we celebrated Canada's Thanksgiving (yes that does mean 2 thanksgivings this year Yee-haw! gotta love that!). The Canadians made the meal, which was delicious by the way, and we played a game of football in the afternoon (after all what would thanksgiving be without football?), which was a lot of fun even for those of us who are not super great at the sport.

I should mention that on this past Sunday in upper room the Holy Spirit moved in a big way. I experienced him in a way I have never experienced him before. I feel that my faith has been deepened in a way I never knew it could be and am excited to explore what that means in my life and am excited to grow in that. If you would like to hear more about this I would love to tell you I can only write so much here but there is a lot more to this story than is here.

I am still loving my time down here and have really felt God's hand in really everything I have been doing, and I'm excited to see the rest of the year play out. Thanks for all of your prayers and support I really appreciate it. Love you all!

This is a belated post that should have been posted on Sunday, but due to some complications was not posted until now.

On Saturday I met Tashia's friend named Lorenza. We had a good time of fellowship and talking on Saturday night, she practiced a little bit of english and muddled through some spanish (a botch job mind you, but I tried). As we were about to leave Lorenza asked if we wanted to come back the next morning at 7am to make tortillas. I am not a morning person, but I couldn't pass up an opportunity of learning how to make tortillas, so of course we said we would come back.
Sunday morning I woke up at 6am and caught a taxi in the pitch black of early morning and met up with Tashia to go to Lorenza's. We got there a little after 7am, but its okay because we were on Mexico time and there is no worries about arriving late (my kid of culture). She had already started by the time we got there, the dough was already made (made of corn, water and salt) she said that, that part of the process only takes about 10 minutes. She does her tortillas over an open fire in a metal dish (pics are coming I promise, I just haven't had time or good Internet to do it yet) she puts this white chalky stuff in the dish so that the tortillas don't stick. Then she got down to making the tortillas, she takes a bit of dough and pats it between her hands and flattens it then she puts the dough on a round piece of plastic (home-made from a plastic bag, very ingenious) and proceeds to make a perfectly round tortilla with only the palm of her hand (they pride themselves in the roundness of the tortilla). Now it was Tashia and my turn, let me just say we did not do very well, but Lorenza came to the rescue and perfected them for us. We each only did one, I don't think she wanted us to do any more than one, but we did get to eat the tortillas we made fresh off the fire with queso it was delicious!