Research Investigation Project

Now that we're getting a wee bit more settled, we're beginning to think a little more about the reason we moved to Apizaco in the first place and that is to be in a more strategic location from which to carry out the research that we've been asked to do about the Totonacan people group.

Totonacan dancers performing a traditional

folk dance in honor of the local saint. Cuautotola, Puebla.

Research seems to be a much-overlooked aspect of ministry and not something that we'd thought a lot about, to be honest with you, so it's been a very interesting subject to learn more about. Hearing our Area Leader's thoughts about research, however, we quickly saw the value and importance of research in a ministry context.  Gathering information is a most critical part of the ministry process in order to be able to develop the most effective, strategic and productive ministry strategy possible.

At first we were merely considering gathering ethnographic research (aimed at describing a particular culture and society) and/or strategic mission research (gathering data about things that can be mapped, such as locations of churches, percentage of Christians in each province, etc.), but the more we have learned about the Totonacan people and their context, the more interested we have become in doing research of a different sort.

The Totonacans aren't exactly what you would call an 'unreached people group', since there are many Totonacan churches that have already been planted among them.  There continues to be a missionary presence in Totonacan communities and many of the pastors of these churches are themselves Totonacans. They do seem to be, however, what you could term an 'un-discipled people group' and there is still much work to be done in the areas of personal discipleship and Bible translation (only 3 of 7 or 8 dialects have a New Testament in their language and even those aren't widely used).

Totonacan musicians playing accompaniment

to the folk dance.  Cuatotola, Puebla.

While ethnographic and strategic mission research will certainly be included in our research project, we would also like to look at some more specific issues of how churches have been planted among the Totonacan people and what does discipleship look like in the existing Totonacan churches (unfortunately, as is the case in many places, discipleship is more about classroom learning than a personal discipleship relationship such as Jesus modeled).

As we have been looking around for some good resources to help us with this research challenge, we discovered a resource called Breakthrough from GMI (Global Mapping International).  Written by Stan Nussbaum, Breakthrough is a resource that assists those in ministry to evaluate their ministries to see areas that could be improved and helps them learn more from their experiences than they might otherwise.  The guide aims to help you 'develop basic skills in field research, apply them to one issue or aspect of your ministry, and take action based on the insights that emerge from your research' (pg. 1).

We ordered the guide (although we plan to also order the e-book when it is available as it has more content) and are just beginning to read through it to learn more about this resource.  Even though this guide is more geared towards people who have already been in ministry for a while, it can also be adapted for a situation like ours where we are wanting to gather information in order to develop a strategy for future ministry.

Totonacan musicians. Cuatotola, Puebla.

Here is another quote I really like from page 1:

'This guide will help you get a clearer picture of other people's thoughts and feelings about your ministry. By understanding people better, you will get into a better position to hear what God wants to tell you about serving them.'

My thought on this quote is that this takes a lot of humility to be willing not just to hear other people's thoughts and feelings about one's ministry, but to also change and/or correct mistakes or methods that aren't as productive or as effective as they could be.  I have known/do know many in ministry for whom this would be difficult.

So, we're super excited to keep on reading this resource and learning more about how to do research in ministry, even though it scares us a little at the same time! We're kind of new to this whole research scene and I think we have a lot to learn.  We're not just excited about conducting the research in the Totonacan communities, however, but also about the possibility of helping others do this kind of research in their ministries as well!  The more we learn about it, the more value we see in adding good research skills to prayer over ministry problems and strategy development...and that's something we'd like to share with others.

Totonacan musicians in front

of the Catholic church.  Cuautotola, Puebla.

Getting Settled

It was a week ago today that we packed up our van and made our final trip to our new house here in Apizaco, looking rather like the Beverly Hillbillies with a cot and a daybed strapped to the roof and five bicycles piled on the rack behind (minus the Granny in the rocker, of course!). Fortunately, we weren't stopped by the police on the way, sometimes they see an overloaded vehicle as an opportunity to gain a bit of extra cash...

Miguel had made a trip to Apizaco the day before with some things, but as we were packing the final things, we quickly realized that he should have taken more on that trip...but we were able to pack it in, leaving barely enough room for the poor dog right inside the door!  He had such little space, in fact, that he didn't have room to lay down due to the cooler next to him.  I spent half the trip with him panting in my left ear, so I  finally just held the cooler on my lap so that he could lay down and quit the heavy breathing already!

Once we arrived, it was a blessing to eat lunch with the Rupe's and Misael (LAMM directors and their coworker, we call him 'Misa') before beginning the chore of settling in. One of my sisters gave me some wise advice long ago that I have not forgotten...any time you arrive somewhere, get the sleeping arrangement taken care of first, she said.  That way it's taken care of before it's dark and you find out the lights don't work and you don't know where the flashlights or candles are and you're tired and frustrated...well, you get the picture!

So while Miguel and Micah went shopping for some appliances (Miguel left the next day for a trip to the sierra (mountains) to help set up for a Totonacan youth camp, so he needed to get me set up with a means of cooking and preserving food before he left), I set about getting our 'beds' ready.

I say 'beds' because most of us were going to sleep on the floor. We had a cot and one twin-size foam mattress that I commandeered as I can no longer handle sleeping on anything much less than comfortable and the cot isn't comfortable.  Gracia got the cot and the rest of the guys had to sleep on piles of sleeping bags and blankets. I was able to locate the sheets and get the sleeping arrangements taken care of before moving on to the kitchen.

Obviously, the priority in the kitchen was to locate the coffee-making equipment and along the way I unpacked a few other things as well...pretty soon Miguel got back from the store with a new refrigerator and stove. I don't think I've ever had new appliances before!

I'm very happy with the fridge, even though it's not full-sized...

Micah was just excited about the food!

My kitchen shelves...not elegant, 

but definitely functional! 

I found some brightly colored place mats to help add some flair.  

My lovely stove!  I've been using the oven

quite a bit already...yesterday I made lasagna

and today I baked some banana bread.

We don't have a lot of wall decor, but we do have a little.

A friend recently gave us the picture of the lady

making corn tortillas...I love it!

I believe the grinder is called a quern (saddle quern?) 

in English, metate in Spanish.

While Miguel was gone on his trip, I got the rest of the kitchen set up, as well as the dining room.  That's where we spend most of our time anyway...I tried to hook up the washing machine, but there were issues, so I just left it for when Miguel got home.  And of course, then it took him only a few minutes to figure it out!

On Monday, we went to Walmart and found some good prices on some mattresses.  We bought two twin-sized and one 'queen'...I'm pretty sure it's not a real queen-size, though, as it's a bit on the small side.  But, it works and it's much more comfortable than the flimsy foam mattress I was sleeping on!

Now what we lack are things like bed frames, living room furniture, bedside tables, bookshelves, dining room table, chairs, curtains...but as they say here, poco a poco, little by little, we will make our house a home...

Correspondence

With the team here from our home church in Arkansas this week, it's a great opportunity to send back some mail!  Quite a few of the thank-yous that we want to send can be hand-delivered via the office mail at church once the team returns home, so it's a good chance to save on postage as well.

I had originally planned on making the cards, but Miguel decided to have some printed at Office Depot (yes, there is Office Depot in Mexico!).  As it turned out, however, he didn't print quite enough, so I got to make some anyway! 

Correspondence with supporters and folks back home, as many missionaries know, is both a blessing and a curse...while I love picturing our friends and supporters getting a card from us in the mail, it is also quite a chore to hand-write all those notes!  I would have to say that making the cards falls into the 'blessing' part, at least for me...I was sorry I didn't have to make more! 

I experimented with several different designs, but the ones I liked the best were the ones with collage-style pieces of torn paper.  They turned out really cute! 

One the inside, I stamped the English "Thanks so much" on another torn strip...it's a good way to use up the scraps.  It's a bit more clear on the actual card. 

Here's another similar design in green.  I think it was my favorite.  There are two ways to tear the paper, one does not show the white core.  I usually do not let the white core show, but it looked good here. 

I used two scraps of paper for the inside of this one, but I did notice that it took away more writing space.  Of course, that's fine if you just want to write a short note! 

All righty then, back to work!

Breadsticks

I've been sick with a bad cold/flu this week and am still not feeling that great...I hate colds.  I thought I was feeling better yesterday, but I must have overdone it because this morning I had a bit of a rough start. 

But then I got with it and baked up four recipes of banana bread in muffins and small pans for Miguel and Micah to take to the sierra tomorrow.  Hopefully some of it will actually survive the trip so they can be used as host gifts!  I know how much Miguel loves his banana bread...Micah loves it, too, since the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree...

Since I had the oven already on and I made a big batch of spaghetti, I decided to make breadsticks as well.   I was expecting Micah to bring home two of his friends for a sleepover...but then Miguel called to say that the van broke down on him and the evening plans are now in question.  A friend was able to take a mechanic to where Miguel was and hopefully it will be an easy fix because this is a really bad time for our van to break down!  So I am really hoping that I will have a vehicle to use while Miguel is gone this week...

Anyway, I was disappointed they weren't making it for lunch because I tried out a new recipe for breadsticks and they are best warm from the oven...but oh well, the boys will still enjoy them whenever they get here.

I got the recipe from Allrecipes.com, which continues to be a favorite place for good recipes...I'm missing my regular cookbooks since they are packed away right now.  I also enjoy reading the comments and getting advice from others who have tried them. 

There was some debate in the comments about the dough being too soft and whether or not one needed to add more flour...in my opinion, you do need to either add more flour or reduce the liquid.  There is no way I could have kneaded or shaped the dough without having aded the extra flour.  But I did try not to add too much so that the dough would still be quite soft, reducing the chance of getting tough breadsticks out of it.  I spread out the dough with my hands, cut it up with a pizza cutter and I did twist them as well.

The recipe also wasn't very clear about the melted butter part...do you roll the sticks in the melted butter and then bake them in that same pan?  I decided to just grease the pan and follow the advice on one comment that merely brushed the tops with melted butter (which worked better anyway since the sticks were so soft they were a little hard to handle).  I added some garlic & spice mix to jazz it up a bit.  I left a few without, though, since not all of us are garlic fans. 

They turned out great and I'll definitely be making these again! 

Irish Dance

I can't remember now how long that Gracia has been taking Irish Dance classes, but it's been a few months now.  She has really enjoyed these classes and we hope to be able to continue them even while living in Apizaco...it would mean the long drive back to Puebla once a week, but we think it would be worth it.

The dance studio put on a presentation a couple of weeks ago to wrap up the year and Gracia was invited to participate, even though she only took classes for part of the year.  I was a little concerned about that, however, because the first day we went to the first practice recital at the theater where they would perform, she got very shy and upset, refusing to practice with the rest of the students.

We didn't make a big deal out of it, though, and I just let Miguel handle all of the details for the presentation (Gracia tends to get a bit of 'mommy-itis' at moments such as those), but I needn't have worried because she did really great! Even though she only had a couple of small parts (one of them solo!), this was great experience for her as she faced her fears about performing in front of an audience.

Here she is with her friend Lili getting hair and make-up done...

Final touches being made by the director of the dance studio (the mother of Gracia's teacher)...

Gracia with the poster advertising the presentation...what a gorgeous girl!  Those fun curls are a wig, btw...

Her other outfit of the evening...

And finally, posing with a Proud Mama!

Trying My Hand at Sauerkraut

I've been reading some about fermented foods and how they have incredible amounts of probiotics (Dr. Mercola has an interesting article here on fermented foods). Sauerkraut, for example, is known to have high amounts of probiotics and also Vitamin C that is actually more usable for your body than taking Vitamin C in other forms.

When I'm overseas, things like probiotics and probiotic starter cultures are not as accessible for me, so I decided to start with something that I can find locally and that doesn't require starter cultures.  We have a friend here in Puebla who is German-Mexican and he loaned me his crock and some sea salt, as he likes to make sauerkraut, too (if mine turns out good, I'll give him some!).

Then I looked at quite a few websites for a good, yet simple recipe for sauerkraut and was pleased to find this one. Not sure about the rest of the content on that blog, but there is a link to another interesting article on fermented foods, as well as links to other recipes that I'd like to check out here.

But for now, I'm starting simple with just sauerkraut. Besides, as the Dr. Mercola article points out, there can be a significant "healing crisis" (die-off reaction) if you begin taking too much fermented food too soon. I am curious to see if I can get Miguel and the kids to eat any, first of all, and then if we'll notice any difference in our health issues.  Miguel suffers from something like irritable bowel syndrome and all the kids and I have a yeast/cheese culture intolerance.  After reading about GAPS (Gut And Physiology Syndrome), it makes me wonder if we don't all need to pay more attention to probiotics.

I chopped up a cabbage and a half today and now it's setting in the pantry waiting for the fermenting process to begin...I used the pestle in the picture to pound the cabbage and it worked really well!

So...I guess I'll find out in a couple of weeks whether this recipe worked for me or not!

It's Not Done Yet

This post from Holley really spoke to me today.

Holley says..."I find we do the same with situations in our lives. God's stirring up something and we come swooping in with a spoon. We get a taste and panic. What is going on here? How is it going to turn out? This doesn't seem right at all!" 

I think that I've been the one taste-testing the batter that is the ministry that God is mixing up for us...on one level, I do have a deep, abiding trust that God has brought us here and that God is leading...but on another level, sometimes it just doesn't 'seem right'.

I am learning that ministry, just like cooking, is a process...that even when I'm in the place that God has designed for me, sometimes it might not 'seem right'. There will be struggles, disappointments and maybe even failures. I guess I thought that things might be easier if we were in our 'dream' ministry and I forget that Jesus said that in this world I would have trouble and there really is no need to panic when trouble comes.

Since we've been in Puebla, we've had some trouble...we've faced doubts and fears, wondering how this will all turn out and sometimes even if we're in the right place...some of our expectations haven't been met, some relationships we'd hoped to cultivate haven't developed and some doors we thought were open have been closed.  Sometimes it's been messy. 

I get impatient, wanting to see the end result now...I've wanted to take things in my own hands and fix them.  I forget that just like baking, ministry can take time to go through the process to make something beautiful and delicious and whole.  You can't really rush through a recipe that calls for chilling the dough or simmering for an hour.  I forget that it's not done yet...that I'm not done yet...that it's not even my job to make sure that everything turns out right. 

So we've moved forward by faith, trusting that God is working and knowing that we'll likely live in a bit of mystery until the end result is revealed somewhere down the line. We just take it one step at a time, trusting that God will reveal each step as we need to take it.

And that's what it's all about anyway, trust...trusting that God is adding the right ingredients at the right time in order to make something out of it that honors and glorifies Him. Even if we don't get to taste it until we see Him face to face...

Catching Up

Seeing as I've neglected this space for a couple of weeks, I've got some catching up to do!

Life's been a bit of a whirl since we started moving out of our our rental house on Tochtli Street...one Saturday we packed up a few things and changed over into the house we're taking care of this summer.  Gradually, we were able to go back and finish packing up the rest of our things.  Which didn't take long, because we don't have that much!

The next challenge was to find a house to rent in Apizaco, but we were busy preparing for a fun missions event and didn't have time to go out and look for a house.  Miguel was also spending hours at the immigration office finalizing the paperwork for our religious visas (religious visas are a little more complicated than regular resident visas).  Then some of the kids got sick and we had to stay home and then finally, we had a day when we could take off for Apizaco to see what we could see.

We were able to contact a real estate agent via our friends and he showed us 5 or 6 houses, several of which were good possibilities. The one we liked the best was an older house, but had a fabulous yard! The kids were really excited about the yard...lots of grass and many fruit trees...plenty of space to run around. The carport was even partially covered, which would have been a good place for them to play during hot or rainy days.  One of the main issues with that house, however, was its location...it is way out on the edge of town and not very close to where we would have liked to be situated.

After seeing all the houses that the agent had to show us, we were heading back to our friends' house when we happened to see a little sign from another real estate office advertising a house for rent in that area. We called and as it turned out, the house is just a block away from our friends' house, which is also the LAMM offices (read more about LAMM here)!  The house looked promising, but we couldn't get it to see it until later.  So we hung out at the park...well, Gracia and I stayed in the van playing Phase 10, which was more fun than playing soccer or football...and then we finally got the call to go see the house.

We hadn't been able to see much of the house from the outside because the outside walls are so high, but as we stepped into the patio, I really liked what I saw! The front of the house is pretty and the carport area is really big (which is good, since we have a large vehicle)...a large part of the carport is also covered, which is awesome for those rainy days when the kids just have to get out of the house! Once we stepped inside, we just kept liking what we saw...it has four bedrooms, a studio, 2 1/2 bathrooms, large living room and dining room.  One of the bedrooms is small and decorated in pink, perfect for Gracia...another is a bit larger and decorated for young boys, perfect for Jojo and Gugui!

The only thing that was a con about this house is that the patio is completely paved, there is no grass and there are no trees.  Miguel left the final decision up to me to choose the house and after lining out all the pros and cons of both houses, we quickly realized that even though this house doesn't have the patio we would have liked, everything else is exactly what we were looking for!  It is a block from LAMM offices (which is also our friends' house), it is a block or so from a nice park, there is an empty lot on the other side of the street where we can exercise the dog and it's just a few blocks away from the church that we will be attending.  We are rather social people and we decided that we'd rather be closer to the action than more isolated, even if it meant giving up the yard.

The kids weren't exactly sure that they wanted to give up the yard, but once they saw the house they were pretty much sold on it after discovering this awesome 'secret' room behind the toilet in the bathroom downstairs!  I just hope they don't startle a guest one day by popping out at an inopportune moment...

So we were able to return on Friday to sign the contract...and Friday turned out to be a day of celebration, because that was also the day we received our visas!  We spent a boring couple of hours at the immigration office, while the kids entertained themselves playing Pass the Pigs, much to the amusement of the other people there who had never seen such a game.  The kids thought it was most exciting to be able to give their fingerprints...apparently that was the highlight of their time there!  Miguel and I considered actually receiving our visas to be the highlight...now we're set to legally work as missionaries/ministers here in Mexico!  This also means that we avoid having to take another trip to the border this month to renew our tourist visas.

So that was a good day as we accomplished those two major tasks...getting our visas and signing the contract on a house. The next day, Gracia participated in a dance performance with the rest of her dance studio...we were so very proud of her for that!  On Sunday, some friends helped Miguel move the rest of our things up to our new rental house in Apizaco and we were finally able to return the house to the owners.  It feels good to have that taken care of.

Our next big thing is receiving a team from our home church in Arkansas on the 14th, which is coming right up!  This team will visit the mountains and some of them will participate in giving medical care and some will do some simple construction projects.  There are several young people coming along as well, so Miguel has some fun things planned for them to do with the kids in the mountains.  We were hoping to go as a family, but there was a mix-up and now there is not room, so just Miguel and Micah will be going along.  That was disappointing to me, but I am trusting that God is in control, even in this.

After the team leaves, then we'll be able to make the final move up to our new house in Apizaco.  We're excited!

So, now you are (mostly) caught up with what's been going on with us.  It's always an adventure!

Crazy Day

Yesterday was a really crazy day.  One of those days when you really wonder what's going on, you know?

Miguel originally had another trip planned to the mountains this week and was to be gone from Thursday to Sunday.  But then the pastor that was coming to give the conference sessions had to cancel his trip because his mother-in-law became very ill and the whole family had to go to California for a couple of weeks.

So then we decided to go to another Totonacan community in the mountains and were planning to leave today, Saturday. As we were making plans for that trip, Miguel's mom called from Venezuela to let him know that his pastor, Gilberto Nieves had passed away the day before.

Pastor Nieves was very influential in Miguel's life and is what would be considered a 'padrino' here,  something like a godfather.  In many ways, he was more of a father to Miguel than his own father.  Pastor Nieves was Miguel's pastor from the time he was young, baptized him and was also instrumental in how Miguel came to be a missionary.  Miguel was also very close to the family and spent a lot of time at their house as a teenager.

So when Miguel found out that Pastor Nieves had died, he really wanted to be able to go attend the funeral (an accompany his mom back here to visit us!). It's not easy to get to Miguel's home town in Venezuela from Mexico on such short notice, but Miguel found a flight leaving Mexico City around 1:30 a.m. that would get him to Caracas at 7 a.m.  He would have been arriving at his target location early afternoon, which was good since the funeral was planned for around that time.

So we hustled to get him ready and Miguel made his reservations online.  The instructions included the options of paying either at a bank or at one of the local grocery stores and Miguel had to pay within 9 hours to keep his reservation.  Neither of the bank options worked, but he was able to successfully pay the 8,000 pesos (around 800$) at the grocery store and they gave him a receipt for the payment that also indicated his reservation number.

He did a little shopping and then came back to finish packing.  I sent him off in a taxi around 8:30 p.m. to the  Estrella Roja (Red Star) bus station that would take him directly to the international airport in Mexico City, which is a really convenient bus service to have and cheap at about 18$ one way.  I heard from him a couple of times before I went to sleep and didn't expect to hear from him until he was in Venezuela.

At 1:40 a.m. I got a message from Miguel saying he'd missed his flight.  Turns out that his payment never showed up in the airline's system, so they wouldn't issue his ticket.  They told him that he had to pay 24 hours in advance, silly, because sometimes there are emergencies, people!  Then they told him that he should have paid at the ticket agency in the airport, even though the airline had only given him 9 hours to pay the ticket or lose the reservation.  Paying the ticket at the airport is risking not getting a seat if the flight suddenly fills up!

They were not helpful, in short, and at one point one of the agents at the ticket counter lied to Miguel when he asked for a manager. The man said that all of the managers had gone home by then, but Miguel later discovered that there were actually TWO managers on duty at that time.  He spoke to one of them who looked over his papers and said he'd go check something and be right back...only he never returned.  The other manager just handed Miguel a complaint form.

The only thing they would do for him was to change his reservation to the following day, but that wouldn't get Miguel there in time for the funeral, so he just decided to come back home.  He asked the airline for a refund, but they referred him to the grocery store and said he'd have to get the money back from them.  The most likely scenario will be, however, that the grocery store will just refer him back to the airline!

I had gotten to bed late and hadn't really been asleep that long when I got Miguel's message about missing his flight. Then I had a hard time going back to sleep.  Miguel arrived back home around 4 a.m. and I had to go down to let him in the door and pay the taxi, which further interrupted my sleep.  And Miguel had to get up early to take Micah and some other neighbor boys to the American football practices that Micah goes to on Saturday mornings.  So neither of us got much sleep last night.

Such a crazy day!  I was already emotional from having to tell Gloria that we're moving and seeing how sad she was...and while I was happy that Miguel could go to Venezuela for a couple of weeks, I was feeling the strain of the separation and goodbye (it's a bit disconcerting having my husband be a continent away...you never know what will happen!).  And then just like that, he was back, snuggled with me in bed and not going anywhere.

I also knew he was severely frustrated and very disappointed by the whole situation.  He told me later that it just wasn't a good idea to try to go on such short notice, but I don't agree.  It wasn't a bad decision at all!  Pastor Nieves was a huge part of his life for many years and there is nothing wrong with wanting to attend the funeral of a man like that.  People have emergencies all the time and airlines should be able to provide the services needed for emergency travel like that.  For some unknown reason(s), it didn't work out and we're trusting God that He had a purpose and a plan.

But yeah, a really crazy day!  And now we have some suitcases to unpack...

Hard Goodbyes and Changes

Goodbyes are usually hard, although some of them more than others.  Changes are a constant in our lives on the mission field and all of them bring with them losses and gains.

Change is on us again and we are once more saying goodbyes and some of them are really hard.

The first stage in our ministry plan is completed (woohoo!) and we have been sensing that in order to move forward with the next step of our ministry plan, it will be strategic for us to move to another town closer to the mountains.  The second step of our ministry plan involves a completing survey investigation/research project among the Totonacan people group to investigate the penetration of the Gospel into the Totonacan communities and the discipleship process in the Totonacan churches.  In order to really be able to carry out this survey project, we will have to make more frequent trips to the mountains to visit our Totonacan contacts in the various communities there.

In thinking about a strategic place for us to live, we chose a small town to the north of Puebla that is a hub for bus transportation for the mountain communities. This little town is also the home base of a small mission agency called LAMM. LAMM mobilizes Mexican missionaries to go overseas with agencies such as Pioneers, Wycliffe and Frontiers.  Since LAMM has a partnership agreement with Pioneers, however, any Mexican missionaries that God might raise to join our project among the Totonacan people would be members of LAMM.  This week we had a long conversation with the LAMM director and his coworker and we were able to discuss various ways that we could be of mutual benefit once we live in this little town.

As exciting as it is to be moving forward with our ministry plan, moving away from our cozy home on Totchli Street and away from Puebla implies saying goodbyes to some pretty amazing friendships that God has sent our way.  It also means disconnecting a bit from our local church here in Puebla, although we will continue to work closely with them as we continue to develop a partnership to help them carry out their vision for reaching the Totonacan people.

We're still letting people know that we're moving and it's hard knowing how people like our small group family (and Gracia's best friend who is their daughter) will react. I was able to talk to one of my best friends here last week, Monica, about our impending move and afterwards I allowed myself a few days to really grieve over the loss of her friendship.  We are really two peas in a pod and I have enjoyed Monica's friendship deeply.

What I dreaded the most, however, was telling our neighbors that we were leaving, especially our neighbors Liberal and Gloria.  We have found a rare kind of friendship in this special family and they love our kids as if they were their own.  And while we're not moving away from Mexico altogether and will be living less than an hour away, it still won't be the same as living three doors down from each other.

When we first moved here, I was tempted not to get to know the neighbors that well because I knew our stay here would be rather temporary.  But instead of holding myself back and away, I willingly opened myself up to the new friendships anyway and I found out that just like I read here, the relationship is always worth the goodbye.

So yesterday I worked up my courage and told Gloria that we were moving.  And I was right, she didn't take it very well and ended up sobbing on my shoulder for a few minutes as she tried to assimilate that news.  Then we went to her house and she loved on me with coffee and cookies and we talked of our plans.

Once we decided to move a couple of weeks ago, things started happening really fast!  Another missionary family here approached us with the idea of house-sitting for them during the months of June and July while they take a trip back stateside.  Their house is roomy (with four full bathrooms!) and located on a large property with plenty of space for kids and dog to run and play.  And taking care of their house will also give us the opportunity to move out of this house and turn it back over to the owners without the pressure of trying to pack while living here at the same time.

So by the end of July, we hope to have a house in a different town and be settling in there to focus on the survey investigation and new ministry opportunities.  We plan to continue to visit Puebla from time to time, possibly weekly since Gracia would like to continue her dance classes.  And we do look forward to continuing to build our relationship with our church here in Puebla as we partner together to reach the Totonacan people.

Exciting stuff, but in the meantime, the goodbyes rather stink.