Grace

This has been a hard week. Call it an attack, call it life. Whatever is going on, we are definitely fighting this week. We are fighting our emotions that bounce back and forth between anger, frustration, and hurt. We are fighting our flesh from getting in the way of hearing the Lord's heart. We are fighting the father of lies, who has been deceiving people we love. Fighting out pride from feeling like our efforts are in vain (when it's all for the Lord's glory).
We want so badly to understand the balance between God's grace and His discipline. We have no comprehension of God's grace and the depths of it.
Steve was wrestling with the Lord sometime ago about always feeling like he was the older brother(in the story of the Prodigal Son), trying so hard to do everything right and not able to relax in His grace or enjoy the "party". The Lord spoke very clear to him that night that there are no older brothers. Every one of us is the prodigal son. Everyone of us has grace constantly poured out on us and there is rejoicing when we return to the Lord. We are all living by and in the grace of the Lord. Praise His Name.
This week has been a week of leaning on the Lord, seeking out His heart and trusting Him for the work we do for Him. It has been awesome remembering His Sovereignty and control over everything. He is always good and His love never fails. It never fails us. It never fails anyone.

Please pray for wisdom and grace to be poured out on us as we disciple and do our best to raise up followers of Christ.

Hairdos and prayers

Hairdo update for y'all

freedom!!! (from rubber bands)

Also, if you could please be praying for our WSU group. Our heart is breaking for a couple of students there. Pray that our leadership would rise up and seek the Lord in purity and integrity and be victorious.

Steve's first talk in Spanish!!!

We had our 4th meeting of Punto de Encuentro and we were blown away from the turnout. 19 Cucea students showed up to be a part of the meeting. It seems like we have very little turnover and not only do they come back, they bring friends! Steve and I were talking about how it was going and if you can compare this start up to WSU, we are so much further along. We didn't even hit 15-20 regulars until our 2nd year in at Wright State. We've also been able to make great connections with them outside of the group. Steve and I still feel like our biggest ministry is to Angela who we are helping get this started. We want to make sure she is completely equipped and confident when we leave in a few months. Please keep praying for us, Angela, and the students, who are starting to take ownership of Punto de Encuentro.

And Steve got to do a "talk" in spanish! He wrote it all out a head of time so that he would know how to say everything correctly and he did great! It's a lot harder because he would have to think so much on how to say things that he couldn't just go off on his side notes like he usually does. He was pretty excited about it though!!

Liz, one of our students, wanted to have a pizza party this week. So we all chipped in and had Domino's come after the meeting. It was another great time of them connecting with each other.

Some of the students are already calling this their group and telling others that they are a part of this Christian group at CUCEA. They are so connected to each other already! Like I said before, it seems like this group is way ahead of the early beginnings of WSU XA. It has so much potential to do really well.

16th de Septiembre

Independence Day for Mexico!!

This is a pedestrian bridge on the way home from the number 25 bus.

Everything is decked out with lights and the Mexican colors.

Downtown Zapopan, the night before the Grito (celebration when everyone shouts for liberty!)

They are a little more patriotic than we are in the States.

All we've seen for weeks now is green, white and red (the colors of the Mexican flag)

Cole and his amigo, Francisco, show off their homemade flags. Like a true-blooded American, he changed into his Old Navy, American flag shirt when he got home.

Cole and Lydia enjoyed a fiesta at the Kinder and were supposed to dress in traditional Mexican outfits. We did our best with a Chivas soccer jersey and dress that we bought here.

At the festivities

When in Mexico, drive like the Mexicans!

We'll post more real stuff later (we know all you want is the pictures anyway!).

Great Headway!!

We've been attending a church called Esmyrna every Sunday. Everything is in Spanish, but since they play familiar songs and project the words up on the screen, it helps us understand what we're singing. We also enjoy the pastor's message, which Steve interprets the just to Liz. Cole and Lydia like going to kids church, where they get to play with other boys and girls, make crafts and learn about Jesus. Cole chose this bear mask as his prize.
One day, after preschool, Steve helped Cole climb a tree. Now that's all he talks about doing, and loves climbing high. He're really good at pulling himself up and holding on. (Don't worry, Steve's just out of camera range for this pic .)

One thing we've enjoyed about living in Mexico is the increased family time we're experiencing. Without all the additional demands on our lives, we've been able to go on walks after Steve gets home from CUCEA. We run into some pretty neat plant life that we never see in the states. As Ohio begins to transition into fall, we've realized how neat it is that trees here in Mexico never hibernate, and just grow leaves on top of leaves. One of the "in things" to do here in Guadalajara is to keep the trees trimmed to perfect squares, spheres or any other shape.



September 16th is Mexico's Independence Day, which is a huge event. Guad has been decorating for it for the last two weeks. Today on campus, they had a short ceremony a couple hours before our third meeting. It went great, with 10 students joining Angela, Liz, Steve and Isaac (Engage student) as we looked at who Jesus is as described in Hebrews 1-2. Several returned from the previous weeks, and brought friends with them. Just before leaving today, Paola asked when we were going to have another hangout. What a great feeling for them to want to be around everyone else, and to feel comfortable and connected enough to bring their friends.

Punto de Divertido (Fun)

I try to head up to campus as often as I can just to meet students, be a regular face on campus, and to pray for the students. I've had the chance to talk to several students about Jesus being the ONE mediator between God and man (1 Tim. 2:5) and that it's only through Him that you can come to the Father (John 14:6). Many students with a Catholic background don't read their Bible, and so they don't know these scriptures are in their Bible pointing to the camino, verdad, y vida (way, truth & life).
Here I am being interviewed on campus about my Telcel cell phone service. We didn't know if they were with a class on CUCEA or with Telcel (which may end up on Mexican TV)















Last night, we invited any students that are a part of Punto de Encuentro over for dinner at our apartment starting at 8pm. We had no idea who would show up, especially when it hit 8pm and no one was here. Then, starting around 8:20, students started showing up, and we ended up having 9 Mexican Christians, 1 Carribean Christian and 6 of us American Christians come.











We ate carne asada with guacamole and and salsa and cactus. The cactus tasted sweet and wasn't too bad. We had a great time talking and connecting with everyone. A couple key students couldn't make it last night, but overall, it turned out much better than we anticipated.

It's really exciting to see something happen at CUCEA. Our focus is now turning to assure it's longevity. Will you pray that the Lord would direct us in His plan for the leadership of Punto de Encuentro?

















Other news: Steve's spanish is rolling along - he loves learning.


Cole has taken over as our bug/cochroach killer in the house.


Lydia is doing much better at Kinder.


Liz is loving the food down here and should come back with some great recipes.

This morning, on our way out to drop the kids off at Kinder (and yes, Lydia came home with ANOTHER hairdo) it didn’t take long for us to notice something was different about our Explorer. Someone apparently had need of both our side mirrors. It’s a common event for missionaries to have things stolen or broken on their cars, and several of them pointed out to us, “Now you’re real missionaries.” So, we drove down to the place where they sell the mirrors they just stole and found out how much it would be to buy them back. Maybe by looking at the picture to the left, you can see we opted not to give them $140 for new ones/our old ones.

Instead, Steve jerry-rigged $2.60 mirrors to the sides to get us by until we go back downtown with a Mexican to help us. Driving is already crazy down here, and to not have side mirrors is like driving nearly blind.
Yet, we are still having fun, and don’t really mind if our core is tested against different obstacles

On a ministry note...

Yesterday we had our second meeting for Punto de Encuentro. A couple students came back, and several students that we already knew came too. One student, Angel Daniel Sanchez Troitino, was able to make it this week. I met Daniel the first time I came down here in March on our Spring Break mission trip with Ashley, Chris, PJ and Ohio State students. We reconnected on our summer trip, and have hung out a lot since the whole family got here. Daniel has a great heart for people and a quiet boldness for Jesus (he led his whole class in 8th grade to the Lord – 55 people including the teacher and did it again last semester here at CUCEA.) I'm really excited to see how God is going to use Daniel in PdE.

Our hearts are already growing for several of the students involved in PdE, and we’ll introduce them to you later. We’re having them over for dinner on Friday to our apartment to hang out and have fun.

Here are more hairdo pictures that you wanted, Jess!

We aren't really sure who all reads this and sometimes I wonder if we're boring everyone or putting up too many pictures of our cute kids. But I figure that if you're reading this, it's because you care and are interested in what is going on, whether it is our personal lives, my kids, or the ministry. So it's up to you how much you want to read when I begin to babble like I am right now...

Have a blessed day!

More than just starting Chi Alpha

Last Friday, I got the chance to utilize more than just my Chi Alpha background of helping start up the group here at CUCEA. “Engage” is looking to move out of their rental houses and purchase property in Guadalajara so they can host over 40 students per year in missions. The head of MAPS Construction, Greg Venturelli, flew down to check out a piece of property that Steve Shoop (director of Engage) was considering. I was asked to come along as well because of my Civil Engineering background. Working at Turner Construction as an estimator, project manager, assistant superintendent and grunt worker enabled me to contribute in investigating the site.
The final result: Greg and I both agreed that the two-story, roofless, 10 year old abandoned building with a side lot is a great ministry center worth purchasing. Renovation is scheduled to begin in October, and I’m sure I’ll lend a hand managing the different MAPS teams in fixing it up. The timing is just too perfect to be a coincidence.

Please pray that God would bring the funds in to move ahead with this project unencumbered.



We also got our FIRST letter to our apartment today! It IS possible to send us mail! (Granted it took a month to reach us.) Thanks Silvia from Xenia First A/G. (We will join you in prayer for your husband that God would heal him!!)


One other news of some significance - Lydia doesn't wear diapers at all anymore - not even to bed. Cole, who was taking his time with the nights, is now motivated to stop wearing his too!

Boogie on the Bricks

Cole and Lydia have gotten to be good friends with the other missionary kids, especially Chloe. She is three and Andrew, from another family, is four. We were invited to a welcoming dinner for all of the new Engage students which is always fun for us because our kids all play together and we get to eat and talk! To find out more about what Engage ministry is check out http://www.engageinmissions.com/

Our kids cannot take a normal photo!






Cole keeps busy collecting caps to bottles for a future craft with Mimi when we get back. He is also learning to take pictures with our camera. Here's another one he took.

















Our Gangsta kids. We have no idea why they both did these "signs" with their hands but we thought it was funny. Notice Lydia's Mexican hair again. Almost everyday, she comes home with a new style. I'll post another one sometime.





















Overall, things are going well. We went to another church today. Almost every church service here is 11-1:30pm which is in the middle of our lunch time but they all eat lunch here around 2pm! (We've gone out for tacos around 11am for lunch before and eat with people who are there for breakfast.)
So the church we went to today has an early service at 9am. It was still long but easier on our appetites! The services here are great. Most of the songs are ones we know, just in Spanish. And Steve understands almost the whole sermon so he leans over and translates for me. The kids aren't as shy going into kids church since they spend the whole week with Spanish kids (as Cole calls them!)

We do miss WSU! We are praying for everyone there as school starts this week.