Fast update

Life:
Steve has been asked to take a 14 hour busride with Isaac, (an Engage student) to Laredo Texas tomorrow night. They are headed up there to help Steve Shoop (director of Engage) bring a newer van across the border with sound equipment and a puppet stage. So, Steve will be in the States for 3 or 4 hours - just long enough to mail another examen he took to continue becoming ordained.

Liz and the kids are getting ready to take a short trip to Nuevo Vallarta when Steve gets back. We´ll be staying right on the beach with everything paid for for three days and two nights. What a blessing to be able to go do something so exotic and have it cost next to nothing because we´re already down here in Mexico.

Pictures will follow (we know they are fun to look at!)

So Mom and Dad were here this last week and we had a great time with them. Highlights from their time here: spending time with us of course, the feeding program that Engage ministries does every week in a poor area, playing five crowns every night, the Indians games, great shopping, and of course the food!!! The weather was perfect for them. It was a holiday on Friday so schools were closed and they got to experience a crazy festival. And Cole and Lydia soaked up every moment. Starbucks got to know my Dad pretty well while he finished up some work from home over a few mornings. The cockroaches even stayed away for the most part to make them feel more at home. Overall, it was a great half-way point to our time down here (which is going by so fast!).

The super good food at a restaurant we took them too. The bowls are made from lava rock and were so hot that the sauce boil the whole time. Yum.

Mom seriously couldn't get enough of the great food here. We didn't mind the sacrifice of eating out.

Poppy's girl

Mimi loved the cuddle time she got with the kids.

Drinking coconut milk at the crazy huge festival.

King Cole dressed up for Columbus day at preschool.

Mom and Dad fell in love with the kids at the feeding program. You wouldn't have guessed there was a language barrier between them!

Other thoughts... We are feeling good about the core group of about 5-6 students that is forming and their faithfulness to the group and with Angela's leadership. Jesus is being faithful.

checking in

It's been a while!! It gets hard cuz we don't have internet at home and the internet at CUCEA (campus) is funky and we can't update blogs from there. So we have to do it from the engage house and the last few times we've been there, we got caught up in other important things like Steve's fantasy football.

We're having a great time. My folks are here and my mom has insisted on eating out every meal since she's fallen in love with authentic Mexican food. Luckily for my dad, all six of us can eat at a taco stand on the side of the road for about $5. After this trip it will be hard for them to go back to Taco Bell.

I'll post some pics when I have more time.

Other thoughts: Steve is loving the two guys that he's been pouring a lot into. He's really going to miss them. They are great guys and soak up everything that Steve is pouring into them. We're very excited about them. Their names are Adrian and Isai.

More later!

I thought I should get some more pictures up here so that you didn't all think we were in the pits of despair. Actually, we are doing well. It is through trials that we are made stronger and we realize how great the Lord really is. So we are just praising Him for being so good to us.

Our kids LOVE public transportation. Here we are on the train going into the Centro.

Not everything is this colorful but it's definitely different than our white houses in the States. There is actually every color of the rainbow on this block!

This is the most touristy we've felt, taking a picture of a guy at work in front of the bank. These guys are everywhere! In front of stores, banks, some parks. I don't know if I should feel safer or not!

Other fun news: Cole and Lydia run into Kinder now and love it. I've got an addiction to Chilaquiles (which is a spicy breakfast food). Steve gets to go to a Chivas game tomorrow night with some students (a futbol game). And my mom (and possible my dad if we can talk him into it) is coming in just over a week!! If you know anything about my family, we just can't stay away from each other.

Steve has also been working hard on his ordination classes. And I'm reading an amazing book that is rocking my world and walk with the Lord. It's A.W. Tozer's The Pursuit of God. I read it ten years ago and just picked it up again. I'm soaking up every bit of it. It's like he's reading my heart. Everything he says is exactly what's going on with me and I love it. It is also a very hard book to read because I don't want to continue on until I "get it" or have a breakthrough. But I was stuck at chapter 3 for so long that I decided to just keep reading and I'll read through it a few times!

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.