Following the Father

Friday, July 10th 

Yesterday I did more painting on the iron in the courtyard wall.  The paint is so runny I end up painting my hands as well, and since it is oil pain it does not come off easily!    Like before we worked on various projects around the church all morning then ate lunch.  After lunch we all took turns in the showers.  There is a separate building where the showers and toilets are. There is a boys side and a girls side with two showers in each.

After showers we packed up and headed out to the community for VBS.  The road into the community is a winding thing made out of dirt and chunks of concrete that you can never drive more than 5-7 miles per hour on.

The kids wave and get excited when they see the two big white vans coming.  One little 5 year old boy named Thomas is usually waiting for us at the site where we set up by the mission.  I enjoy interacting with him, he's so cute and funny.  After we arrived we got in a circle to pray before setting up.  Someone from Merge or the church gives the kids name tags as they start pouring in.  I went behind the canopies to the little area where we do games and played with them while things continued to get set up. The girls enjoyed the jump ropes we brought and were very good with them.  Thomas enjoyed throwing and kicking a back and forth with me.    He grinned the entire time and would run to get the ball whenever it would get away from us and roll down the hill.  He is probably about the size of a 3 year old and has darker complexion like that of the Mexican Indians.

We did our VBS routine and rolled with what came.  I think things went pretty well and we all did better at just making the best of whatever happened.  The kids that have been there before also remember how things went before which is helpful.  I smiled as much as possible since my facial expressions are my only means of communication.  Some of the kids are really getting the Bible verse and everyone loves coloring, which is what we do to fill in time after we practice the verse. Milford and I actually have broken the Bible verse into 3 parts.  We did the first part Tues, second part Wed.and the Thurs.  Today we'll practice the whole thing.

The language barrier is driving me crazy as usual.  I think I'm OK at doing the sign language type communication but I just want so very bad to talk with kids at VBS and Pastor Thomas' family and those from the church!  I feel very used to it in a way after Ghana and Taiwan but the frustration of not being able to fully commune with everyone is still there.  I remember now why I wished when I was little that I knew all the languages of the world.

In the evening we ate a wonderful dinner that the pastor's family made outside.  Everyone had a nice bug hunk of grilled chicken.  Every evening we eat a delicious Mexican mean. After dinner our group, the family, some from the church, and Merge drove to a high spot in the city.  We drove up as far as you're allowed to drive and hiked the rest of the way (on pavement) to the top of hill where there is a large platform with a massive flag pole in the middle.  The flag wasn't flying that day which was a disappointment but the view from up there was not.  Ben got some good pictures of the city and mountains.  As it grew dark the city lights made even more incredible.  After everyone had a chance to walk around and look at the view and take pictures we gathered together to split up into groups. The real reason we went up there was to pray over the city.  We split into 4 groups, one to go to the north, south, east, and west sides of the platform.  My group, I believe, was on the North side.  Our prayer group had Milford, two men from the church, Gadiel, Niel, Ben and me.  We wrapped arms around each others shoulders and each prayed as we went around the circle and also during each others prayers.  You could feel the Holy Spirit moving as we prayed for the church, mission, our church, and the city of Monterrey.  After the groups were done praying we gathered together as one big group and prayed all at one time out loud.

Sometimes in the evening after we get back to the church compound (the Pasor's home is on the same lot) some of us will sit outside on benches with the pastor's 3 sons Joel, Gadiel, and Niel and they'll bring out their guitar and play and sing some songs for us.  If we know them sometimes we'll sing along in English.  It is fun to get to know people in casual yet deeper way.  The guys actually have their own Christian band with their first C.D coming out soon.   

Wednesday, July 8th

Yesterday was our first fully day in Monterrey.  It was busy and completely fascinating.  I am already wishing that I could have longer to get to know people.  In the morning we worked under the direction of Emmanuel of the Merge staff to scrape and sand the old peeling paint off in the church.  We also cleaned up windows and washed dusty curtains and décor and started putting on the new coat of paint.

In the afternoon after we got cleaned up we all went to the community where this church has set up a mission.  It is a very poor community, most homes are built out of what people in the States would consider trash and are the size of a large (or small) bathroom.  When we got there we split up into 3 teams.  Two teams to go invite mothers to the womens ministry and their kids to VBS and the other toset up the shelters for us to work under and get all our supplies pulled out ofthe trailer.  Since Milford can actually speak Spanish he did more of the inviting in our group as we made our way down the streets through the trash and mud.

VBS officially got under way at 4:00 though plenty of kids showed up long before that and jumped on the rented trampoline that the pastor's family had set up in advance. After we got things together we started the VBS by showing the farming/story time video that the Reiths had recorded and Ben help put together.  That taught our lesson for the day and all the other activities built on that.  Milford, Jordan, and Kristen led the kids in a song and then we slit them up into 3 age groups.  Each group went to a different station, either craft, games, or scripture memory.  The age groups would then switch stations every 15 minutes or so.  Milford and I were in charge of scripture memory, and though it was interesting trying to teach the kids a verse in a language I didn't know I believe we did reasonably well.  We a snack at that station for after we had practiced the verse but from now on we'll leave the snack for the end.  It is much too big of a draw to try to hand out food to one group at a time.  We believe about 90 kids showed up plus babies that were held by mothers and older siblings.  The pastor's wife, Ava was in charge of the womens ministry that took place during those couple of hours.

In the evening the church had a small service outside where our group introduced ourselves, Mike shared a small message, and we all sang a song for them.  Some kids from the church also sang I Am a Friend of God for us.  (in Spanish)

Thursday, July 9th

Yesterday was another full day of work, VBS, and a fun outing in the evening.  After another hot night without electricity (not that they have air conditioners but there are fans mounted on the wall in the sanctuary where the ladies are sleeping.) we got to work again in the church.  Anna and I were assigned to painting an iron gate in the courtyard wall.  All the iron window and gate openings in the courtyard concrete wall are rusty and the paint that was there is flaking off.  It is actually quite hard to get the paint on all the sides and in all the little crevices of the swirled iron.  Joel came out and "chatted" for awhile.  I guess you can still call it that when we're speaking half one language half another and sign language.  He's very laid back though and doesn't seem to mind much.  He brought out some of his paints and doodled on a corner outside on the courtyard wall.  I felt guilty for awhile about stopping my job to watch him draw and interact.  Then I remembered what Merge said in their handbook about people being more important than the jobs we're given and relaxed.  He brought out some canvas paintings that he'd done to show us as well.

The young ladies of the group quite early that day to get showered before lunch so that we could go to a girl's house from the church who had befriended the girls in our group. That ended up falling thru but we did see her in the evening. 

VBS at the mission was even more crazy than yesterday due to rain and a projector that wouldn't work. The kids still had fun and we're trying to communicate through the chaos that we care.

That evening our group and several people from the Spanish church and the pastors family went to a beautiful riverwalk in downtown Monterrey.  The whole area around the man-made river was lit up and there were fountains spread throughout the park.  What made the long walk so enjoyable and memorable for me though was building relationships with the people from the church.  The lights, clever fountains, green grass, and cute boats floating down the glossy water will only last for so long.  God's kingdom however is eternal, and so are the people he has created.  There is an amazing bond that crosses all cultures and languages in the world when people are in the body of Christ.  I could see it as I watched people from both churches talking with one another.  It may have taken 10 times as long to communicate one sentence as they tried to use their bit of English and we tried to use our bit of Spanish but I think we still learned a lot about each other that night.  There was plenty of laughter and good memories that I believe will stay with people from both churches for the years to come and be a sourceof encouragement.  I spent a lot of time walking with a new friend form the church named Yenni.  She's 13 and found me over and over againwhen we'd get separated on our walk. She was very patient with the language barrier as well.

Sunday, July 5th 2009

Today is my birthday. I didn't think much about that fact when I got up this morning, my thoughts were more occupied with getting out the door with all my stuff and to the church parking lot by 5:30am.  Today I and 16 others from church left Mac for Mexico!  I've been planning on this trip for the past several months but I didn't foresee that Ben would be going as well.  He didn't know either until Saturday! (Yesterday)  Someone from the team canceled last minute and Mike offered Ben his spot.  God allowed him the ability to finagle his schedule and pack last minute to go.

I'm right now riding in the smaller of the two vans we're taking.  One is a 15 passenger with a borrowed trailer hooked up to it, and the other is a 12 passenger with it's back seat taken out for luggage.

I didn't care for the way so many special events were crammed into June and July with no breathing space.  I felt like I haven't been able to focus on this trip as much as I'd like.  But here I am anyway, I pray God can still use this humble vessel.

Tuesday, July 7th

Last night we arrived in Monterrey around 5:45pm.  We followed Alex and the others from Merge Ministries to the church that we ware staying at and partnering with.  Alex met us at the border town in Texas that we spent the night at in a church.  We didn't really get going again yesterday toward the border till around 10:30am.  There is a paper that we didn't know about that we were supposed to have for the borrowed trailer when we cross the border that we were trying to get faxed to us.  It took about 2-3 hours to get completely across the border due to more issues with paper work for the trailer.  Dale (director of Merge Ministries) ended up having to drive to the border (He lives in the border town we slept at) with another paper that they said we needed.  We did make it across though without having to have the vans searched by the military checkpoint. 

When we arrived at the church in Monterrey the pastor and his family came out to greet us with a little more than a hand shake.  The pastor had an accordion and one of his sons had a large 12 string guitar and they played and sang some songs to welcome us.  We then all lined up and shook hands and were introduced to everyone.  Later in the evening some of the other church members came to greet and eat supper with us.  They had long tables and benches set up outside in the courtyard where they were planning for us all to eat but it started to storm so they moved things indoors.  It poured like the storms I remember from the rainy season in Ghana. 

After we ate and were getting our things unloaded and put into the church where we were going to sleep we saw lightning strike the power box and line across the street.  It knocked our power our and we are still without it.  After the rain stopped the kids from the church started a football (soccer) game.  Hannah, one of the pastor's granddaughters, spent a lot of time in her extremely expressive way trying to communicate with the group.  She finally got across to Tyler that she was asking if they would play football.  Tyler said yes and she spun around from him and shouted "FOOTBALL!" and all the kids came running.  It was a great icebreaker.

Again it has been awhile!  I keep telling myself I'll do better with consistent blogging but I keep having technical touble and it discouraging me!  I have the most trouble with pictures and blog posts aren't nearly as interesting without them.

I'd been planning for the last several months to go with my church on a short missions trip to Monterrey Mexico.  The team was meeting every Monday evening to plan and train for our time there.  The day before we left one member of team cancled, so who do you think hopped on the tain?  Ben!  He had thought about going but never signed up thinking it just was a little too much after going on the Columbia vision trip recently.  Our youth director (he was leading the trip, though it was a youth and adult combo) offered Ben his spot the day before.  Ben pulled some VERY last minute strings and God made it work out!

I'm going to put up a series of blog posts with entries from my journal.  I figure that's the easiest way to share about my time there.

May always seems to be a busy month, and this May is no exception! My poor site has been woefully neglected of late because of it. Short posts are better than no posts I always say have recently determined, so that is what this one will be!

My youngest sister always makes life interesting so I'll just give you a few quotes of hers from today.

I'm walking through the living room when Mercy calls out quite loudly, "There's a father long leg in our house!"

Samuel said in his very big brotherly way, "You mean father long legs?" (emphasis on the plural) I was just going to let it go and store in my funny memories but with that

know-it-all tone from my highly intelligent little brother I couldn't help but turn around and say, "You're wrong too." and continue on my projected path toward my room. Never one to pass up information he followed me and demanded to know what the name really was. I told him... and that was that.

"Mommy!" The call came echoing down the hallway from the bathroom.

"What!" came the call back.

"There's no placemat on the floor!"

Right after that last quote Mercy asked Mommy, "Were cars invented before houses?"

It is times like that when my poor homeschooling mother needs to just plug her ears and hum Jesus Loves Me.

I won't bother mentioning all the times I've embarrassed her about the things I don't know.

Blessings!

~Elizabeth

Here is a selection of my favorite senior pictures that got taken last week.

~Elizabeth

Ok, so we've jokingly said that this state has the strangest weather in the U.S. as it can change from the 70s to 30s almost over night, but everyone seems to claim that about where they live!  So now that we're in about a foot or  more of snow and it's almost April I'm thinking I should write a poem about this!  The drifts that we've collected around our house are completely shocking!  You can't see the railing on our deck.  It makes it very hard to try to estimate the actual amount of snow fall we are having.  Thankfully though my parents were out in this yesterday because of a doctor's appointment out of town, it was early on enough that they could get home.  It was slow going though, and they were diverted off of the interstate because of accidents from the ice.  Here it is snow, wind, and more snow, but not really any ice.

I'm now about 3 weeks into my apprenticeship with the midwife M.  She's amazing at what she does, and I feel very priveledged to be able to watch her and learn from her.  I know now that this is a much better first step than training at a birth center or pludging into a medical program.  I've been to 3 prenatals and postpartums at her place where all her ladies come for their appoitments.  I also have been to 2 births, both ending up on the same day.  We were at the one laboring mom's place for about 12 hours before she finally had her baby the next morning.  She was a trouper and has a healthy baby girl now.  The other mom also had a baby girl, but we were only there for the evening, and not all night for that one!  I thought the long one was a great first time for me though.  That's midwifery for you, you stay with the mom for everything, not burst in to catch the baby when it's "time!"

Though we were hoping to go visit my uncle, aunt and cousins today, obviously with them living 3 hours away that's not going to happen!  We're postponing the trip to next week when hopefully we won't have blizzard conditions stopping us!

~Elizabeth 

I'm trying yet again to update on some recent things that have been happening with me in regards to my desire to learn midwifery.  I tried multiple times yesterday to post something but kept being interrupted for many reasons, and then so many things would happen before I'd get back to it that by that time things had changed so much that I needed to rewrite the update!  Then when I finally did finish typing something current last evening, the computer froze up and the server timed out on me when I tried to post it and I lost the whole thing!  So... I gave up.

Here's the bullet points of this week's major happenings for myself, starting Tuesday.

Tuesday:

I spent alot of the afternoon researching midwifery internship/apprenticeship possibilities.  It was hard to find anything that was near us, and even if I was willing to go the distance, it was very pricey and the people in charge were not Christians and the theology that you feel on their website was questionable.  God then prompted me to specifically google midwives with our state name, and see if I could come up with a list of certified midwives in our area.  Though I didn't find a list, I did find a midwife's profile on a website giving a bit of information about herself.  She's a Christian, has a large family, and has been practicing for 22 years.  When I was reading about her she sounded familiar and I vaguely remembered some friends mentioning her several months ago.    I excitedly e-mailed her explaining who I was and asked if she had any suggestions of where would be a good place for me to start and if she knew of any people I could contact.

Wednesday:

I got an e-mail back from her which said to call her so she could set up a time to meet with my parents and I.  This wasn't the response I expected, it was much better!  I called her later that day and talked with her briefly.  She said she'd call me back to set up a time since she was rushed at that point because she was in a class.

Thursday:

The midwife called that morning and we agreed that Mommy and I would meet with her at her house later that morning.  So that's what we did, and we talked for a good hour and 45 minutes.  We were encouraged by that meeting as it is obvious she is a solid believer in Jesus and his importance in every part of our lives and we gained alot of information about her and her midwifery practice.  The end result of that meeting/interview was that I will do a trial apprenticeship with her for a couple of months, and if we both still feel that I'm called to this area we'll continue from there.  My first step will be going to her house next Tuesday to meet some of the mothers she cares for and watch her do prenatals.  (She does prenatals every Tuesday in her home, but the births take place in the family's home)  I'm still trying to catch up to all this!  I went from dreaming about this hopefully happening some day on Monday, to being an apprentice on Thursday!

After getting home that afternoon from that meeting we started trying to think through the details of what needs to happen for this, and one thing that is extremely obvious is that I need to get rid of my permit and move to my license already!  You wouldn't believe the challenge it is to get the required hours for a permit in a small town.  Especially night hours, as I don't go anywhere at night without my big brothers being home!  But I finally had them so we called the DMV to see when would be a good time for me to go in for the test.  They said better do it today or it won't happen for a couple of weeks as one of the employees will be gone for the next week at least.  SO... my dad called work and got permission to come in late, my mom took care of Baby B. for me, (he came earlier that afternoon after we got back) and my dad and I hoped in the smaller van to rush to the DMV!  We actually only had a small wait compared to when I’ve been there before.  I took the test, passed it, and now I have my license!!  Alot can happen in one day!

Friday:

I'm just trying to process all that happened yesterday and this week in general.  Obviously God has this already mapped out.  I just need to keep taking one step at a time!

~Elizabeth

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

I did NOT just spend almost 40 minutes looking through other peoples highly clever and funny Not Me Monday posts.

I did NOT have a cold all last week that I just got over but did church nursery duty on Sunday anyway, 'cause surely after a week my sniffles shouldn't be contagious!  After all I did NOT want to bother calling someone on such short notice to get them to take over on my last Sunday of S.S. nursery duty! (that part is true!)

I did NOT flat our REFUSE to go driving one eveing last week with my mom, even though I need the night hours if I'm ever going to finally get my license!  After all I was NOT sick and my head wasn't hurting, and I wasn't feeling dizzy.  Nope not me!  I sure did not say "NO" rather emphatically and rudely when it was suggested.

I did NOT use my cliche with my sister again of not "smelling" her paper when she writes for schoowork.  She does NOT after all bend down so low to her paper when writing that surely her eyes must go crossed  (yet she has perfect vision).

I did NOT think unsweet thoughts about a member of the family who thinks it is her duty to almost always do the opposite of what is asked or desired of her to do.

I did NOT watch Fireproof last night with my parents and cry several different times.  I do NOT think that if I watched it every evening this week that I would cry at some point every time.  (Wonderful Godly movie, make sure you get it!  It is now on DVD)

I do NOT wish to have children from all around the world when I'm married, and I do not wish to have so many children that we need a 15 passenger van to haul them to church!

I am NOT sad that my older brothers have to be at school most of the time, (especially Josh since he can't come home on weekends, being in another state) and not being able to have fun with me/us.

I do NOT need to get off the computer and get something constructive done.

I did NOT do anything wrong this week and acted pleasing to God in every way shape and form!  cough, cough

I am NOT having loads of fun with this post and do NOT want to do it again next Monday!

~Elizabeth

As you've probably noticed I'm switching alot of things around and changing almost everything in my site.  I still haven't finished with all that I'm wanting to do, but I'm slowly getting there.  I've decided to stick with this Webs site builder and blog for now.  I don't think any particular company is perfect and has exactly what I want, so I'm doing to just try to make what I already have work!

This week I've been lugging myself through a head cold.  It started out as just that faint "sick" feeling, where you just know something isn't quite right.  Then the next day I got the deep chest cough type thing, then my head got full, then my nose started in, and... you get the idea.

Grandma has had something too, so I probably got it from her.  I'm hoping that it won't get everybody before it leaves!

I've been reading some Frank Peretti the past couple of months for the first time.  At least the adult ones I'd never read before.  I've now read The Prophet, This Present Darkness, and I'm currently reading Piercing the Darkness. They’ve all been thought provoking and I’ve enjoyed them so far.  I'm told some of the ones he wrote later were too over the top for many, but I know God is definitely "over the top" so I'll save my opinion until I read one of them!

Josh lost his phone a few days ago, unknown to us, until a young lady calls us asking how she can find the owner of this phone she found.  It's pretty comical now that it is all resolved.  She called "Home" in his contact list (us) and also looked him up on facebook.  God was definitely looking out for him as she said that the area where she found his phone while walking across campus was not her usual route that she takes.  I'm glad God's got his back since his mom and sister don’t about things like that anymore!

Ben's home from his apartment at school for the weekend, her arrived at his usually time this afternoon.  He usually comes in the early afternoon Friday and stays until late Sunday afternoon.  His apartment has been great for cutting down on his commute from home to school, and home to work everyday.

With all the major health issues my mom has been going through our whole family's (the ones in the house right now) diet has taken a major turn too.  My mom has always been one to cook and serve quality meals and been wholesome in the what everyone gets, but it seems with everything having additives and artificial substances now that we've had to become even more strict.  Nobody really minds though since the healthy stuff usually tastes good too!  We recently made a trip to a bulk food store in a town about half an hour from here that others had been telling us about.  We hope to be able to go once a month to stock up.  It's run by Mennonites and they get most of their stuff from neighboring Mennonite farms.  I'll share a few nutritional things we've found out along the way in other posts when I think of it.  Some things have been rather surprising but make sense when you think about it!

~Elizabeth