H.A.R.T.U. #4 - Dallas

The first main segment of our home assignment road trip is wrapping up today and tomorrow morning. We just said good-bye to Kenny and Esme, Maria, Lluvia and Eden. We will miss them. We had a lot of great talks and laughs. It sure is hard to see them go back to El Paso which is so far away from anywhere...a good 10 hour drive from Dallas. When will we see them again? I have no idea but hopefully within 2 years. This is one of the hardest things about missionary life that's for sure.

Tomorrow we pack it all back up and head to the Paris, TX area. They have kids there too and the boys are excited about that. I bought a BB gun (shock!) for the boys to play with whenever we find a place suitable to shoot with it. I expect they'll be jumping out of the truck at this next stop wanting to get right at it! I wonder how long 6,000 BBs will last?!?

Here's some pics of our last few minutes with the Hannas.

Prayer Update!

About a dozen of you committed to pray daily in July for Jason's brother and sister-in-law, Gerardo and Lorena, for their spiritual standing with God and for Gera's job situation. We're nearly at the half-way point in July so I am glad to have an update to share with you concerning them and first an update on what God is doing in Jason and Kristin's lives.

Today, Kristin sent us an email and mentioned that God is doing some neat things in Jason and her lives. They're finding that even though they have no more income than they've had for the past many months, they are finding that God is somehow making their income go further than before. They are baffled by how this is happening but give praise to God for providing for them in what seems to them to be a remarkable way. That's great to hear that they are sensing God's work in their lives and that He is the One providing for them!

She also mentioned that about a week ago Gerardo received a bus route again! This was the key issue for their physical need with his work situation so THANK-YOU for praying! God is answering already! All praise to God! Keep praying! We would love to see God open up the door for His saving grace to reach into the lives of Gerardo and Lorena.

H.A.R.T.U. #3 - Dallas

Can't beat ice cream cones on a day that topped 105 degrees!

Sweet baby Eden

Cameron had a great time scaring the shorts off Maria and Lluvia! They enjoyed it too!

(H.A.R.T.U. #3 - Home Assignment Road Trip Update #3)

Just enjoying a few days here at the CAM Center guest housing with Beth's brother and his family. Haven't seen them since Christmas 2007 so it is a special time for us all to get a few days together. Their girls are such sweeties. They've taken to their "Tio Alan" and "her boys." "Her" applies to everyone and I've got nothing more to say about that. :-)

("Tio" is Spanish for "uncle" in case you didn't know.)

We enjoyed a visit to Half-Price Books today, ice cream and a delicious Puerto Rican meal that Esme made for us (Esmeralda is Kenny's wife...her family is Puerto Rican American).

We continue to be chagrined at how many work teams canceled their summer trips to Mexico this year due to the many reports of violence and the flu. From what I can tell the violence in the U.S. is much more alarming and much more random than in most of Mexico (including our region) and the flu has been more of a problem in the U.S. more recently than it has been in Mexico.

However, I did read online that the first deadly flu case in our state of Querétaro just occurred about a week ago in our city of San Juan del Río. We were sorry to hear that with the cooler weather (yes, it is cooler at this time of year with the coming of the rains) the flu is apparently starting to show up again.

After further discussion, it looks like we'll probably need to replace the struts on the truck after all. It appears it will be about an $800 job but I think with the smoother roads up here, we'll wait until we get back to Dallas in September to do it. We'll see if we have funds left for that then. Between Wal-Mart and SAMs one would think we'd be honorary members or owners after all the funds we seem to part with there. Maybe you can relate.

H.A.R.T.U. #2 - Dallas

We're here in the Big D with D-boy, Camboy and the B and me, the A. Two nights with good friends here, even though one of them had to be away most of the time with meetings out of town.

Dallas in July is somewhere between intolerable and awfully intolerable. It cooled off this evening to suffocating. Since 9 a.m. today, I've felt like I must have taken a bath in sweat. I didn't even sweat that much when I was out but I feel sticky, clammy and just an overall feeling of yuck.

Besides the weather we have actual stuff we've got to do here. I've done the most important ones (from my perspective). Our car inspection was out-of-date by about 2 months so I got that done today before being noticed by any of the nice police officers here in Texas. I also discovered our car registration renewal in the waiting mail at the CAM Center this morning so I went down and took care of that too.

One piece of good news is that our resident car expert doesn't think I need to replace the struts just yet. We'll re-evaluate in September when we get back. We managed to get our parts and labor quotes worked down from $1600 to about $800 for this job. The struts on this vehicle are expensive that's for sure.

We move over to the guest housing at the CAM Center tomorrow. We'll be in apartment 5 but I don't know the phone number off-hand. Beth's brother, Kenny, and his wife and 3 little girls will arrive Saturday evening (?) and stay to Thursday. We're looking forward to seeing them. We haven't met baby Eden who is about 4 months old now. We haven't seen any of them since December 2007. We can hardly wait to see them again. I don't think we have any big plans...just going to hang out and sip some early morning coffee (Kenny and me) and let the kids play and enjoy lots of good conversation.

I'm so glad we decided to take this time before our travels begin in earnest. These trips are wonderful but tiring and we need the chance to catch our breath and feel our feet back in the USA. I was a little sick today but just the same intestinal stuff I've been dealing with for a long time now. I am thinking I'm going to have to seek a different set of medicines to deal with this. I don't think what I've been taking is helping much. Bummer.

Oh and our time in Fort Hood was exceptional and I'm glad to report there were no strip searches! We weren't sure if Mark was pulling my leg or not...he was. That stinker! So, we've been with two of our supporters already and we have not even started our "real trip" yet. Well, on second thought, I guess maybe we have.

Thanks for your prayers!

H.A.R.T.U. #1

Rather than type out "Home Assignment Road Trip Update" I'll use "HARTU" to save space.

We arrived in McAllen, TX on Friday evening after 600+ miles and about 11 hours, including crossing the border which required us to fill out some paperwork to leave Mexico and to have our car sticker removed, etc.

The drive was as long as always but went well at all the checkpoints and somehow escaped the speed traps on the Mexico side (thanks to God!). We passed a couple of bad wrecks and were thankful to have arrived here safely.

One of the two accidents would have happened about the time we would have passed through but I decided to stop for gas at a station on one side of a city rather than the other where I normally do. We were at the station for about 10 or 15 minutes and we likely missed the accident by that amount of time. It was probably the worst accident I've ever seen. The victims were still in the two vehicles when we passed by the scene and an ambulance had just arrived before we did. It appears a vehicle rear-ended a Ford Ranger at maybe 80 to 100 mph and they ended up about 50 to 100 feet off the highway on both sides. Both had flipped numerous times and were nothing more than scrap metal. The car that no doubt was traveling so fast had gone airborne and landed in an orchard and we could barely see what was left of the car from the road. It was totally destroyed and had left untouched a 5 foot fence that was about 20 feet off the side of the road. It must have flipped end over end and been catapulted over the fence. It was a sobering sight and another reminder of how excessive speeds on the highways in Mexico make them dangerous and deadly. Praise God that we weren't on that stretch just a few minutes before and that our entire trip went well.

Thank-you for praying for our travels. We know that God is answering your prayers for our safety and health.

Fourth of July was a great experience for the boys with a symphonic band performance downtown and then the parade which was a new experience for the boys. The parade wasn't too spectacular but they got the idea. The fireworks were good and the kids enjoyed that too.

Our hosts took us to their church and the boys enjoyed services (S.S. and children's church for Dayton) in English which we haven't experienced for 2 years.

Once again we're enjoying brushing our teeth in tap water and being able to place toilet paper in the toilet! It is always a fun transition for a couple months. We've also enjoyed other little food (& junk) niceties like Mountain Dew, Root Beer, fresh cherries, Wheat Thins, BBQ, summer peaches, sno-cones...and we're just getting started! We have some favorites that we'll get to as we go.

Our health is doing OK. It takes a few days before our bodies will begin to adjust to the water and food here too. Today and tomorrow (when we travel again) would likely be the days we might have problems if we're going to have any. My intestinal problems are still lingering but I think the medications are helping some. I hope by the end of the week I feel differently but so far it seems I have just taken the edge off the worst symptoms but haven't really gotten notably better. I appreciate your prayers for this issue.

We leave tomorrow morning for Fort Hood in Killeen, TX to visit with good friends and supporters there. Looking forward to that as well. We'll head on to Dallas on Wednesday from there. The road is just beginning.