Trip Update and **URGENT PRAYER REQUEST**

(this is a copy of our email update which some reading this might not receive)

This trip has truly been excellent in every way.  We praise God for how He has worked in these past 17 days.

• He gave us an amazingly smooth trip up through northern Mexico.  All three vehicles in our caravan drove flawlessly and no one got sick or injured.  There were no safety issues encountered throughout that day, and none since then either.
• God provided $6,600 toward the purchase of a replacement vehicle in one week with only an email message sent out to mention our need!
• God provided the ideal vehicle at auction that fit all of our list of requirements/needs and it was the only vehicle in the huge Dallas auction that made our list of potential vehicles for our dealer contact to bid on.
• God providentially and unbeknownst to any of us ahead of time had Beth's brother and his family from El Paso (an 11 hour drive from here) staying in the same building at the same time Cameron and I were staying there here in Dallas!
• God has provided friends who have housed and fed us for many nights and meals.
• The "new" 2006 Toyota Sienna has performed very well and proven to be in excellent physical/mechanical condition.  (never know with a used vehicle, especially one bought at auction)
• God has blessed us with some wonderful contributions...like new curriculum (just what we needed!) and a classical guitar (to give to Jason so he can join in learning our worship songs...he's a very good guitarist but couldn't afford a guitar)
• Cameron has enjoyed a number of days playing with other MKs that we know well and who live in this area now.
• Most of our shopping list of needs has been filled and all of our homeschool curriculum for the next 2 years is now packed in the van and ready to roll.

PRAISE GOD!  He is so good no matter what...whether things go well or not well.  So many things have gone perfectly!

This leads me to one important prayer request.  Despite the best efforts by our dealer who did all that he could to ascertain the title situation of the van before bidding, there has been some sort of hitch.  It doesn't seem to be a critical problem, just a delay in getting the papers for reasons he could not discover.  It appears the vehicle was brought here from Florida and we could speculate that it might have been repossessed, although we really don't know.  

The problem this delay presents us is that we are scheduled to head to the border on Wednesday.  Our teammates who have two vehicles and can travel within CAM's strict travel policy without me, apparently would need to do just that should we be unable to drive the van into Mexico.  While I don't need a title in-hand, the previous/current title must be produced here in Dallas in order to finalize the purchase and to allow the vehicle to be registered in my name (along with an application for a new title in my name).  That must happen before I can leave.  So, if our co-workers leave us, we're stuck here even when our papers come through because we'll not have another vehicle to travel with us through northern Mexico where CAM's travel policy applies. At least, we don't have to travel with other CAM missionaries, we can travel in tandem with just about anyone else, but we do have to know them and have some info from them for tracking our whereabouts as we travel those few hours through the northern region.

We have no idea when the title will arrive.  It could come today, tomorrow, or anywhere from 1 to 8 more weeks from now.  Obviously, with Beth and Dayton at home in Mexico without us or a vehicle for the past 2 1/2 weeks, it would be difficult for them to have us delayed for a significant period of time.  Not to mention we all miss each other and are hoping we can be reunited as planned later this week.

Would you please join us in praying that God will provide the title to our dealer today or tomorrow or just as soon as He wants it to arrive?  We know that God is in control and has us here for just as long as He wants us.  If it creates a human crisis, that's something He certainly can do.  He knows what is best for us and we trust His heart and hand in all things.    Nonetheless, we're charged to pray for our needs and desires as they fall into place with His will and since we don't know for sure what His will is in this matter, we will presume to pray for this matter to resolve any hour or day now.  If God does have us here with our papers after it's too late to rejoin our caravan before they cross, pray that He will provide another suitable traveling partner that could help us satisfy CAM's travel requirements. 

Ironically, the reason we felt the need to purchase the van was because it puts us into a position to meet the strictest travel policy requirements whereas our former vehicle didn't meet those requirements.  So part of our purpose of making this purchase was to avoid finding ourselves in a bad situation due to the very policy that could once again leave us stranded in the USA as it did last October.

Your prayers have been so very much felt and appreciated these past few weeks, and we hope you'll take a moment and pray for this situation.  

God is good all the time!

You Know You're A Missionary When...

You know you're a missionary when your luggage ensemble includes Wal-Mart bags.

(You're a veteran missionary when you double-bag them.)

FAMILY!

Getting to see family is usually a huge treat for missionaries.  We're no exceptions (aside from Beth's mom who lives upstairs from us so we see her all the time!).

A neat thing God did for Cameron and me on this trip is that while we were making last minute plans to take this trip to Dallas for a list of reasons, Beth's brother, Ken, had already been planning a trip to Dallas that overlapped with our few days staying at the CAM Center.  In fact, he was planning on staying in one of the five CAM Center guest apartments too!  We had no idea until a few days before we came up!

Ken and Esme were planning to get away from El Paso for a few days and visit with some old friends who were also passing through Dallas for a short time.  Of course, God's timing was impeccable and we enjoyed nearly three full days of delicious family fellowship and some great memories.  Thanks to our Father for arranging a very sweet time together without any of us even planning it!

Darwin Award Loser (whew!)

If you know what the "Darwin Awards" are, you might appreciate knowing that I don't qualify for them yet.  I'm sure some of you who know me well are probably surprised by this.  Yesterday, I came close to qualifying for consideration for the 2011 awards. 

If you don't know what the Darwin Awards are, I'm tempted to not tell you. Basically, these are awards presented posthumously to idiots who have managed to die in dumb, self-inflicted ways.  The idea is to connect Darwinian ideas of "natural selection" and "survival of the fittest" with our fellow humanity who come to the end of their lives on this earth through stupid ways that result in "removing them from the gene pool."

The short version of the story is I was in the process of replacing the battery on our recently purchased Sienna (see previous post for photos).  Unfortunately, my tools were limited and my attention to what I was doing was even more limited, and I somehow grounded the small wrench in my left hand to the battery terminal while attempting to remove the brace that holds the battery in place.  I didn't really even see it happen.

I heard a pop, saw a large spark, felt a lot of heat from the wrench (which I threw behind me) and also from my wedding band which I frantically attempted to remove.  The 100+ temperatures of the afternoon which tend to make fingers a bit swollen did not help the situation.  It was comical except for the fact that it really was a near-Darwin Award moment.

The end result was a slight burn all around my ring indentation, a layer of skin missing on the top of that location, a collection of fluid along the bottom of that location (I used a pair of sterilized scissors to cut the skin open to drain it off), and a couple of damaged points on my wedding band where the electricity found its way into my body.  After removing the ring, I thought for a moment that there was some sort of strange writing on it, but I may have been mistaken.  I don't see any writing now.  :-)

Of course, with every negative lesson in life, there can be positive lessons learned (pun intended, of course):

I am quite sure I will be much more attentive when dealing with car batteries in the future.  

I will likely remove my wedding band before handling metal tools near electrical sources.  

I also can attest to the fact that when life gets charged up with shocking events, a solid marriage will keep your life grounded "'til death do you part"!  (literally!)

No awards for me so far this year.  I hope to keep it that way!

The marks are on exact opposite sides of the ring.  I guess opposites don't really attract after all!

A Sunset Walk

Cameron and I are enjoying most of this week with our good friends and co-CAMers the Yinglings.  Cameron is hanging out with Monica and Keegan as well as Brent and Kathryn Buhler.  Both the Yinglings and the Buhlers were families from our area in Mexico who are now living in the Dallas area.

The Yinglings actually live about an hour east of Dallas near world-famous Canton.  I guess it's world famous because the wall in the Dairy Palace in Canton says its hamburgers are world-famous.  I think that means the town must also be world-famous.  I could be wrong.

Anyway, the kids were out with Aunt Ruth this evening and I made a late decision to take a sunset walk down their washboard road.  It started out nicely enough with the sunset and the beginnings of a prayer walk, but I was interrupted for the remainder of the walk by two friendly labs that decided to appear out of nowhere to accompany me down the road and back.  It was probably just under 100 degrees because it felt nearly tolerable out which is much better than most of the time around here.

I managed to take a few shots of the sunset and the dogs and the road so you could enjoy the moment too.

Answers to Prayer!

Thanks very much for your prayers and for some very timely (less than a week from letting you know of our need!) gifts that helped us trade-in our 2003 Toyota Highlander with over 123,500 for a 2006 Toyota Sienna with only 47,100 miles.  With the generous gifts received we only tapped into about $4,000 of our savings to make this work out.  Thanks to Dick Bergman, a former Wycliffe missionary, who was the key person to make this happen in such a short time.  It was purchased at a dealer auction here in Dallas and from the huge lot of vehicles and about a dozen Siennas up for sale, this was the only one we found suitable on which to bid.  It's really amazing and to put it simply, that is our God!

The Sienna runs great.  It looks like it was definitely a family vehicle...the carpets bear that out, but the important issues and parts are all in great shape.  Neither Dick nor I could find anything wrong with this van.  Also, the previous owner/dealer had put brand new Michelins on it which I assumed would be our first post-purchase expense.  Oh, and while I wasn't decided if we should have the 7 or 8 seat version and had decided that would certainly be up to whichever God provided, I was hoping for silver...and that was a nice touch from our Lord too.

What a tremendous blessing this is to our family and will be an immediate help in our ministry.

Thanks for praying and for four generous gifts which made this happen.  We can't express how appreciative we truly are.

Another Safe Trip

Appreciate your prayers for our trip.  The Hower family, Cameron and I all arrived safe and nearly sound in Laredo, TX yesterday afternoon.  Today, Cameron and I arrived the rest of the way to Dallas and are staying this first week in Apartment 1 of the CAM Center guest housing.  Cameron has had a little reunion with his buddy Brent Buhler who is staying in Apartment 4 with his family.  They are sitting outside here after 10:30 p.m. playing chess and undoubtedly talking the paint off the building.  I'm very happy for them both.  "MK cousins" are some of the closest friends they'll ever have in life I'm sure.

Oh and back to the trip.  It was uneventful and if not for traveling with friends who have a great set of radios for conversing, it would have been rather boring.  That and except for one slow down due to an accident that was still being cleared after what must have been many hours.  I did shoot some pics as we crept by the scene.  They're the only pics I took over both days and it probably was the most interesting oddity we saw over the two days anyway.

Heading to Bed and Hitting the Road

Need to get to bed since I'm supposed to wake up again in about 5 1/2 hours.  Cameron and I hit the road tomorrow in a caravan to the border.  We should be leaving the area around 4:30 a.m.  We'd appreciate your prayers.

If you get our email updates, you'll already know that we're hoping to sell our Toyota Highlander and upgrade to a Toyota Sienna.  There is a long list of reasons why we want to do this, and because of a few of those reasons, we really need to do this.  Too much detail to go into tonight.  However, we're praying and asking the Lord to raise up about $5,000 toward the purchase of a used Sienna (we'll use the funds from selling the Highlander and then kick in savings to make up the rest).  At this point, we know of one check for $1,000 that is in the mail!  That's great.  We could use 4 more of those!  Of course, we aren't twisting anyone's arm...not yours and certainly not God's!

So, pray with us if you are so inclined that God will find a way to provide these funds in the next week or so.  If you'd like to know more about why we need to change our vehicle, do ask.  I'll be happy to share the details with you.  Also, if you'd simply like to contribute, I'd be MORE than happy to share whatever details you'd like to know!

Thanks so much for your prayers.  If you're in the Dallas area and would like to meet with me (and Cameron?), let me know.  I've got a growing list of appointments and things to do, but I'll do my best to clear everything just for you!  :-)

Appreciate ya'll!  (practicing my Texan)

Spanish Sunday

Today our study for the adults was in Spanish [edit: I originally wrote "English"...oops!].  That was a first for us.  Kristin struggled some but then so did I.  Nonetheless, it went fine and not without a few laughs and giggles at a few mistakes.  That's all good with me.  Keeps things interesting at times!

I never think to take a photo of our group but with our newcomers today, it seemed like a good opportunity to finally take a quick snapshot as we were wrapping up our study and worship.

Thanks for praying.  This is a new adventure for us, especially for me.  Beth was with the kids (all 8 of them!).  Michelle O'Brien was kind enough to stay with the kids today and help out.  I don't think Beth would have survived otherwise.

From L to R: Jharley, Tim O., Mari Cruz, Emmanuel, Jason & Kristin

(Jharley is pronounced "Harley")

A New Study - Part 2

This is a follow-up on our study with Emmanuel and Mari Cruz on Wednesday.

Beth and I studied with this couple Wednesday evening.  We began an evangelistic study of Romans using a simple study her dad, Ken Hanna, created years ago and is available online at www.obererofiel.com for free download (as all their downloads are free).

The story gets even more interesting as it turns out they had already made professions of faith about 2 weeks ago under the evangelistic outreach of some other believers who live in the center of town somewhere.  We don't know them and don't know who they are exactly.  Nonetheless, because of our relationship with Jason, Emmanuel's older brother, and Kristin, they feel more comfortable studying with us since they don't know these other folks either.

So, the short version of this story is that this couple will be joining us on Sunday mornings now for our weekly Bible study with Jason, Kristin, and the O'Briens.  Jenny and her kids are in the USA for the summer.  Since this couple doesn't speak English we're making a change to Spanish.

Kristin's Spanish has improved a lot in the past couple years and is probably better than mine.  Due to doing so much of our ministry in English my bad Spanish has gotten rusty.  With beginning a Wednesday night study with them in Spanish and switching our Sunday mornings to Spanish, I hope I can shake off the rust and expose my bad Spanish once more!  Well, maybe it will get better.  I only said one inappropriate thing on Wednesday night as I was mentally translating something from English to Spanish and came up with a doozie in Spanish.  I don't remember what it was...so watch out.  I might make that mistake twice, whatever it was!

We praise God for their recent professions of faith.  We certainly are anxious to see evidence of spiritual fruit and growth in their lives.  Due to the tremendous and tragic situation that came about in their family that centered largely around them, we're also praying that their professions of faith are genuine and not any sort of human response engineered to create a change in their family's feelings about them.  At the same time, they surely have experienced the "pit of despair" and God often uses such experiences to bring lost sinners to come to faith and dependence upon Him.  We pray that this is what is happening with them.

We appreciate your prayers for them and for Jason and Kristin as they've struggled with the family situation too and how to respond.  They are learning a valuable lesson on how Christ wants us to love those who have done unlovely things, especially those who are closest to us.  It's a challenge for them.  Pray for them too that they'll live and respond the Calvary way with love and forgiveness.