Mezcales::Guadalajara

Hello Everyone-

Sorry for the lengthy time in between blog posts. This past week has been a busy one that started off with Joel's birthday last Sunday. Below you can see a picture of some Pinata action from the big neighborhood party to celebrate our neighbor's first communion and Joel's birthday.


Monday and Tuesday started off normally with Joel working for Fine Designs on Monday and me cleaning the house and doing the laundry. Tuesday was our usual day in Sayulita. We brought our new friends Amy and Alisha with us. They actually just went home yesterday which was sad. The water there was flat, but that didn't stop Joel from renting a surf board and he caught a couple of waves.

Wednesday, we were able to go see one of the kids from Pan de Vida perform at a kindergarten graduation at her school. The kids were so cute and did great job remembering their lines and the words to their songs. The kids here graduate kindergarten at what would be equivalent to about 2nd grade there. The little girl who we were watching doesn't graduate for another year or two.

Thursday we both went back out to Mezcales to help Lee Short continue building his new home and ministry base. As Lee is building, he is inscribing Bible Verses into the still moist concrete...Joel and I put "Proverbs 3:5-6" into the footer that we placed last week. We then cut 17 pieces of rebar into 3 ft.-long pieces which ended up being a pretty big pile of rebar. Since Pastor Luis Miguel and Lupita from Pan de Vida live by where we are building, Lee keeps all the materials at their house so it doesn't get stolen and we ended up working most of the day over there. Lupita made us a delicious lunch and after that, we went back to the work site to scrape and dust off some of the dirt that had settled on the block foundation so we can later pour the concrete forms. Meanwhile Lee was buying wood to build the forms. When he returned, not only did he have the wood, but also a huge bucket of used motor oil to paint the wood with to help make the concrete pouring easier. (All of this is over my head, so I apologize for any mis-explinations). Joel and I were done around 6PM and he and Luis Miguel were able to fix the passenger side window to our car which hasn't been able to be rolled down for a couple months. Since they live around a bunch of mango trees, we were also able to take quite a few mangos home with us. Joel had fun using the "mango picker" which was a pop bottle cut in half that was tied to the end of a 12 foot tree branch. There's a picture of the contraption below. In all, we had a really great time hanging out with Luis Miguel and Lupita outside of Pan de Vida and feel like we were able to get to know them a little better.





On Friday, we picked up Amy and Alisha and they and myself were dropped off at Casa Hogar. Joel went back to Mezcales to help Lee again. We ended up staying at Casa Hogar until almost 4PM which made for a long day. It really is like "Little Orphan Annie"...The kids are wild with no structure and as little as they are, they have learned to look out for each other. It was a really hot day and so after playing for a little while, a lot of the kids fell asleep on the cool tile floor. It was Amy and Alisha's last day and so we took some extra time so they could say "goodbye" to the kids. On our way home from there, we stopped at Comida Corrida to eat, which they enjoyed.

To our surprise, Pastor Luis Miguel and Lupita asked us why we haven't been coming to Pan de Vida on Saturdays while we were helping Lee on Thursday. We didn't know the program was still running on Saturdays, so this past Saturday, we went to Pan de Vida. We only had two kids in our class out of our usual 6. Two of our kids (sisters) were with their aunt, our boy was with his dad, and we don't know where the other on was. We did a worksheet about Joseph in prison and how he became second to Pharoah. They did a good job finding the Bible verses and understanding the story.

(JOEL WRITING)
Sunday was Ric's first day back at church and it was really good to see him. Randy and Sandra and Dennis and Faye are back in the states so I had expected around 10 people to show up at church. Suprizingly we had about 20! Carol sang worship with me again she has such a great voice and ear for harmony. After church Leslie spent the afternoon with the girls by a hotel pool. I went home and drew 2 pictures. One was a portrait of Leslie and I, the other was the completion of our balcony view. I had drawn 2 sections when we first arrived, this was the first drawing I had done since then. I really should make more time to do that because it is something I really enjoy. Sunday night It was raining really hard. Leslie took a video that we have posted on the bottom of this page. The girls came over and we had spaghetti dinner spending time with them was nice because we rarely see people our own age.

Monday we headed off to Guadalajara. It rained most of the night and the streets were like rivers as we left Vallarta. We drove the Sayulita road until and had passed several Mudslides before getting to the High speed toll road. We passed several agave fields and lush green mountainsides. Leslie and I were commenting that this image is not what I used to think Mexico was. So much of what you see in movies etc is the dusty dry desert. This looks like it could be in Ireland it is so green.
After about 5 hours of driving, we finally saw the sign " Welcome to Guadalajara" Like every traveling experience, it is not what you have in your head. I had imagined more colonial feel and there were parts that looked just like Seattle. We finally did made it to the Historical district which is more of what I imagined, but it still is not exact.
We are stying in Hotel Francis. It was built in 1610 the view below is from the 1st floor down into the lobby where 3 mariachi singers entertained a small crowd. Our room is on the 2nd floor and we have wireless internet access. This hotel is right in the center of all the attractions. We are next door to the Governors Palace and a few blocks away from the Cathedral, Theater, Liberty Plaza etc.
We walked around for a while and ended up getting caught in a rain storm. It looks like we can not escape the rain in any city. Leslie got a Pancho I went for an umbrella. We both got about the same amount wet although I could take a picture and Leslie could not.

Well That is all for now!

Joel and Leslie