Living Up to Our Name

In keeping with our "wandering" theme, the Means family will be moving to Encarnation de Diez during the month of July.  Sam will be pastoring for a missionary who will be on forlough.  The plan is for us to be there for 11 to 12 months.  Please pray, Sam will need to be able to preach in Spanish by the mid/end of July.  Language learning is a process, a very frustrating one at times.  Right now I feel very unprepared and overwhelmed and am generally fighty the feeling to run and hide.  However, I must be making progress, as I sit outside typing this blog, my neighbors are chatting in Spanish and I find I can ease drop pretty easily if I so desire.  :P
We share a beautiful and very large "Jardin" and a few weeks back there was a very large wedding.  No one was asked permission, and no one was given any warning.  On Friday night crews came and began setting up chairs and stages!  When they came by the house hours before the ceremony on Sat. night, Sam was very clear they had to shut off the music no later than midnight, to which they agreed.  Hundreds of guest poured into our now, not quite as big looking communial backyard.  After the 6:00 pm ceremony, festivities continued until well after 3:00 am!!  Including a band, loud speakers, a catering tent, lots of drunk people wandering around just outside the back door.  Anyway, tomorrow the owners are having a meeting to discuss the situation and several have gathered next door to discuss tomorrows meeting.
Normally only 3 - 6 of the 20 homes are occupied at a time, but this weekend it's a little busier.  Still, I am sitting outside in the pleasant weather and the kids are enjoying the pool.
I missed the whole wedding excitement, because I was having my own exhausting excitement in El Paso, TX.  Yes, Sam drove down from Rogers, AR to Cuernavaca, MX all by himself with five children.  Five very great children, but still five children.  We have been able to hire a caretaker for the children during the day, so they have been able to do their spanish lessons at home and she makes dinner also.
I'm not sure if I have mentioned it on the blog before, but I am a CPM (certified professional midwife).  However,  I don't have as much experience as I would like to have and ever since we have been in mexico I have not been able to attend births.  The trip to El Paso came at a perfect time, well actually, I wish I had not gone quite so long between births.  However, it did help get my "midwifery legs" back under me and get some more much needed experience.  I spent 4 weeks at Casa de Nacimeinto, a birth center I had spent some time at several years ago.  It was nice to see the midwifes there again, to be around birth and remember, I really do love it.  We feel my midwifery skills will be a good outreach tool in the coming years.

Avocados and God's Provisions

On an update note:

It seems that you can obtain a "permit" to barricade a public road.  Good to know, anyway the gate is back.  As they were re-erecting it, we stopped by to ask the guard how long this one would be up, he got a kick out of that.  Sometimes dealing with paperwork is so frustrating here, so glad for a little comic relief.  But seriously, it wouldn't be so funny if you just built a church building and someone comes in and tells you don't have a certain "permit" you need (when you are certain you had already jumped through all the right hoops) and they confiscating all you building supplies until you obtain it.  Not that I've heard of this happening, but it's very possible.  Fun times, thankful we have God on our side, very important not to do things here without first making sure God is in it!

Avocados:
We had a strange and unusual wind storm today, it even knocked the power out for awhile.  It also knocked all kinds of fruit off of the trees, mainly oranges and avocado.  Actually a boatload of avocado, which my kids promptly gathered up.  They even found some mangos, which I thought must have blown in from another yard, but no it was from ours, who knew!  And Samuel had just ask me what a mango tree looked like!

On a more spiritual note:
We had cake and coffee this afternoon after school, which reminded me of all the afternoons I spent at my dear friend Manuela's house.  She is German and cake and coffee in the afternoon is a very good habit they often keep.  One that she shared with me often when we lived in Lawton, OK.  Our kids are close to the same age with Samuel and T being only about a week apart.  Her L and Hannah were incredibly close and it was so hard on Hannah when we moved.  Our new church did not have any girls Hannah's age, then we were an deputation for a year, and then we moved to Mexico.  So, since I was reminded of Manuela we gave her a call and the whole family chatted with our wonderful friends.  What a blessing Skype is!  Manuela and I are always able to pick right up and talk and talk as if we have never been apart.
Then we gave the girls a chance to chat.  As I worked in the kitchen, I could here Hannah and L, talking and talking and talking.  They even read a little from their favorite books to each other.  I suddenly realized how much Hannah needed to talk with a friend her own age, that loves God, that shares some of her passions and interest, and that speaks English.  God was taking care of my little girls needs, all the way down here on the mission field, and he used a piece of cake to do it!

God Bless All.

So Here's a Funny One For You

I do not have any homework tonight and while I should use the time to study, I thought I would sign in a do a quick blog.  We moved to Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico for language school the first days of Jan.  We must have eaten something with some bad stuff in it, because several of the kids and I became quite ill.  I had the worst case lasting 9 full days.  Welcome the Cuernavaca, City of Eternal Spring, please use caution when eating at the taco stands or "in the streets"!  Yes, I have returned to the same street vender, it's all good.
We knew it was important for me to attend language school also, but we had not found anyone to stay with the kids.  The kids and I began homeschooling and had a lovely first week, then enough money came in for two weeks of language school for the whole family!  So we went, then enough can in for 2 more MONTHS!  Praise the Lord!  Everyone is doing well.  The kids have separate classes from us, geared towards children and we see then every hour during our ten minute break.  I could not be happier with the care the teachers take.  It is a university with Mexican students also and everyone adores little Haden.  And I couldn't be prouder of our children's tactful yet persistent witnessing efforts as both their teachers are not born again Christians.

But here's the funny part....
Through some amazing events, I could not even describe if I tried, we ended up with this beautiful little condo at a very reasonable price.  It even has a pool, fruit trees and a small soccer field and play ground in a communal backyard.  It's communal, but most of the time we are the only ones here, because most of the other owners live in Mexico City and only come occasionally on the weekends!  It's just incredible, especially since we could only make a 6 month commitment and many of the homes want a year lease or cater to the language school students coming for a few weeks to a few months and they charge an arm and a leg.  Absolutely amazing provision of God.
OK, but what's so funny.  Well, to top off the list of great things about our house, we have some missionary friends that live only 300 meters up the hill from us!  They have children our children's age and we are able to play and visit often.  Their house is down a dead end street, tucked behind and in the midst of a number of condo complexes that are apparently owned by the same person or group of people.  So, these owners apparently felt it would make their already gated condos more appealing to have yet another gate.  They erected a quite impressive, large and tall gate across the entire road leading towards the end of the dead end.  Along with the rather massive gate they constructed a small guard shack atop the sidewalk that was manned 24 hours a day!  But it gets even better!  LOL!  After construction was complete they sent our friends, remember their house is located among the condos, a letter stating their share of the construction cost and the monthly fee for the gate guards!  This is the first our friends had heard about the gate. I didn't mind the gate.  I could watch the kids walk up to the gate and once they were through I knew the guard would watch them get to our friends house, but I didn't have to pay the bill.  We just gave the guards homemade chocolate chip cookies every once in a while.
Oh!  But it gets even better!  As if your mouth is not already wide in disbelief.  Today, approximately 7 weeks after it's erection we glanced over on our way home from school and Sam says, "LOOOK!!!!  The gate is gone!"  And there stood a pitiful looking gate guard with no gate and no guard shack, only a desk and a clip board!  Apparently, even in Mexico, you need a permit to fully obstruct a public road.  Even if it takes them 7 weeks the city will without warning or notification come and cut down your massive gate and haul it and the guard shack away!!!

Breaking Out the Big Guns

I had meant for this to be a holiday post.  We have had such a wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Just recently three children from the same family were added to the Children's Home.  They are so sweet and so attention deprived.  Little five year old Immanuel loves getting hugs and that is an understatement.  I think seeing him get a gift at Christmas was one of my favorite things about yesterday.  I almost cried, he was so excited, he didn't even know what to think.  I'm fairly sure getting a present was a new thing for him.  I'll blog more about our festivities later.  Thank you to all who prayed for us, we have had a lovely Thanksgiving and December.

Last week we got home from the Children's Home Sunday afternoon and I felt a little tired and really pretty bad the next day.  I bounced back pretty quick, but then the kids started getting it.  It was awful, I can't remember a sickness that ALL five of the children have gotten and I can't remember anyone being sick for over 24 hours.  I have to admit we hadn't been eating super healthy, not terrible, but not great and definently more sugar and white flour than normal.  Anyway, as my case had been light, I wasn't real proactive when the first child got sick.  Plus, my herniated disc was hurting especially at night, between my back and getting up with sick kids, I wasn't on top of my game.  Christmas day, six days into it, I thought everyone was feeling better, but they had all started coughing, Haden came and sat on my lap and clearly had a fever again, and I found Hannah just sitting because she felt tired.  All of the sudden I had a moment of clarity, it was time for the big guns.

The next day I mixed up a batch of the awful, terible, no-good, get-well-recipe.  It consist of two heads of garlic (that's not bulbs, that's HEADS), a serrano pepper, and cover it with coconut oil, plus a little and blend in the blender.  Everyone took about 5 doses of one teaspoon each yesterday and 3 doses today.  Also I went to the store and bought out the produce section.

Yesterday's menu was:
Green Smoothie
Carrot, Orange, Apple, Celery, and Cucumber Juice
Homemade Chicken Broth
Apples, Watermelon, and Almonds for snacks

Today's menu was:
Green Smoothie
Large Salad, Raw Gazpacho Soup, and tamales (given to us by a friend)
Beef and veggies in clear broth (cooked in the crock pot all day) with homemade wheat rolls
Watermelon, almonds, celery, and guacamole for snacks

Hardly any coughing and no more fevers!  Hope you are staying healthy as we wrap up this year and start a new one.

I Have to Use the Mushrooms

The Children's Home schedule has gone something like this, we take over sometime shortly after 5:00 PM on Thursday night and stay until after church on Saturday night. For a long time it was, we took over after church on Sunday morning and stayed until shortly after 5:00 PM on Tuesday night. Numerous times we stayed a week or more out at Casa Betania. My point being, essentially we live in two different places, all in one week.  I haven't seen a children's home with house parents, so I don't know what that would look like, but I like Casa Betania's hands on approach.
However, this makes grocery shopping tricky, so even on a week when I had carefully planned, one Thursday morning I woke up and looked in the fridge. And there stared up at me two large packages of mushrooms that had not been turned into soup, plainly stating that when I returned Saturday night they would be less than prime.
This is what followed. I said to myself, "Self, you don't have a lot to do today, it won't take that long to make mushroom barley soup, then you can stick it in the freezer and it will be ready for next week." Now whose the smartie pants, thank you very much. Down came one of my favorite cook books, Soup Bowl.  This is my recipe finding process, especially when I am familiar with the recipe.  Instead of going to the index, I begin flipping through the book to find the picture of mushroom barley soup.  I know it seems counter productive, but sometimes you thumb past recipes you might not have notice otherwise and so really it is an exercise in inspiration.  So the first recipe that caught my eye was Mushroom & Sherry Soup.  I had all the ingredients, but the sherry, which I omit anyway.  Hmmm....marked page and moved on.  Next I noticed Bacon & Lentil Soup.  Hmmm....actually I need to use up that package of bacon also and I have lentils that have been waiting to be used for several weeks, marked and moved on.  The picture of the Curried Chicken Soup looked so warm and yummy and it called for turnips, which I have in the garden, all other ingredients accounted for, marked it too.  Then the Garlic and Chicken Soup jumped right out at me and reminded me I had a little bit of leftover cooked chicken and garbonzo beans, marked and moved on.  Finally I made it to the Mushroom and Barley Soup, it was at the beginning of the book and I had started at the back, who knew.
Next I photo copied all five soup recipes, laid them out on the counter and got all the ingredients, only to discover I was about 15 carrots and 5 onions short.  Not to worry, because the little tienda down the street had both and the walk felt good!  With all the ingredients laid out and a little strategical planning I began chopping, stirring, and simmering.  Three hours later I had five yummy meals stashed away in the freezer and was ready to head out the door to Casa. 
I know what your thinking, boy that was random!  That is exactly what I was thinking as I looked at my jars of soup, but whatever it was a nice day.  Well the day before Thanksgiving, my back started hurting really bad, we had guest and by evening I was glad to get into bed.  I though I was mending, but a stupid move on Sunday brought me to tears.  We had planned a trip up to the States for Sam's annual VA check up and he made sure I made it to a chiropractor, the diagnoses was a herniated disc!  If I want to get well I can't lift, bend, strain, you get the idea.  Anyway, yesterday Sam was able to pull mashed potatoes and Chicken Curry Soap out of the freezer for dinner, so even with a herniated disc, my family still ate well.  Maybe it wasn't so random after all!