I know it's not the video I promised, but I just haven't had time to figure out how to do that. However, it's this incredible...from being afraid to put his head under to swimming like a fish!!!
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Lots Going On!
I am spending my weeks with a Mexican midwife, learning and getting more experience. She is very busy and there have even been 3 births in one day sometimes. I have just been observing how they do things here and helping out by doing some labor support, drawing up meds, cleaning up, ect. Yesterday, I got to catch a baby, which for me is not the most important part of the process, but it is the fun part! :) She was on the small side but perfect and beautiful and her membranes were still over her head. Once we removed them, she cried with vigor. Mama felt great and wanted to leave just two hours after the birth. We assured them they were welcome to stay, but she wanted to have her family altogether at home. It was her third baby, and since everything was stable and perfect, we proceeded with the newborn exam and birth certificate and home they went. Happy babymoon mama! And off the bed I went, since it was only about 10:30 pm and I got a full nights sleep.
Haden our 4 year old has been very scared and upset to get water splashed in his eyes or put his head under water. I wasn't sure he was ever going to get over it. Washing his hair was a little bit of an ordeal. Then last week he began swimming around in the deep end with his lifejacket on. He seemed to enjoy being able to be involved with the other children and their games and became a little less stressed about water in his eyes. Then Friday afternoon he was splashing around in the shallow end and he said, "Daddy look I'm going to go under the water." And he did just that with no help from anyone! Now there is no stopping him, he has been swimming underwater with ease. He jumps off the side of the pool , floats up to the top and swims to the side. We are all completely blown away by the change. He even ask dad to throw him up in the air and he likes help touching the bottom of the pool, so that he can push off the bottom and fly to the top like Superman.
I will try to post video this weekend. It really is nothing short of amazing, in my humble opinion!
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.
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.
Monday, March 14, 2011
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.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
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!!!
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!!!
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