Short Term Mission trip

I worked today on writing a blog about missions and so on that was going to lead up to this story, but I just couldn't get the right words to flow out-perhaps another time. I didn't blog when this happened, because I didn't want to worry anyone. Now that we are back in the States, I thought this would be a good time.

One of our missions while in Mexico this time was to take over the Children's Home for about a week, so that the Benedict's could have little mini vacation with their family. We took over on Tuesday evening and everything went pretty smoothly as you saw from my blog "Nothing to Report".

No Internet

We have not had internet for about a week and posting from my phone is difficult. I will try to post a new blog soon. I have some adventures from Mexico I still want to post, some food stuff, some crafty stuff (yes, I am crafty sometimes) and some travel stuff to post. So keep checking back. I think we have now driven over 5700 miles, so we will be well over 6000 miles by the time we get to Rogers later this week!

Good Morning?

Maybe they are not as exotic as moose or elephants, but these were our early morning guest at the Home. Guess they needed to work on their serve, or maybe get a little futbal practice. Too funny!

They have little juice bars all over Jerez were you can get fresh carrot juice for about 80 cents. As the lady was whizzing up carrots and celery, I teased Adelina.
“Look Lena, they have carrot juice in Mexico, aren’t you excited :)”.
To which she replied, “NO!”
My children don’t completely dislike our morning juice regiment, but they don’t love it. They do however appreciate it and drink up without complaint. The Mexican carrot juice is a different story. Oranges are very cheap there, so the drink is about half fresh squeezed OJ. The kids loved it.

Below are some shots from Sunrise Baptist Church in Tucson, AZ. We attended services there about three weeks ago, before we headed south. The first is the pastor and his wife and the second is the couple who had us over for dinner Sunday afternoon and even offered to let us stay with them. We enjoyed worshipping at Sunrise.

A few more shots at the Children’s Home. Sam trying to help on some last minute projects and the boys reluctant to say goodbye. The birthday surprise the girls made for me the day we got the Jerez. How sweet!

Sam got to preach his first sermon in Mexico, with and interpretor of course. Steve Benedict did a great job intepreting and the sermon went really smoothly. Sam was really excited, but I know he is looking forward to when he no longer needs an interpretor.

And finally back to El Paso, where we attended church at Valley Baptist Church. That is were I attended church when I came for midwifery training at the birth center. It was so good to see them again and to see that the small start up church has grown and is perservering. They had us over for lunch and dinner after church-tostades! Yum! Pastor Serrano made salsa-even better.

The last two days have had the sole purpose of cramming every last bit of midwifery information I can stuff into my brain. I’m not sure how it all happened, but one day I gave birth to my fifth child in the comforts of our home in Lawton, OK. Several months later my husband was in Iraq and I was being called out of bed at all hours of the morning and night to go to births. Thousands of hours of work and study all hinge on the test I took today. Thank you to everyone who prayed for me, as this test will determine whether I am a midwife or not. The Lord has guided this whole process, even these last few days of study. I have faith He will see me through.
Suzette Davis wrote on my Facebook, “Praying for you to rock the NARM”. After today I am pretty sure you don’t rock the NARM, you survive it. Hoping I rock a passing score. LOL! I won’t find out for several weeks.

Baby Wearing

I don't have time to blog as we are packing up to leave right now, but I wanted to post this picture. I thought all of the baby wearers would appriciate it. We had soon down time yesterday and the Benedicts took us around to see some of the local sights. At one places the were a lot of the indigenous people. Two of the ladies were wearing their babies traditional style and of course I was wearing Haden, so we ask to take a picture. What fun!

We will be driving tonight, so pray for safe travel (800 miles) and a smooth border crossing. See you on the other side.

When It Rains It Pours

I mean that figuratively and literally. The rainy season was over due here, but on Saturday the flood gate flew open releasing a down pour complete with lighting and thunder. I love the rain, especaily when I don't have to worry about tornados. So literally it poured. The pictures below are taken only a few minutes after the rain began and as you can see it has already rained buckets.

So figuratively it has poured also. This has been a little bit of a challenging trip. I will not say all, but I will say thank you for your prays, if you are praying....as I know many of you pray for us regularly. About half way down here we stopped to go to the bathroom and change drivers and we neglected to assure Ollie was back in the truck and left him. We did not realize it for 50 km. When we went back the machine at the toll gate was broken and they could not take our card and would not let us pass to look for him. The ambulance at the gate took Sam and they could not find him. Then we where able to figure a way to pay and go look for him again with the kids. They really need a chance to look for him. Still no Ollie. The cows about a 1/2 mile away turned to look at us, so we know if he was near he would of heard us and come. We gave up the search when Samuel almost got bit by a rattle snack. It scared the wits out of him. So, many tears and two hours later we continued on with out Ollie. We hope another family picked him up and has given him a new home. That was my birthday and Ollie had been my birthday present five years before. He was a great dog. Protective of the children, accompanied them everywhere. We all miss him very much. Being here at the home has been a nice distaction.

When it rains and lightings....sometimes the electricity goes out. When the electricity finally returned it was only at half power....a "brown out" we were informed. Which is fine except during a "brown out" there is not enough power for the washer and dryer. A few days without a washer and dryer plus 30 kiddos equals a mountain of clothes and made dinner prep and little more involved. Powers back up today and the laundry is all caught up. YAY! I can't take credit for the laundry, we do have help.

We had one other misadventure I will detail later, but I will say thank you if you were prompted to pray for us on Friday morning and you stopped and prayed. We needed it. And praise God for his protective hand.

Also, Sam's Geneva died yesterday evening. She was his third cousin, but more like his grandmother. He sent the many nights at her and Glen's house when he was growing up. We are fairly sure it is not feasable for us to make it to the funeral on Thursday. We spent a little time today talking and remembering. Geneva had a very sweet testemony of her Salvation and I always like to here her tell it. The last time we spoke before we left, she was infatic that I needed to finish my midwifery training. I take my test on the 19th of this month. I was looking forward to being able to tell her I had finished, but I guess she'll know. Her going home was sweet, family spent most of the day with her. She mentioned several times yesterday that it was time and she was ready. She lived 98 years and shared a birthday with our Josiah. It has been and emotional day, especaily for Sam. I am sorry I don't have any digitail photos of her to share, as she was such a big part of Sam's life.

Not Much to Report

Not a lot to report. We are enjoying our time here. The Benedicts do such an excellent job. Everyone knows the schedule and what is excepted and the chores that are required, so everything runs pretty smooth. You can tell when a life has been changed by God, even and maybe especailly in children and many of the children have made professions of faith. So, you would think with 35 children, we would be running around frantic, but that is not the case. This is acctually a slow pace for us. I can't wait until we learn the language. Not only will we be able to commicate with the children, but witness to a town the is in darkness.

I am including some pictures of Sam and Hannah playing soccor. The sunset and beautiful mountians that surround us. Adelina's version of the half-pipe.

We're Home

We're home.....at least for two weeks. It is so good to see everyone. Our trip took longer than we had expected. We had a tragedy along the way. It is still a little raw so I will blog about our misadventure later. We arrived at 2:00 am. I did not realize until after church how much it had taken out of us. We all rested some this afternoon, I slept hard. Almost felt like I had jet lag.

We woke up this morning and came over to the childrens home for breakfast. It was good for my heart to see how excited the kids were. "Remember that store, remember that field, remember this town." They were so happy with there familiar surroundings. We were greeted with hugs at the home. It was so good to see the children. After breakfast, the older girls had a little surprise for my birhday. They made a poster and had some balloons. They also had some little gifts for me, it was extreemly sweet.

We are all struggling with Spanish, because we have not heard it in 7 months, but I was able to understand parts of the sermon this morning.

I will try to have pictures soon.

Blessings, Carie