March Sunshine

Hearing about a snowstorm in Calgary really makes me wonder how in the world will we ever adjust to Calgary weather again!! We have had a busy March and are thankful for all of the ways that we are hoping and seeing God working around us. These are some pictures of a family party we attended. We feel so fortunate to be so welcomed into the lives of our friends and their families. Another pleasure is fresh ripe mango's!! The girls just peel them and enjoy them. Its a little messy but I don't think the girls even notice :) We are looking at our schedules and excited about the things to come this year including getting two more team members!!! Who we have already had the privilege of meeting, they are amazing women that we are honored to learn from and just enjoy being with. Please pray for them as they begin to transition this summer. We are dreaming of new ways to serve here in Del Valle and are fasting and praying about how to move forward. We are filled with peace and joy as we walk the steps that have been prepared for us and wait expectantly for the fruit in its proper time.

Can you imagine anything more exciting than this!!!

Culture Exchange Party

We had a great time at our Culture Exchange party we had close to 60 people out! With the help of our team from Innisfail Alliance it was a great success! We eat different cultural foods from Canada (Naniamo bars, clam chowder, pasta salad and Shepherds pie)sang, played games, learned about each others flag, watched dancers and enjoyed a Mariachi band and live music what else could we have wanted!!

Piñatas Piñatas and More Parties!

We had a week full of parties! It began with Julia's 3rd Birthday on Thursday with 2 parties one at school and one with friends after school. We ended the week with another party that we were invited to with some friends from our english group! We had a great time and had the opportunity to meet some new friends Please pray that our relationships will grow deeper and that we will be sensitive to the ways God is wanting us to express His love.

Nathan looking into the eyes of a
"champoline" (small grasshopper)
before devouring them.

A delicious grasshopper delicacy.
They are just dried and seasoned
with salt. You can eat them with
chile seasoning or covered in
chocolate as well. Also good
with Tacos.

Nathan and Rick playing for
our Mexican friends

Sandra and her Mexican
friends talking and having
fun coming up with different
hair-do's

English class!

Thought that we would post some pictures of our new English class we have started. We are so excited to get to know this great group of people!

More Blessings

We had an amazing opportunity to go to Cuernavaca and meet the family of a new friend of ours. We were very honored to be their guests! They were so warm and welcoming to us. What a gift to have some new friends to learn from in Mexico. We ate the most delicioso food. Where else can you find a dish that incorporates chocolate into almost ever meal MOLE yummmmmmy. Please pray that God would bless our new friends tremendously that He would reveal himself to them in amazing ways.

From top to bottom..The girls swinging in a hammock as Julia kicks the soccer ball. Nathan and Moises posing after putting much effort into squeezing 10 kilos of oranges. The taxi system close to Moises house is quite different than that in Mexico City...much more fuel efficient eh?! and a picture of a pyramide in a traffic circle.

Making Connections in the Strangest Places

Hey there, so it's been a while since I last made a post on here and thought maybe I should talk about something interesting. We all talk about finding connections, people to talk to. Sometimes it happens in the most obvious places and sometimes in the not so obvious. Take my crazy life for example. During the past 3 weeks or more I have connected with 4 men in the oddest of places, 3 of which live within 15 minutes of us and one Mexican who lives in Calgary for most of the year.

So during our stay in Acapulco with our good friends I struck up a conversation with someone in the pool. After talking for a while he told me that he lived in Coyoacan, quite close to Del Valle. Then on our way home we decided to stop at a McDonald's and while we were in the lineup I started talking with a Mexican who was speaking English. So we talked in both languages as I discovered that he lives in Toronto for part of the year but when he is home he lives about 15 minutes from our place. He too told me that he wants to get together with me to talk more. Then when we arrived home, my friend Kevin and I walked across the street to a bakery where I started talking to a French-English speaking Canadian, who lives here (just down the street), is a chef here and is married to a Mexican. He wants to talk some more with me as well.

Then there is the 10 minute conversation I had with someone in an airport lineup. This guy lives in Calgary for most of the year, very close to where we used to live. He has made some contacts with friends of ours in Calgary and we are connecting with him when he is back home here as well. We are supposed to be meeting his family this weekend.

When I sit back and think about this opportunities I never could have imagined the location of these first contacts; a pool 4 hours away, a McDonald's lineup 1.5 hours away, a bakery lineup across the street and an airport line up....

We have been praying for months for the Lord to bring people in our path to connect with and talk to and just share life with and now He has been responding. I haven't been intently looking, they just happen to be there whenever I am there and we start talking. Amazing!

Something I have learned is that you can never predict when or where or how God is going to bring people across your path...just believe that He will.