Christmas in Del Valle

What an incredible Christmas we had.  This Christmas Eve was really special for us as it was our first Christmas with our Mexican friends.  We hardly knew anyone last year.  But this year we had the largest number of people attend La Conexion to date; 36 people attended.  We had an amazing time singing, celebrating advent and Nathan gave a message about the peace of Jesus that lasts versus the peace of "Christmas Eve, that fades."  Our friends really enjoyed themselves and many talked about how much they had had a good time.  After the service we had a meal together where we at turkey, Bacalao (a type of fish..dried cod) and other Mexican food.

The next day we had a turkey dinner with the International worker team.  Some of them were missing, visiting Canada, but we still managed to have a good time, and Carmela finally got to eat a turkey leg.  She had been asking for the last 3 turkey meals, if she could eat a leg....finally her turn came.

Another Season

We are so amazed at how wonderful our first Alpha course went. Many of our friends came not fully understanding what Alpha is and why they were coming! But God is so good that he used their curiosity and their trust in us to make that commitment and come. We are so excited to see many of our friends taking big steps in their lives, life changing steps, for the first time many of them are experiencing a personal faith and learning how to live their life experiencing peace that they had never experienced before.

We are very excited as tonight we start our second Alpha course and many of our friends are excited to bring their friends and family members because they had such a positive experience. Please pray that everyone would feel comfortable and safe to bring all their questions. Above that they they would feel loved and experience the peace that can only be experienced through a life walking with Jesus.

Alpha weekend!!!

Never a dull moment that is for sure. We are just getting ready for our Alpha retreat that we leave for today and return Sunday. We are so excited to just relax and spend time with our great friends about an hour out of the city. We also get to explore the work of the Holy Spirit as that is the theme of the Alpha weekend. I also and thinking of a beautiful friend of mine Colette Lyons. She was just here with a team from Rockyview Alliance Church. What a blessing just to see her and squeeze her in person. One of the things that I can sometimes miss is just spending time with GOOD friends who know us and love us and walk with us.

The last picture is of course of Carmela being a ham!!

the first picture is of some dear Mexican friends that I adore and are becoming more and more apart of my heart

My Happy Place

We have so much going on! First let me explain my happy place, I just returned from a Women OF The Harvest retreat :) I was able to come back feeling rested. The first pic is my new found happy place, that I now will be able to imagine with all the sights and sounds of Cancun. The second picture is of some friends that I meet with weekly to do a language exchange, we have a ton of fun together, last week we started doing cooking classes :) The third picture is of a short term team that was here from Rockyview Alliance Church, we had a great time showing them around our neighbourhood and they were even able to help out in our english classes. We are so glad they came! They left us feeling encouraged and supported beyond anything we could have imagined!!!

Fiesta

Well we had a great fiesta to celebrate Mexico's independence Day! Of course there was lots of traditional Mexican food, music, mariachi and Kareoke. I think we all had a great time, connecting with new friends and just enjoying the opportunity to celebrate life together. Tonight is a very special night, it is our first night of alpha. We are all very excited it kind of feels like we have finally approached the big day of a wedding! There is so much emotion and excitement flying around our team. We also know that there are many people at home supporting us through different ways, Airdrie Alliance bought us our chairs we will be using! as well as the many of you who have supported us in giving us words of encouragement and just the fact that we know that you are standing in the gap with us. Here are some pictures of our Independence Day party.

Amazed

We just enjoyed another amazing Sunday with our new friends. It is so amazing to see how the Lord has been working in lives and bringing people together. Today we were 23 people but still small enough to feel like a family as we get to share a meal together each Sunday at La Conexion. We are so excited to be here! What a blessing it has been to week after week get to know more about our friends and meet their families as they come to visit La Conexion as well. This morning I (Sandra) shared my story always a little nerve racking but such an honour to share my life with new friends and my desire to invest in their lives and help them to experience the same transforming power in their lives.

Can't wait for the huge party we are having Tuesday for Mexico's Independence Day. We already have a Mariachi band booked and Karaoke lined up! We are expecting about 60 people, can't wait to post pictures.

The pictures are of the kids new teacher Monica!

A ladies night we had on friday

And putting up a Mexican flag for Independence Day before our party!

What A Great Weekend !

We just had the privilege of meeting a team of 19 from Airdrie Alliance. We had a great time getting to hear their experiences helping out at an Orphanage in Querretero and their impressions of Mexico City. We were so excited to have some of our Mexican friends come and meet this team as well and share the day with us yesterday. Its always so wonderful for us to be able to meet some of the support we have back home. We are praying that some of them will come and serve with us possibly as interns, short term teams, or even full time workers!!! Why not dream big! We have such an amazing job we get to love and get to know people through different venues. We are advertising for an Alpha course that we will be running Sept 24! Please pray that we will have a good turn out, that people will come with all of their questions and hearts open to hearing truth.