Odds and Ends

I fill like my life gets crazier and crazier every day. Hannah has decided to stop taking naps as of November so I think that is part of what is contributing to the increase of craziness. Usually while she took her nap was when I got quiet time, cleaned house, did laundry etc. Now I am trying to do all of that with her following me around and it doesn't work as well. We do get a lot of really fun playing time together though. Yesterday the chores were neglected so that we could play cat and dog for an hour. She loved following me around the house barking and meowing. I didn't much like it when she decided to start giving me dog kisses.

We are also working on potty training but it isn't going so well - mainly my fault.

An update on some of the information that I had in my last post. Javier - the guy who was washing a car and while he was washing the car another car hit it and ran. He is in Jail now. He was taken to court and found responsible for the damages which are around $500 - this is around 5 weeks of his normal salary. He will be in jail until the money is payed. His dad was baptised a few years ago but hasn't been going to church. He often works on Sundays or spends the day with his family, I pray that this situation might bring him back to church. The churches are currently in prayer about his situation. Often the church is asked to help with money to get out of these kinds of situations but decides not to help because it is reafirming a corrupt government. The truth is that Javier shouldn't be in jail nor should he be held responsible for the damages no more than any witness to an accident. In this culture usually the upperclass controls the lower class no matter who is right and who is wrong. Please be praying for this situation. In the past we have seen judges change their minds and reverse their rulings.

Our friend Mitzi is still holding on. All of her organs other than her heart and brain have shut down. She is still on life support. My understanding is that she is ina drug induced coma but is taken out of it occasionally. They have been able to communicate and she has let them know that she is willing to fight for her life. Continue to pray for her family. She has a 16 year old son and a 13 year old daughter. Like I said before her family is such a good, caring, serving, loving family.

Our friend Brayan whose Aunt was kidnapped: there has been no new news. They haven't heard from the kidnappers as far as we know. Its not something we bring up with Brayan but we know he will tell us if there are any new developments. Tonight Cory and the AIMers are going to a Chivas game with Brayan and his cousin (the daughter of the lady who was kidnapped).

The kids are doing well and growing so fast. Josiah still loves first grade and is giving his teacher a run for her money. I feel like he has a little Denis the Menice in him but at times I really think he is just a little boy clueless to the world around him. This week he got in trouble 3 times that I know of at school. One of the time he got a sucker taken away from the director of the school. They sell the suckers in the school cafeteria and I am still not clear on why he got it taken away. He just told me he isn't allowed to buy those anymore. The good thing is that he usually tells me about it first thing when he gets out of school. A few days ago he told me that he hit a girl on the head with an eraser. He said that two other kids were having an eraser fight and that one of the erasers landed by him and he just wanted to return it to the owner but that he threw it and it hit his classmate on the head. Oops. He got in trouble yesterday because he didn't know it was time to line up to go inside from recess and he was still playing when they headed in to the classroom.

Abigail loves school and is still planning her upcoming Birthday - an ongoing thing. She spends every day of her life planning her future party.

Well, its Saturday which means baseball for our family. Baseball season is year round in Mexico. Little league takes a one month break for Christmas and a one month break in the summer. Josiah has a game in a few hours. Cory is also in baseball but it doesn't start up for another week or two. Thanks for reading

Prayers

I am so grumpy today. I hate these kind of days. I am sick and tired of bad news.
One of my very good friends house was robbed a week and a half ago. They are a very humble family and didn't have much to rob but the little they had was taken from them. They no longer feel safe in their home and don't feel safe leaving it either.
Another friend had his car stollen last week.
We have a friend named Javier. He works in our housing unit and is very poor. His son washes cars on the streets to make money for his wife and two kids. He charges a few dollars per car and is barely making ends meat. While washing one of the cars another car hit the car and left the scene. The owner of the car is holding him responsible and making him pay for the repair of the car.
Last night we had the AIMers over and one of their friends (Bryan) joined us. We found out that over the Christmas holidays his aunt was kidnapped. It has been almost a month now. The family has handed over $325,000 and still haven't gotten her back. They were told that everything would be resolved this week. Please be praying for this family. She has three kids (in their 20's). My prayer is that she be returned and that she isn't being mistreated. I will let you know when anything changes.
I would also like to ask you to pray for Mitzi Brown she is a friend of ours from Lubbock. She is very sick and things aren't looking good. I heard a few minutes ago that things are going downhill. She comes from a very good family that has always been so kind and generous to others. She is very important to so many people. She has two young chidlren.
I thank God for the health and safety he has given my family.
Please, please take some time today to pray for these people.

Thank you to all of you that are faithful and check my blog way more than I update it. I look forward to writting about our Christmas break at another time.

Whales!

This post is being written for Mrs. Witchers first grade class in Watertown, South Dakota. Hi to all the first graders and I hope you enjoy the pictures. If you click on the picture it will enlarge (get bigger) and you can see the whales a little better. We got to see a mother whale and her baby. It was pretty cool. The Whales are only in Mexico during the winter time. They arrived a few weeks ago and will stay here until things warm up in the United States.

In this picture the mom showed her tail. This means that they were going down deep and probably wouldn't come up for another 45 minutes.
Here is Hannah playing with the snorkeling equipment.

I heard that you guys learned about turtles yesterday. Here is a picture of Josiah cheering on his little turtle. After the turtles hatch the marine biologists keep the turtles for a few days so that they can grow stronger and have a better survival rate. When they are strong enough they are released into the ocean. They are released at sunset because there are less predators out. The conservationists draw a line in the sand and expain that people are not allowed to cross that line. They then have you rub your hands in the sand (I think so that anything on your hands - germs, oils etc. wont hurt the turtles). After that they pass the turtles out to anyone that wants to release one. Then the turtles are layed down on the sand and they head to the ocean. It's really cool because the turtles have an instinct to head to the ocean so even if you face your tutle away from the ocean he/she will turn itself around and head to the water.
Hope you enjoyed. Have a great Christmas vacation and be nice to Mrs. Witcher!!

While in Vallarta we went on an excursion. The boat took us out into the ocean and then let us snorkel for a while. It was pretty cool. The fish were amazing and very big.
Abigail once again with her hand on her waist.

Josiah after snorkeling for 10 seconds. He got scared and Cory pulled him right out.

These fish were beautiful and the picture doesn't do them justice. They were probably at least 9-12 inches long.

Once again the hand on her waist.

On the beach there were two groups of guys making huge sand sculptures.

Nativity scene. To help you understand how big it was - it was taller than the iguana in the previous picture. Probably twice as tall.

We got to release sea turtles again. The kids loved it and so did the AIMers.

Abigail named her turtle Abigail and she cheered her on the whole time till she made it into the ocean.

Back from Vallarta

I noticed that some of you are still faithful and check my blog even though I haven't been good about updating.

We just got in the door from a great retreat. We went for 5 days/4 nights to Puerto Vallarta. We took the AIMers for an evaluation and relaxation retreat. Today the AIMers have been here exactly 7 months which is half of their time. We wanted to take them out of town to have some time of refection on how the last 7 months have gone and what they want to accomplish in the next 7 months. We had a really good time. Cory just asked what I was doing and then replied "because you have nothing else you need to do right now?" This is a very true statement we have been home a little over an hour and I am doing laundry, we just finished lunch and need to be at Josiah's school in one hour for his school program. We didn't have hot water this morning in the hotel so I also need to go shower quick. All that to say that I have a ton to tell you guys about but it will have to wait till tomorrow. Sorry. I will leave you with a few pictures though.

Abigail walking with two of our AIM girls. She feels so big when she gets to hang our with them.

Walking down from our room, heading to the beach.

Abigail loves to have her picture taken with her hand on her side.