NOVEMBER 28-

    Wet cool weather is here …and I know you may get tired of hearing it but again Praise God we have a dryer:) and a washer…the water is very cold on the fingers for washing by hand:( This last trip to US I brought an electric tea pot…how wonderful that has been for heating water in the kitchen for dishes, for tea, for cooking etc etc. I am not too good at washing dishes in cold water on a cold day…it makes my fingers hurt awful so hot water is awesome:)

    It seems like the building of our dining room is going too slow:) It was great the week Alfanso and Jaime were working all week but normally Jaime is working alone and maybe only 3 or 4 days instead of 5 or 6…so progress is slow:( Maybe the men don't mind the crowded kitchen where everybody cannot find a seat to eat and the kids eating outside in the cold and dark at night like I do:) LOL NO the guys are always busy. There's just too many things to do:)Yes well I guess slow progress is better than nothing.

    Since we last wrote the men bought a sow who will have babies the beginning of the year. Also Hermano Juan bought 2 calves. And Asher traded our 2 bulls for a cow and a heifer calf. So we are getting milk again ..on a good day we get a gallon in the morning and evening but some days she only does half a gallon at a time..we are trying to figure out the little tricks that help her give more milk. Its taking a good bit of Ashers time to be sure she gets enough grass…thankfully we already had a grinder so he can get corn husk from market for a little bit of nothing and bean hulls and orange peel and grind it all up with the grass and she eats it up….So if the milk doesn't get all drank in the morning with coffee then some days we get to make cheese which everybody loves….theres a variety on who likes the milk and who doesn't:) So we still buy some of the box fake stuff for those who don't want the real stuff:)

   We did switch the boys dorm and girls dorm…they are still in the process of building the addition up by the boys dorm which will be a room for the older single guys and a spare room for guest. When that room is done,  some of the older girls are moving into the room that the single guys are now in. That will open a number of beds in the girls dorm. After talking to us and Bertha, Evelyn is planning to move into  the girls dorm. The girls are all excited about it. She feels it will be good to help her Spanish and prepare her a little,when she  leaves the nest in 6 month to go back to Rose Creek to prepare for going to college.

   December 17 we leave for the border so we can renew our 6 month tourist visas and renew the van papers. We are asking God to provide enough money so we can register the van in Mexico. We do not have definite but from what people have told us we are guessing $500- $1000. Before that trip we really need to buy at least 2 tires which cost $200 each. We will be a little north of San Antonio in a rented house with family and friends for 3 days, 4 nights. We are very excited about this and grateful for friends and family who paid for this so we can all be together. We are looking to God provide financially what we need for the trip. 

    After being here a year and a half I thought I should be through the worst of homesickness but getting through Thanksgiving and our grandbaby, Jessica's first birthday were rough for me. Thankfully, its better now:) I am so grateful for my daughters who have become my close friends but some days I still just get lonely for my friends:)

   Blessings to each of you. Thank you for reading this and praying and all your love and support.

Today is Papa's 53rd birthday!!!!! 

So once again we have a few more recruits to The Village…About 2 weeks ago, a teenage girl Blanca came to stay for a while. Apparently she wasn't getting along with her step dad, so her mom wanted to get her out of the house.  There are also some more single guys: Teofilo is 18 and his cousin Jose is 28. Teofilo has actually been here for about 3 weeks. This last weekend he went back to his house to check on his work there, where he met his drunk cousin on the side of the road. He offered to bring him to the Village, and give him work to do. So they have been working in the gardens and stuff like that around the land. 

Our numbers are now up to about 55, so every meal we stuff anywhere from 45-55 people on 3 6ft tables with the children out in the pavilion. So we are definitely awaiting the finished dining room!!! 

In the pavilion they have the concrete beams poured and are starting to form for the rest of the ceiling. This will probably take several weeks to prepare for the pouring of the ceiling/floor. Just to explain: the same slab of concrete will be the ceiling for the dining room and the floor for the upper level. 

This month we were able to sell some roosters, a turkey, and some rabbits. Which was a good step towards selling enough to pay for feed. Our daughter Liz is working at an agriculture fundraiser for us, so we were able to get stuff to make rabbit cages. 

Our neighbor has been wanting to sell us his 3 cows. It was more money than we had and more commitment then we can handle at this point. So we just bought one cow and a little heifer calf in trade for our 2 bulls, plus we gave 150 cash besides. The reason we wanted to by a cow, is because our 2 cows are dry at the present and this one will milk till the others have their calves. The heifer calf is still taking 3L of milk morning and evening, so we are only getting a gallon a day for us. But in 2 weeks we will ween the calf, and get more milk then. So we have 3 cows, all are pregnant, and will be having their calves at the beginning of the year. We also now have 2 heifer calves and 1 more bull calf. We are not getting big amounts of milk at this point, but we are building slowly and are quite happy with our beginning. Because of having milk, we used some of the fundraiser money to buy a fridge!!! We are pleased with our bargain: its a 16 cubit for only $465. 

So the seasons here are obviously changing. Last week we had our first days with drizzle and fog, with its dreadful freezing coldness. The roadsides have taken on a fall-ish sort of look. The brothers are planning cool season vegetables. 

The brothers are building another 2 rooms where the mudslide, last year, wiped out 4, and the girls and boys will be switching dorms as soon as they get it finished. The girls will feel a little safer in the middle of things instead of on the edge.

October 5--FINALLY we are writing a blog...we get busy with living life and forget to write about life:)
To catch you up on the work of the pavilion..all the big concrete support post are poured , at this point they are working on all the support beams...doing it in concrete is a LOT of work...they have to put all the forms together so that takes alot of wood and time..then pour the concrete then when it is hard enough all the boards need to come back down...LOTS of work but in the end we will have a very strong building. And not only strong but dry and when the wood stove goes in hopefully there will be one warm spot from all the coldness and that makes all the work and sacrifice and mess worth it now.
The rooms on top of the showers have come to a standstill...Hermano Juan and his family are in 3 of the rooms and they are livable...still need to get glass for the windows and some little things like that. And the other room is in half way stage...always more pressing things:)
A new family has moved to the village..a family from San Lorenzo..Robert, his wife Martina 5 boys and the 10 month baby is a girl:) So we have lots of boys around:)...our numbers are up to 50 when everybody is there. Robert has been doing gardening things so that is great to have the planting get done...there has been so much building and other projects going that the gardening has had to wait. So once again the lettuce is getting planted, the carrots, etc. The oldest boy is 13, the youngest boy is 3. He was shy at first but hes so cute to try to befriend him and watch that smile come:) Of course we love having another baby around..we really enjoy Carlos and now little Maira.
Our boys had fun birthdays..a bunch of the guys went out of there way to do something special for them so they felt loved and they were delighted with the candies or cars or whatever little treasures they were given.And to the ones who sent the boxes for their birthdays a BIG thank you..I always wish you could see the delight on their faces as they open the treasures!! Now we are enjoying a family outing because their brother sent money for their birthdays.We found this rather rustic back a dirt road hotel..it seemed like it wouldn't be good deal but then we turned the corner and we all oh and awed at the green grass and trees and hammocks hanging in the trees inviting a quiet rest and lots of flowers and beautiful looking rooms...the only disadvantage is there is no internetn the rooms because of the thick rock walls..we sat out on the beautiful lawn on a sunny afternoon which was fine till the chill of the evening was here then we got chased indoors:) I am sure the green grass doesn't sound like that big a deal but after living on a mud hill for over  a year the green grass for the children to run and play, the pear trees and apple trees that they could enjoy the fruit, the hammocks, all the beautiful flowers everywhere, a loft with soft soft carpet and soft wonderful throw pillows and 2 hammocks to sit and  play games ... it all has added up to a pleasant experience and we are glad we found it:) And no TV:)

Again may God bless you and we thank you again for your support and encouragement!!

Jason and Nicole left for their trip to the states on Monday and will be gone till October 15.  

School started this week. The schooling system here is divided into 4 parts: Kindergarten, Primary(grades 1-6), Secondary(7th, 8th, and 9th), and High School(10th-12th). Most of the children here in the Village are in Kindergarten and Primary school. There are 3 Kindergarteners and 7 in Primary who are all under the same teacher;  5 students going to the local public school in La Gallera, 4 to high school and 1 to Secondary. Things seem to be going smoothly so far.

Evelyn has been going to the chiropractor twice a week for 3 weeks and she is starting to see good results. Today the chiropractor said she only needs to go once a week now, so we are very relieved. 

We are still getting daily rainfall. It's changed from July's late in the afternoon to later on when we are going to bed. The rain can be pretty heavy though, on some occasions, according to the buckets we've had over 4 inches. 

We have stopped selling bread for the time being, mostly because they've started doing school and there really isn't anybody else to go sell. So we get to sleep in till 6 now:)

Thank you all for your prayers and support!!!! God Bless. 

We finally have electricity!! They came and hooked it up on Monday, and that night we switched everything that was hooked up to the generator over. Tuesday we got the plumbing installed, so we can finally use the washer and dryer again!!!! We weren't using the washer and dryer with the generator because it burned up the motor on the washer. It's definitely the biggest advantage of having electricity!!!!! Especially with all the rain. No more washing laundry by hand every morning, Yay!!!! We also don't miss the noisy generator every evening:) Thursday Papa rewired the kitchen, doing away with all the extension chords and power strips, and installed light switches and outlets. 

The brothers have been working on the dining room project. Since that area of the pavilion is mostly fill dirt, we have to do extensive foundation work to support the heavy concrete ceiling. So since there has been lots of digging work, we have all been eating in the kitchen. Also some of the other brothers have been working on the bedroom project above the showers. They got the roofing completed this week. 

One of the business ventures that the brothers are engaged in right now involves selling plants in Michoacan… They buy up plants locally, load them on a truck, and resell them to greenhouses in Michoacan. On their present schedule they buy up plants Monday through Thursday, load Friday afternoon, leave Friday night, deliver their plants on Saturday, and drive the 11 hours back Saturday night. Truck issues have been the main problem in the venture so far. The motor blew up in the Nissan pickup, and while that was being fixed they rented another truck. A tire blew out on that one and the truck rolled over on its side. After they got the body work done, they were driving back and it developed engine problems…fortunately it wasn't to serious. The Nissan is now back on the road, and the latest issues have been more minor(break problems and the clutch). 

Another venture right now is selling our homemade bread. We have been getting up at 3:30am to make zucchini muffins, banana muffins, and cinnamon rolls which we sell for 3.5 pesos(a little more than 25 cents). We didn't sell to much to begin with, but as people have tasted our bread, it has gotten a lot better and we have several regular customers:) We started just selling in the mornings, but we have now added going in the evenings selling the leftovers from the morning(if there are any) and selling chocolate crinkles and oatmeal raisin cookies…We have been doing it for about 2 weeks Monday through Saturday, and getting Sundays off. Tomorrow we are planning to add Evelyn's yummy hot rolls to the list:) We have hopes of it eventually being  growing and prosperous:) We get up and make the bread, and the Mexican's get up and make atoll or coffee to sell. I (Edith) go in the mornings with Daya, Teresa, and our driver, and Evelyn goes in the evenings with Anjelica and a driver. So mom is extra thankful for the washer and dryer, since Ev and I are gone more often:) 

Jason and Nicole left Thursday afternoon for Mexico City to take Alejandra for pre op work for her first surgery on Monday. She will have several surgeries in the next 2-4 years to correct damaged muscles, nerves and tendons in her back and legs. The end hope will be that she will be able to walk normally. Pray with us for her that all would go very well and hte desired results could be accomplished.

Thank you for reading this blog and praying for us...good friends are such an encouragement and blessing!!

ELECTRICITY---July 23
WOW after 10 months of phone calls and hassle and waiting the electricity got hooked up today!! Asher is busy trying to get all the wires run that need to happen so we can have lights and washer and dryer by tonight or asap:) And it is pouring down rain right now so that is a really welcome thought!!:) I'll write more another day..I just had to let everybody know the good news:)

So it is July, which means lots of graduation parties:) Here they end school in July and start back up in August, but they have a lot more holidays than we do I think. Graduations are quite a big deal here, so on Tuesday we went to Bro. John's son's graduation party, Geovani, who was graduating from 10th grade. We had a big meal of rice, beans, and the famous Carnitas(pork tacos). We enjoyed ourselves helping out where we could, and visiting with people we hadn't seen in a while. We left there already practically bloated, and went to another house that we were invited to, having to eat another plate! This time we had rice with moli and pork again:) We actually all managed to scarf it down, but lets just say another bite would have pretty much sent us over the edge:) 

Wednesday we went to another big party. Bro. Javier, who lives in The Village, invited us to his brother's graduation who was actually graduating from high school, i think:) We had carnitas there again:) 

We actually had a short visit from David Servant, from Tuesday through Thursday. He came to get some stories for things that their ministry sponsored. He was actually given money to get Alejandra through what she needs to start walking correctly!!!!!!! She is the crippled girl who has been here since before we came… It will be a long process, but they have already connected with a world known doctor, so it will hopefully be started soon!!!

We have been having some pretty heavy rain, this week, in the evenings… It actually took out the girls boiler, completely covering it with mud. So we all had to shower in the guys two for a few days, but we now have it back and running:) Thank God!!!

More another day:)

Edith:)