Some little Christmas elf found herself in my Christmas stuff. Yes that is two stockings on her feet and check out those ears!

This is the altar at the end of Calixto's last sermon. The man in the maroon shirt came back to Christ after walking away from his faith since the death of his young son in the Spring. His 2 year old was run over by a truck. The town people think the driver did it on purpose as he is very against the Christians and the church there. We believe he is now in Jail. Placido and his wife were just swallowed up in grief.
Here is Christopher mixing concrete. He worked so hard and enjoyed every minute of it! Pop-pop you would have been proud! Here you can see the front of the church a little bit. In all of our years of doing this we have never seen such a big pile of concrete to mix!! Many towns people came to help out with the project although they are not christians.
Here are the girls! This is the river we bathed in last year. This year it was too cold and the river was churned up because of the rain...it rained a lot! So, catherine and I didn't really take a bath while we were there...I tried to post a picture of the so called "shower area" but it didn't come up. One "wall" to the shower was a row of hibiscus plants, the other 3 "walls" were stick poles with some sort of bag for coverage...coverage was minimal at best! But, we stayed clean with wet wipes just fine! I was able to wash my hair though which was nice!
We are scheduled to return to Mx in February and again in March...Anyone want to come with us??
This is back in Tamaz with Pastor Candido and his family. On the wall behind them is a picture of the team we took in April, (Uncle Lee you are the last person on the right in the bottom photo. Dad, for some reason you aren't in the picture)
I just love this picture. This house is tucked away along a small pathway. This woman only speaks the native language of Nahuatl (nah-watt) not spanish. When we came up she promplty found chairs for us to sit on and went back to sorting her beans. We had a church member with us who translated from spanish to her language. She was precious!
This is the team right before we left Jalpa (minus to guys who overslept!) We were standing on the freshly poured roof as the sun began to rise over the mountains , so beautiful!
The road winds back in front of Jalpa, across a valley so you can see the entire village. The population is about 700 people. This is zoomed in so you can't see the whole area. The church is
I'll post a picture of what the church looked like last year when we were there...
Catherine posing with her friend Lindsey. Her twin brother plays on the team. With the exception of last season he and Christopher played together for 2 years prior. Catherine just loves Lindsey!
Here is a picture at the last game, he was getting ready to play goal keeper.
I'm going to miss soccer games every Saturday...but Basketball will start up soon. Not my favorite sport to watch but any game is fun when your child plays in it. I have definitely found my competitive nature (never thought I really had one!!) I try not to get nervous or yell (good things, not bad!) but I just can't help myself.
They were so proud of their melons...They look pretty on the outside!
How disappointing! When Christopher cut open the first one it was completely white inside and smelled like a cucumber.
The second one was just a little pink. They both tasted it, Christopher said it was good...but, it really wasn't! We will leave the rest of them alone and see what happens over the next month. Christopher had his hopes set on starting a watermelon business...maybe next year! We'll deifinitely have room for a garden at the new house!
The dry, hot weather over the summer must have been the reason for our crop failure!
Here we are carving our pumpkins...as you can see cleaning it out is not Christopher's favorite thing to do!
I'm not sure Catherine actually did any work on her pumpkin but at least we got a picture of her hand inside, pretending to clean it out!
Our finished products! We usually carve pumpkins and make caramel apples the same evening but, we kind of ran out of time and now we have no apples as they were eaten and the caramels are still in the pantry!! I'll have to buy more apples and make them sometime...before Christmas, I hope.
Catherine just loved "burning her pumpkin" She wanted it lit everynight. We did for a few nights until we ran out of candles.
Our house buying is still moving along, we don't know when closing will be yet, most likely the beginning of December. On another note check out www.ashleysstory.org baby Ashley had a multiple organ transplant and has not been doing so well over the last few days. Please pray for this precious baby and family!