It has been a while...

Hello all!
Sorry it has been a while since I´ve updated you all on what I´ve been doing! Things here in Mexico are crazy, and I am so thankful for that. I love staying busy!

So I left off at last Saturday. So last Sunday was good. We had our team leaders, Michelle and Jim, come to our church to visit, and we had a great meal together with the whole church between services, which is always fun. Our church loves Coca Cola, so we had plenty of that to go around as well. I honestly can´t remember too much from last Sunday, so I´ll leave it at that.

Then that next Monday, we began our last week of Spanish classes. My class was mainly working on our skit for graduation, which actually was on Thursday (instead of Saturday). So everyday while the other classes were learning conjugation, conjuntions or pronunciation, our class was out in the public (and very crowded, might I add...) park practicing our skit in full costume. We "street girls" were dressed as a goth, a gang member, a druggie/hippie (lucky me), and a theif. Our one male class member was a preacher who we had to pretend to rob and beat up (using fake blood and black makeup to make the beating look real...). After this fake beating, he asks us to come back, and he begins to share with us that we are loved by God, etc., etc., and thus begin our Spanish solos...at first we are resistant, then slowly we grow curious, and finally, we accept Christ and we all sing together, again, in Spanish. So if you can just imagine what a scene 5 gringos made performing such a skit in the middle of the day in Mexico City, I am sure you are probably enjoying a pretty big laugh right now.

Wednesday night, we had visitation again. We visited one of our viejitas (old ladies) in our church. She was very much an inspiration to us all, and she invited a friend to the our in-house service who seemed to be in a lot of distress over her children´s situations. We were able to pray for them both and I think God really helped us again to have the words we needed, so thanks for your prayers in that area!

Thursday was our graduation, and I think our skit was a hit! Of course, almost 10 people from my family/church came to see me embarrass myself, and they are still talking about the skit a week later... After each class´s presentation, we ate tamales and I got to talk with Heidi´s old Mexican family, which was great.

Friday, for the Fourth, and for the birthday party of our leader, Jim, we all went to Xochimilco, a little colony in Mexico City, for a cookout! It was amazing! There was REAL GRASS, overlooking a river with the old timey boats the Aztec Indians used to use always floating by. We saw several people fishing, and harvesting some kind of plant from the river. There was so much food, I can´t even report on all of it, but let´s just say I was so full that I almost passed up the birthday cake and ice cream...almost. When we got home from the party, my family asked when I was going to make them chocolate chip cookies, and of course, I never turn down an opportunity for cookies, so I told them that that was the night! We made very yummy cookies and all the jovenes enjoyed them it seemed.

Saturday, we got up and had "hotcakes," which are pancakes, with our family. They were yummy, but untraditional. Apparently in Mexico, they eat their pancakes with condensed milk and jelly. Who knew? After a lazy Saturday morning breakfast, a bunch of people from the church came over and we had VBS training time that began at 12. The meeting was supposed to be from 12-4pm, but, as I´ve learned so many times before, time is so relative here. We finally finished up the meeting at 7:15pm! So that was a pretty long day of Spanish. I found out during the meeting that I will be a group coordinator for the 6 to 8 year olds, and I will also be teaching English as an activity during VBS. So pray for me as I try to find a spare moment to begin doing some lesson plans-- a lesson for each age group (there are 3 age groups), for each day of a 5 day VBS!

This was Sunday was like most: long, with lots of Spanish, but God really sustained us through it all. Karen and I both shared our testimonies, and I think they went well and were clear. I pray that God used something I said anyway.

Yesterday, we transitioned to having Mondays as our day of rest because we are now officially in our "full-time ministry" time. So Monday I met a bunch of the people from our team out at La Presa, which is outside of the city, up in the beautiful mountains. We all met our two girls´house and had fresh banana and strawberry liquadas (smoothies) and pan dulce before departing on what would be the crazy hike I´ve ever been on! We climbed up through streets steeper than I´ve ever seen before. (It was almost easier to walk on all fours than standing straight up.) Finally we crossed the "great wall of Mexico," a wall the government established to prevent anymore upward development of the mountains. We climbed and climbed and climbed, passing by shepherds with real live sheep, burros (donkeys) and horses, little huts of tin, and the like. It was absolutely beautiful.

So, now it´s Tuesday and we are about to head to our meeting for worship with the team, and then some small group time to talk about how we are doing, etc. I´ve got to run, but I will update more later! It may be a while, because I am getting so busy lately!

You can pray for me on Thursday and Friday, we are headed to Morelia, where I´ll be living for the year, to see what the Casa Hogar is like and meet the director and some of the kids. Pray hard!

Love, Lauren