Hey Everybody!!!

It's been a SUPER long time since I've written anything on here. So I thought it was time for an update thanks to a certain Korean =P

I had a fantastic trip from the states to here the last full week of March. I pulled my brand new trailer that God provided (a dual axle 20 footer with a cage on top) and had it loaded down with 2 new lawn mowers for Roca, and all of the optometric equipment finally! I had a few other things on the trailer as well such as a desk and some boxes of sheets, and some coffee and flavorings for our new espresso machine in the guest house. So a little bit of everything, and if Los Federales (the federal policemen) had pulled me over they would have charged me all kinds of amazingly high fines just because I'm American and had a bunch of stuff with me. The trip was really peaceful for the first half of it, but then I met up with 2 Mexican guys from Roca (Jerry and Rigo) and they drove down the rest of the way with me. 

Some of you know that I just replaced my transmission in my truck, and the guy who did it for me also installed a racing cooler specifically for the transmission. So it should have been super duper cool, but even with that, twice in the mountains, my transmission overheated because of the weight I was pulling.

I didn't get pulled over by the police at all the whole way down by the grace of God, but when we drove all night over by Zihuatanejo, we had to drive through 10 different military checkpoints and they stopped us at 8 of them and searched the vehicle. One time they even had a drug dog come sniff over the whole trailer and truck. But the military are good guys just doing their job so they didn't try and charge us anything or mess with us at all.

I had left on March 18, Wednesday night, and finally got to the Base Monday afternoon the 23rd. So a long trip made longer, but God got us through! I got to try a new route through Mexico that I had never done before over by the western coast, so that was a lot of fun.

Anyways, so I get to Roca Monday afternoon, then Tuesday morning they tell me there is a team flying into Huatulco (the airport 2 hours away) and then they are going to villages for 6 days. And they want me to come...yay! lol so I went, and they were a great team from Canada. I actually wound up meeting them in Puerto Escondido and I didn't get introduced properly so they just thought I was a local taxi cab driver that looked American =P. But we got to Nopala (a little bit bigger city) and spent the rest of the week going from there to different villages all over the mountains in the area. The team had managed to bring like 12 suit cases of childrens toys and stuff, so we made handout bags with crayons and things, and we did childrens events with skits and balloon animals and all kinds of fun things. During the time we were in Nopala, there were 2 little boys whose parents just got a divorce. They connected with me really well, and were climbing all over me every time we had a meal in Nopala. Their mother is one of the helpers for the church their and was one of our cooks. They are great boys, and they really blessed me in the time I was there. After we left their mother told me that they cried for 2 days straight because I had gone. But more about that later.

We got back to the base after the outreaches, and we were supposed to go into Puerto Escondido for the "fun/relax day". The team was getting all ready to go when Sue pulls me aside and told me that she needed me to drive into Puerto with her and pick up a bunch of toilets for the new bathrooms we were building. Needless to say I was a little underenthused, but we went and sat there for about 2 hours and finally found out that the toilets hadn't even been shipped yet so they weren't even there. That meant that I got to go hook up with the team at the beach though so that was cool. I spent the rest of the day with them and had a great time taking them shopping and eating at the italian restaurant in Puerto. After dinner, we did a little more shopping, and I got my hair braided by this lady that does it. We took the team back to Roca and the next day was a relax day (finally! =). Then off to the airport in Huatulco again.

Then the following week we had a HUGE youth event called Convocación and had over 3000 youth come! We had Marcos Barrientos and Enrique Bremer (2 famous Mexican speakers) come for the event, and there were hundreds of salvations and around 200 baptisms! Needless to say, Convocación was a great success, and was probably the biggest one we have ever had. My job during the event was essentially chauffeur. I was going to Rio Grande or Puerto Escondido every day to run errands and buy things we needed, or going to the airport in Huatulco to pick somebody up or drop somebody off, but I got to join the event during the evening sessions which were AMAZING. The worship services were incredible with so many youth just worshipping their faces off before the Lord. What an amazing time!

It turns out that Aran and Lalo (the 2 little boys from Nopala) had managed to convince their mother to bring them to the youth event so they could see me =P. So every time I walked onto the event field, I got pounced upon by 2 eager little boys! It was great seeing them again, and we had fun playing ninjas and having tickle fights.

The day after Convocación ended, I got sent to take back all of the cables we had borrowed for all of the lighting and sound equipment. The problem was we had borrowed the cables from a town that is a nice, leisurely 7 HOUR DRIVE from the base....anyways so I drove all the way there with this HUGE pile of cables in my truck that made the whole back of the truck ride lower than the front. The good thing was that this town (Juchitan) is famous for their tlayudas (a really big taco with beans, cabbage, steak, and quesillo or Oaxacan cheese) so we ate like kings while we were there. One of the Bible school students had driven with me to keep me company.

The next day we drove back and I got there at exactly the same time as the new team got there from the airport. Sooo I we left with them the next morning bright at early for a 2 day village trip to Tiltepec. This team was a high school group from upstate New York where David Nelson (a relatively new associate of the base and Laura Pratts husband) used to live. He was actually the spanish teacher in their high school. So he and Laura were the team leaders, and we had medical clinics and childrens events. One of the parents that had come along as a chaperone is a doctor so he helped by seeing hundred of patients in the villages we went to. We spent the first 2 days in Tiltepec, then went to Cacahuatepec (translation: Peanut City) for another 2 days. We didn't actually do anything in the city of Cacahuate, we went to 2 villages nearby and did clinics and childrens events again. The first day we actually went to a brand new village that we have never been able to go to before called La Culebra. The name means The Snake and it's named thus for the really windy, twisty road to get there. It was so amazing to see how open and receptive the people were. They had never before heard the Gospel message, so they were astounded that a bunch of white people would come and give them free clinics, and balloon animals and candy and things. We had 42 salvations, most of them adults, but a number of them kids as well. It was really cool, because one of the team members had written "JESUS TE AMA" (Jesus loves you) in the dust on the window of the van we took. I had to get something out of the van, and as all of the little kids and teenagers that were walking by were all reading out loud what it said on the van. It was so cool to me seeing even the little kids sounding out the words, but they were all receiving the message. Even if nobody had talked to them and witnessed to them, they got the message that Jesus loves them. This is one more entire village that recieved the Good News. There's not that many left guys! Not too many more before the whole world hears about Jesus!

Anyways, that got me really excited evangelizing to all of the people there.

The next day we went back to Roca Blanca and went to church in Rio Grande, and had another kids event. Monday night we took the team to the worship service that the Bible school does every Monday, and we had an awesome time. God gave me some words for the guys of the team and the Holy Spirit just showed up in an awesome way!

We took the team out to the big white rock to go snorkeling on their day off, and I was teaching them how to free dive (going really deep without an air tank). I found this really cool yellow and black star fish, and a couple of eels and all kinds of funky colored fish. Then we took the team to Puerto and went shopping and ate at Francos. And off to the airport they went yesterday. And that brings us up to today!

Speaking of today I just got told I need to drive into Puerto to drop something off, so I gotta go! Luv ya guys and God bless you!