Yo estoy en Mejico!

One scan of our family blog shows how deeply ingrained we are into blogging..... many months of fond memories have never made it into writing, something I will regret in time. Barb´s joy is to keep up with the scrapbooks to capture our life on film, mine is blogging - thank goodness Barb is better than I!

So what brings me back to the keyboard? I am on the second night of a week long mission trip with our local church in Mexico. For anyone who´s used a Mexican keyboard you know this can be a challenging thing! There´s a handful of extra key´s wedged into the keyboard, and most of the special characters are shuffled!

Anyhow, we flew into Mexico City last evening, landing around 9:30pm. After 90 minutes to register our visas and clear customs, I had my first experience ordering dinner without an interpreter - boy do I wish I had spent more time brushing up on my two years of High School spanish!!! The meal was most needed to settle the stomach for the two and a half hour drive to the city of Puebla east of Mexico City. There´s a very good reason American auto insurance companies will not cover your travels in Mexico! We rode in a chartered bus similar to the small rental car buses in an airport, and wondered why all the windows were covered with black curtains. One peek outside the windows would make one close them fast! Bumper-to-bumper traffic, four cars abreast on a three lane highway, with tractor trailers on both sides and the rear earned muchas respectos from me to our driver! It´s unbelievable the amount of traffic on the roads of Mexico City at 12:30 in the morning! Our host said rush hour for the city of 20+ million is from 6am to 1am. The first hour of our trip was spent going 10 miles! We arrived at the Hotel Panamerican in Puebla at 2am, praising God for the safe journey and the driver´s alertness!

Tomorrow we drive to our destination - Apizaco, Mexico (a city of 50,000). Basing from there, we will travel each day to the small remote village of San Bartolo to host a sports camp for the children during the day, and make eye glasses and distribute health kits to the adults in the evening. Today we spent our first day on the mission trip shopping in Puebla (a city of 1.5 million) at.... yes...... Sam´s Club and WalMart! We purchased $11,000 pesos ($1,000 dollars) of supplies for health kits, sports equipment, and some personal supplies.

One pleasant surprise is the weather here in Puebla and Apizaco. It averages 50° at sunrise, and 75° as a high in the afternoon - a far cry from the 95° heat and humidity of Maryland this week!!! The 8,000 foot elevation makes the climate most pleasant here - I now understand why most Mexicans are not accustomed to heat!

I also have been struck by the number of mission teams active in the city of Puebla. In our small hotel alone there are four teams who checked in the past two days, including a group led by Andrew Flagg. He is leading a Baptist church from Elkton MD. I first met him when he spoke as a guest at Lexington Park Baptist Church a couple years ago. A second group is from Ocean View Baptist Church in Norfolk, VA. The third group is from Fort Worth, TX.

Tomorrow we move to Apizaco to the north of Puebla. It is closer to the base of Mount Popocatepetl (or Mt. Popo), one of the most active volcanos in Mexico. It erupted in 1994, after more than 50 years of dormancy, and has been quite active ever since. Lava is often visible at night pouring from the crater. We saw steam and ash rising from it today - a normal daily occurance!

Time to turn in. Don´t know if and when I can get Internet connection in Apizaco - but I intend to add posts each evening if I can. Please be in prayer for the mission teams throughout the Puebla area, and for our team as well. Pray that some last-minute logistics will come together for our sports camp activities. More importantly, please pray that the hearts and minds of the local villagers in San Bartolo would be open to the message of the Gospel.