To our loyal fans and readers!
In these last days before Christmas we write to you our last update letter concerning our trip to Mexico for my PRIME internship. It has been a wild ride! Before we left last Tuesday morning I prayed that God would help us have a safe and uneventful trip back to the states, and that if our journey was difficult God would help us to handle all situations as his disciples should—with love. Well, though it was a long and at times boring trip, we managed to jump through all the hoops without problems. Let me tell you how God blessed us! We left our apartment at 8:40ish and expected an hour and a half of traffic (or more!). But, it only took us about 40 minutes to get to the airport! We expected to wait in line for hours to check our bags, but we were the 5th couple in line! We thought we were going have problems with the customs department about our expired visas and would have to pay a 500+ paso fine, but the baggage check guy said nothing about it! None of our plans were delayed! U.S. customs was a breeze (and we expected that to be tough with all the stuff we had), and our connecting flight was on time! And, when we reached Cleveland Michelle and Audrey were waiting for us! All in all, we left our apartment at 8:40am and arrived at the in-laws house around 11:15pm…Like I said, long, boring, and uneventful. It was an answer to prayer!
Well, I can’t say that our trip was totally uneventful. While we were waiting in the Mexico City international airport for our flight we managed to find and get pictures with the Japanese version of Tom Hanks…or, the character that Tom played in the movie “The Terminal.” This guy is literally living in the airport, and has been for a few months now! Apparently, they can’t do anything about it because his visa doesn’t expire for a few months. Until then, they can’t kick him out! Dennis and I tried to approach him and speak with him. He was not very talkative; he did not engage us in conversation in either Spanish or English…But he did let us take a picture with him. Only after we tried to talk to him did we google how to say hello and a few other pleasantries in Japanese. We should have done that before hand; but, oh well...lesson learned.
Some of you may have heard me say that the smog is pretty bad in Mexico City, but I just cannot adequately describe in words how disgusting it looks, though I know some authors that could…Anyway, I have attached a picture of what I saw as our plain took off from the Mexico City airport; it was incredible! As we were ascending I was looking out the window and all of the sudden, I could see ten times further then I could just seconds before! We did not break through a cloud line, or fog; but the smog line from the city!! After having lived for 6 months in a place that gave me smog buggies just from talking a 20 minute walk I am SOOO thankful to live in a country with clean air policies—even as obnoxious as the E.P.A. and other green parties can be.
In closing I want to share with you a few other ways in which God has blessed us since we have been in Mexico. When we left we did not have the funds necessary for the duration of our trip, but we left in faith that God would provide. A month or so after we arrived a few unexpected donations came in that brought us up to and just over the amount we needed! To help matters, our host family in Cuernavaca (the place we lived for our first month while I was in language school) did not charge us any rent (though we were able to leave them with a gift). When we reached Mexico City we had some expenses that we had not anticipated, but God provided again as our Landlady charged us LESS THEN HALF of what he had budgeted for our rent, AND we did not have to pay water or electricity either!! BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! When we left for Mexico Nicolle’s car was on its last legs, and we were on a very limited budget for finding another car. But God saw fit to find us a sweet economy car through our friends and family (’93 Honda Accord, so cool!)! He practically dropped it in our lap! What an answer to prayer! Also, we had to leave our apartment in Huntington, which has since been rented out. But again, in an amazing answer to prayer, God helped us find a very economical apartment that will meet our needs beautifully through a dear friend of ours! We are so excited to return to H-town and set up our new pad!!! Lastly, Nicolle and I were both concerned about returning to quickly empting bank accounts and no jobs. In October I double checked the budget with our current spending habits and did not think we would have anything left over from our Mexico funds. However, the conversion rate took a dramatic turn in our favor around that same time—from about 10 USD to 1 Paso, to 13.8ish to 1! This doesn’t sound like much, but it slowed our cash flow enough that when we hit US soil we had a little over $700 bucks to help us transition as we look for jobs! God is sooooooooo good, providing above and beyond our needs!
Well, as I said this is the last up date, and I think there will only be one or two more extras and photo links put on the blog. But…Nicolle and I have enjoyed updating, and putting up pictures and such that we think we will continue the habit in the future. However, we are planning on starting a new blog that is not centered around our trip to Mexico. So, the very last message you will receive from us will be the info on the new blog, for those who are interested. I must say, it has been a pleasure sharing our stories with you all. We love you all very much and deeply thank you for all of your help and especially your prayers!

PS. Sorry the font is so small, I guess I had a lot to say…just zoom in! hahaha! Merry Christmas!

Please pray for: Jobs for when we return to Huntington; and safe travel from Ohio to Michigan, and to Indiana.
—Shalom.

To our dear friends,
Well, I can hardly believe it but this is the last update that we will be sending from Mexico! Tomorrow, bright and early, Dennis Poulette (my PRIME mentor) will be swinging by the apartment to pick us up. We will be heading through an hour to an hour and a half of traffic to get to the airport four hours before our flight leaves, our first flight for about four and a half hours, which will take us to our one hour long layover…just before our second one a half hour flight…where we can then go through customs…….after that we can (thanks to my awesome in-laws) be driven the last hour and a half to Nicolle’s parents house………Either way you cut it, its going to be a long, long day. But, it will be well worth the stress to be back in the states to see friends and family for Christmas! To our loyal readers from Little Flock Fellowship Church, we shall see you next Sunday!
Some of you might be wondering what we have been up to in the week proceeding our departure. Well, to be honest, it has gone really fast. We tried to relax a bit when we could, but we didn’t really get the opportunity to do much loafing. We were invited to a few people’s houses for lunch or dinner; and in typical Mexico fashion, these affairs usually took the entire day. Also, there was the last meeting of our small group. For the most part, we spent our spare time cleaning and packing our things so that when we were invited somewhere we could accept. Our biggest adventure happened this last Saturday when we went down town with a few kids from our youth group. There is a big Christmas shin-dig in the Zocolo (see pictures from last weeks up date) that is always fun to go to. However, at one point on the way home, I almost died! You see, we were waiting on the platform for another metro train to come by….waiting and waiting….well, about 25 minutes later (about 23 minutes too long) one finally came. By this time there was well over a thousand people waiting to get on, and I knew it was going to be a mad dash for the doors. Well, luckily, the V.P. of Y.M.I. (Youth Ministry International, the world wide ministry organization that I am doing my internship through), Brent, was there. He is all of 6’2” and beefy. He plowed a way on for us and we made it. But that was only the beginning. You see, it wasn’t just that platform that was over crowded, but all of them up and down the line. So when we wanted to get off, we not only had to struggle to get to the door on the train, but to get off! I was the last one in our group trying to exit, and about the time I put one foot on the platform the buzzer started to ring, singling that the train was going to leave in less then 10 seconds. That was when it happened! The crowd of people that I was trying to beat my way through surged toward me in a mad struggle to get on the train! I was just starting to cut through them when I almost got pulled off my feet! You see, I had the camera around my neck, and through the strap I had hung my hooded sweatshirt. This combination hung down just past my knees, and it had gotten caught in the crowd moving in the opposite direction!!! It was all I could do to keep my hoodie from getting caught in the doors as they started to close. No one was holding on to them, it was just the pressure from being squeezed between the people as they piled onto the train! I was so surprised and scared! The whole time I kept thinking this was just the kind of stupidity and insanity that got that Wal-Mart employee killed…Oh, my………..
In other news, Nicolle and I made someone’s day! The youngest daughter of our Landlady, Liliana, has been wanting a computer for quite some time now. She has borrowed my laptop a few times since we have been here to do home work. Well, because Nicolle has a new/used lap top waiting for her in the states, and we are severely limited in the amount of stuff we can bring back with us (weight restrictions and such), we decided that it would be better just to give Nicolle’s old lap top to Liliana. She was soooooooo excited to get it and I’m sure she stayed up late playing around on it. Earlier today, I went upstairs to drop off some food and things that we would not need anymore and found that Lili, her brother and some friends were all up in her room goofing around on the internet with her lap top. Christmas came a little early for Lili this year, God be praised!

Please pray for: Jobs for when we return to Huntington; for a safe and stress free trip (especially in customs), for safety on the roads for Bryan and Michelle when they pick us up.
—Shalom.

The Recipe

Beef and Bean Chimichangas

My family never gets bored with what I serve for dinner, because I'm always trying new recipes. These chimichangas, though, are often requested especially by our teenage daughter.—Janice Lyons, Eagle River, Wisconsin

SERVINGS: 16

CATEGORY: Main Dish

METHOD:

TIME: Prep: 25 min. Cook: 20 min.
Ingredients:

* 1-1/2 pounds ground beef
* 1 medium onion, chopped
* 1 medium green pepper, chopped
* 1 garlic clove, minced
* 2 cans (16 ounces each) refried beans
* 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
* 1/2 cup taco sauce
* 16 flour tortillas (10 inches)
* Vegetable oil
* Toppings: shredded lettuce, sour cream, chopped ripe olives, chopped tomatoes, additional cheddar cheese

Directions:
In a large skillet, cook beef, onion, green pepper and garlic over medium heat until the meat is no longer pink; drain. Add the beans, cheese and taco sauce. Cook and stir until cheese is melted, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat. Spoon about 1/3 cup off-center on each tortilla. Fold up edge nearest filling; fold in both sides and roll up. Secure with a toothpick. In a large skillet, fry tortillas, folded side down, in oil for 2-3 minutes or until lightly browned. Turn; cook 2-3 minutes longer. Drain on paper towels. Serve with toppings of your choice. Yield: 16 chimichangas.



**** We took the left overs to Bible Study because even though I cut the recipe in half...the tortillas here are small and it made 18! They were a hit. I looked up the origin on Wikipedia...and it's pretty funny, apparently it's a Tex-mex dish...our Mexican friends had fun with the name :)

Taken from Taste of Home's website

chimichangas!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We just made chimichangas for dinner and they were sooooooooooooooooo good!!!! Mmmmmmm...fried food... haha!

Merry Christmas!

To our dear friends,
This is going to be a shorty, sorry. We find ourselves with very little time left here, the days are going faster and faster. We are trying to spend time with our friends before we leave, fitting in packing and other necessaries when we can. I have one last little paper to write for school, kind of a wrap up summary of my internship. After that, we’re home free.
The schedule: Today, hung out with Dennis and Jenelle, Nathan and Ben. We went to the Zocolo for the big Christmas fest. They had a mini sledging hill, and a huge skating rink; even a place to build little snow men! Thursday, clean and pack, write the blasted paper, maybe hang out with Dennis; maybe lunch with Huberto. Friday, maybe more packing, hanging out with the Poulett’s for dinner. Saturday, there is a group of youth from the church and seminary going to the Zocolo for more of the Christmas celebrations. I managed to take a few pictures of the fun’ness when we went today and will have them in photo bucket shortly. Sunday is a special church service in a restaurant where we get to hang out, eat breakfast, and have the sermon right there. It will be our last Sunday here. In the afternoon we will be bequeathing the possessions that we acquired for daily living here in Mexico to a couple our age that we met here. They are to be married in about 6 months and could use some of our stuff for setting up house. On Monday, we finish the packing, and scrub the apartment down floor to ceiling (we try to leave things better then we found them) and then trying to get a good nights sleep because on Tuesday we need to lave by 8:00am in order to make it to the airport four hours early to catch our flight. While there, we hope to meet the guy from Japan (or China?) who has been living in the airport for the last few months. It’s like that movie, only real. Haha

Merry Christmas!


Please pray for: Jobs for when we return to Huntington; for our ministry with our core kids, that their faith is strengthened; that God would use us even as we are preparing to leave.
—Shalom.

I had heard that Sams club carries Root Beer here in Mexico, but I do not have a sams card, and I don't know anyone that does. However, at long last (six months to be exact), the dollar store down here had some Root Beer!!!! Oh, it was so good, soooooooo good! Nicolle and I made cheese burgers the other day, and I had a Root Beer with it. mmmmmmm

COOKIES!

So, Nicolle was feeling festive the other day and decided to make some Christmas cut out cookies! One day I came home to a wife covered in flour and a large lump of dough cooling in the fridge. Nicolle asked me to talk to our Landlady and see if she had a rolling pin that we could use. When I talked to her, she said that she had just thrown three of them away in the garbage earlier that day! I could not believe it! Well, Nicolle managed quite well with just patting the dough out with her hands. Because we didn't have any cookies cutters, she used an assortment of different sized cups to make circles for snow balls, ornaments, and snow men. The really fun part came when we went to frost the cookies. We didn't want to spend $2.50 on food coloring that we would only use once, so we decided to see what we could use to tint our otherwise white frosting. We got a lovely shade of purple/red using strawberry and grape jelly, a warm shade of brown using cinnamon, and light shade of yellow from honey, orange juice, and orange peal zest. In the end, the cookies were cute, and tasted delicious!!! Merry Christmas!

what a week!

Dear friends,
So many things have happened this week; I really don’t know where to start…So, to keep things simple, we will go chronologically. On Monday Nicolle and I played hooky. I have that day off from work at the church, and since Nicolle and I were short on sleep we decided to stay at home and relax. It was a well deserved break and greatly enjoyed. Tuesday was un-eventful, though I started finalizing my message for this Sunday. Wednesday was more of the same, to be honest; the real action didn’t start until Thursday. So, Thursday, THANKSGIVING! As I have mentioned in past updates, Nicolle and I were invited over to Dennis Poulette’s house for the celebration. It was so much fun! We were not the only people that got invited over, Dennis asked a few friends of his from Mexico to come over. They all seemed to really enjoy the food and talking about the tradition of Thanksgiving. Speaking of food, it was fantastic! Nicolle and I made deviled eggs and sweet potatoes (Thanks Michelle!), and Dennis and his wife made up a giant turkey, green beans, potatoes, gravy, homemade bread, corn and some scrumptious deserts: peanut butter pie (oh my goodness!), apple cake (wow!), and B.T.S.P. which was my favorite! It had crumbled nut crust, a layer of cream cheese, a layer of chocolate pudding, and a layer of freshly whipped cream (gaaaaaaaaaa!)! All in all, we had a fantastic time. Friday, I finished my preparations for my Sunday message and went home to try and relax. Well, Nicolle and I were in the middle of a movie when our landlady started banging on the door in a panic. It did not take us long to figure out what happened. Her 89 year old father who lives across the hall from us had passed away suddenly. She had gone upstairs to call a doctor and five minutes later, he was gone. His health had taken a sudden turn for the worse about three days earlier, but there is just no way to prepare for something like this. Well, this was a very late night for both of us. Being a leader in the church I was expected to attend to the family and help comfort them. And Nicolle did not get much sleep because most of all the family came from all over Mexico (and one or two from America) so the house was very very loud. At 2:30am we gave up and called my PRIME mentor/supervisor Dennis Poulette (a very good friend) and he and his wife were willing to take us into their home. We got way more sleep on their couches then we would have at our apartment, even with the 8:30 wake up call by 3 year old Nathan doing his impersonation of Jimmy Hendrix! We spent most of Saturday just hanging out with the Poulettes, decorating their Christmas tree, and relaxing. We finished off the night with pizza and coke with them and went home around 10:00 wondering where our day went. All of the sudden it was Sunday morning, and I was feeling slightly less then prepared for my message. After breakfast, and a calming time of prayer, I jotted down some notes and left for church dressed to kill! When I arrived I spent a few minutes getting my props prepared, and talking to Huberto about the skits that we were going to do (oh yes, we had a lot of fun. I had Huberto marry one of our volunteers and an older student in the youth group, and he impersonated Moses!). It was around this time that I discovered that the bulletin insert that I had made was not printed! Really, I was not too surprised; I am used to little setbacks and things getting overlooked. It turned out to not be a problem because my lovely, darling, serving, loving, wonderful wife went back the apartment to get my computer so I could print the handouts. Even though I had trouble with my Spanish, and got lost once, it went pretty well. The people seemed to understand what I was saying, and laughed and said amen at all the right times, so I am calling it a success. Leave it to the Holy Spirit to overcome my busted Spanish. Haha!
I believe we have entered into a transitional period of our time here. As of today, Nicolle is finished with her classes, and as of yesterday, I have completed all projected responsibilities at church. I am hoping that I will get to help with the planning of the next year, or get to teach for the youth group again, otherwise, I will have nothing to do for the next 14 days! We need time to get ready and packed, but not that long! Well, to all the guys out there, thanks for reading, and keep your stick on the ice.

Please pray: that we would be productive and useful to the church in our remaining days; praises for Nicolle’s classes and her having finished her finals with flying colors; that I would have an impact on the kids in the church and the colonia that would move them closer to God.
—Shalom.