We always leave too late.

I had to put this up because Kat hates the sound I was making when we took this one. I'm sure the dog-owner was disturbed.



One of the gals from church... the other Maria Elena was supposed to be in this with me too.




This is some of the band that played at the Grito festivities. Independence Day 2007! woot, woot!





This is our abuela with one day's lunch. Someone donated a bunch of chickens a few weeks back. They're gone now. I'll add a video or two from this event next weekend.






I call this one "Chicken in a bucket and painted toenails"... One of the staff girls gave me toenail polish and I was thrilled.





Me and Ana. This lil' one is really special to me.





Carlina and Miriam the night before they left.





This is Ramón and Cristian playing in the floor. Cristian left with his sisters (above) to go back to their family. I hope this is a good thing. When the social services here picked them up they brought two new kids. It is strange to see kids come and go as they do.





This here is a tarantula. The picture was taken a couple of weeks ago, but we´ve found a few lately, so I thought it would be appropriate to put up. I am not a fan.





I am eating one of best sandwiches ever right now. Surprisingly, two of my favorite foods here are the sandwich and the hamburger. Different from the States and so good. I´m all about the avocado- it´s brilliant, Mexico! So, the last two weeks have been insane. A lot has happened, and as usual I am short on the time needed to tell you everything. You probably don't want or need to know all the dirty details anyway. Since my last discouraged note, the Lord has lifted me greatly. In fact, just two Sundays ago Lauren and I missed church because we had to take a girl to the hospital because she said a boy put a bean in her ear. A bean. My dad said moms are supposed to check on those kinds of things. Who knew!? I got thrown into this motherhood thing, and frankly, I have no recolection of my mom looking in or cleaning my ears. Sorry, Mom, if it went unnoticed.
Well because of the extra time, Lauren and I ended up praying together for some affirmation of God´s approval and purpose in bringing us to Mexico, for greater understanding and effectiveness in communication in Spanish, and for favor with the our new giant Mexican family. I couldn´t beleive I was only here to drive a car and pass out toothbrushes. Within the next 24 hours the Lord responded to everything we prayed for. One of the girls shared her story with us (a very disturbing and heart wrenching story) and I was able to share with her what God had done in my Life and go through Scripture and share the Gospel with her. WHAT?! Since then another girl, seven years old, shared her story of abuse and abandonment with me. I am amazed how the Lord enables me to understand the language particularly well at these times. Plus, yesterday Lauren and I spent the majority of the morning with three girls and were able to talk about purity and the Gospel with them. It may not have been the most convincing and poetic talk ever, but I think we communicated something true. Because a lot of these children have been exposed to sexuality in abusive and/or impure scenarios, many of them struggle with things adults I know would not even think of. It breaks my heart. I am praying that God would erase their memories of these things and give them a passion to look different from their culture. These are really the first times we´ve been able to minister more directly to the hearts of the girls. I´ve missed this.

I have a confession. Like an idiot I was driving the giant blue van, the same one I drive all the time, down a little dirt road outside the school the other day. I was asked to drive a group of 12 third-graders and their teacher on a field trip. Well, as I attempted to move through a small space between a random car and our huge bus, I totally scraped the side of the van. I mean.... totally. The best is that all the kids were outside the school (about 60 of ours) and they were all ready to make fun of me and reinact the whole thing. Little boogers. This is one among a few careless things I´ve done this week. Today, as I spent time with the Lord, I was confessing to the Lord my frustration with myself. I want to be different and I´m annoyed at this rate of sanctification. It´s easy for people to read about or job here and think more highly of us than you should. My whole life I´ve struggled with follow through (thanks to the dear Merideth Davis I know this cuz she called me out big time in college!) and it is nothing short of a miracle that the Lord would ever use me. This annoys me often as I want to find sufficiency in myself. I keep looking, but it´s not there. Well, after confessing this to the Lord, I was reading Tozer´s, The Divine Conquest (again! I need more books!) and was super convicted to see the Lord working in my presence.
Let Tozer explain... ¨We habitually stand in our now and look back by faith to see the past filled with God. We look forward and see Him inhabiting our future: but our now is uninhabited except for ourselves. Thus we are guilty of a kind of pro tem atheism which leaves us alone in the universe while, for the time, God is not. We talk of Him much and loudly, but we secretly think of Him as being absent... And we are lonely with an ancient and cosmic loneliness.¨

Mama Rosa really encounters God. She sees Him in the past, present, and the future. I have been convicted through her life to examine what I have been thinking about the Lord. I am missing something big. Still, I am grateful that amidst this weekness the grace of God is stirring in my heart and working in the lives of others. He is teaching Lauren and I so much. Now I´ve written too much and stayed too late. Pray for a supernatural energy for us tomorrow. I love you all and am overwhelmed by the support and interest you´ve shown in this little home of ours. May God be praised for the miracles He is doing here.

Peace,
Mary Ellen

P.S. I got lice again. So dumb. So gross. I only wear ponytails so it doesn't make a bit of sense.
P.P.S. My dad is coming to visit really soon and I am thrilled.