Este verano, vamos a Mexico.: This is coming to you mid-week. My bad.

Wrote all this Sunday...
Well, we’re down to just 3 weekends… 3 and one half weeks. Wow. This week has been a great one. The kids are getting pumped up for “Christmas in the Streets” and the house is just a little busier. Mama and Papa have been on the radio every Monday and will be up until the big day. We’ve wrapped presents, are buying more, and praying tons for how the Lord wants to use this day. The 8th will be the second annual “Navidad in las Calles” where hopefully some of the poorest and most unloved people of Chihuahua will get a small glimpse of the love of Christ. We’re waiting to hear from a few major potential donors and anxious to see how the Lord will provide. We still need food for the adults and tons of shoebox gifts for the some-3000 kids we’re expecting. Pray for miraculous organization. This isn’t something the orphanage would be praised for normally, so I am asking for a miracle. About 300 volunteers, all our kids, the expected community kids and whatever parents decide to show. Oh me.

I can feel that it’s fall outside, but in no way does it feel like November. Leaves are actually falling. In Mexico that means the leaves went brown or occasionally yellow and then fell. It’s not nearly as beautiful as what I see at my other home in the States, but we still get that beautiful sound of the leaves scratching across the ground. The kids are a little more snuggly out of necessity. We’re wearing our jackets and trying to stay warm. I can’t believe we’re just over a month away from Christmas. What will that look and feel like for me this year? I can’t even picture life back in the States at this point.

I cried last night talking to Lauren about our first few days home. We leave on a Tuesday. The kids have school that day, so the night before we’ll have to fight to put the girls to bed as always. We’re praying for an opportunity to do something special with them, but we don’t know. We will wake up at 4:15 the next morning and pray with the staff. Then we’ll force girls back into the room to make their beds correctly, and maybe even threaten with a punishment that we’ll never see come into fruition. We won’t care about chores, but because things will carry on after we leave, we’ll help wash dishes from breakfast and pick up trash in the December morning air. The kids will go to school… and we’ll go to the airport. Lauren and I will spend the day flying and then arrive in Louisville that night. We’ll be thrilled, no doubt, to see the family and friends that decide to come, but then my buddy and I will go our separate ways for a while. In fact, we don’t know if we’ll ever live together again. I will walk into the beautiful familiarity of my parent’s house and then sleep in a big ol´bed… but I’ll be super alone. I won’t put toothpaste on anyone’s frayed-from-chewing-on-it toothbrush. Nor will I hug anyone because their head, molar, finger, foot, stomach, or other miscellaneous body part hurts. I won’t draw a toothbrush to see who gets to sleep with me. Still, I’ll be exhausted, so I will sleep. I’m not setting my alarm, so I’ll wake on Wednesday when body wants to. That morning I won’t pray with my friends and staff, eat beans for breakfast, make the long drive to Chihuahua with our two boys, or pack lunches for the Kinder kids and walk them to the colorful gate of the school. Brisa won’t ask me for a piece of paper to write her prayers on like I do, and no one will try to snuggle up with me as I read my Bible. I don’t know what I’ll do that day or the next… or the next. I do know that I’ll miss these kids: their quirks, their hearty laughs, their complaints, their fears and simple faith, their hugs… oh, I’ll miss their hugs. Please pray for us. And please pray for the kids. Increasingly within the last few weeks some of the girls have been calling us Mom… I pray we’re doing nothing to increase the abandonment complex so many of them already have. Now, I’ve made myself completely depressed by writing all that. What a dummy.

We’re leaving the Medina’s house soon to go back to the orphanage. We hope to meet a few of the staff and the two visiting Americans for dinner at our favorite torta vendor. Enjoy the pictures. I have a ton, but I loved this week so I gotta share. I hope you are all growing in your love for the Lord and His work within His creation. There is nothing more incredible than knowing Jesus Christ our Lord. Life could good, but there is no way that it could be this sweet and rich without knowing Christ. Gracias Dios por todo.

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Okay, so here´s a preview into my pictures. Since I´m apparently at a terrible internet café, it won´t let me finish putting up my pictures. You´ll get extra next week.

Gaby dragged me outside Friday night for a surprise. She made me close my eyes which resulted in me tripping twice and running completely into a tree. Awesome. She, Osmara and Rolando made me mud-pies and mud-cookies. No one has ever made me mud-pies nor any other mud-baked-good. They were absolutely delicious.

These are my bed buddies from the week: Marcela, Karla and Jasmin. Marcela was super hyper and giggly, Karla way cuddly- totally a teddy bear, and Jasmin was energetic and later a cover hog.

So, since we’ve been here Lauren and I have had a few small, simple goals… things we want to do before we leave. Included in this list is riding a horse (almost did, but still waiting) and hiking up the mountains behind the house. Since Vito and Doug are in town, we finally got our chance. We went Saturday afternoon, took forever to drive to the base of the mountain (took a wrong turn thanks to our navigator and ended up on a “road” lined with nasty old toys, clothes, broken glass and such, and a pile of dead horse bones with a little hair still on the nose. What?!) Lauren and I went with the American pair and three of the teenagers from the house. Ramon seriously ran the whole way down after hiking almost double what we did. Those guys were intense.

Me and Loty before we went up

Found these old horse bones. Yeah, horse bones.

Luanne.. Rog... this is your son. He made it down safely, no worries.

the hike was dangerous... seriously long thorns.

Vito found this old, decrepit shoe along the “trail” and put on the bottom of his so-called walking stick. The mysterious medal piece on the bottom clanked the whole way down. I had taken in quite a bit of water, so between this and the thousands of times one of us almost fell, I almost peed in my pants. Is that inappropriate to say? I promise I try to be feminine.