Festival Victoria 2007

Festival Victoria 2007
Well, it is over. The several thousand people that attended Festival Victoria have returned to their homes. The tents are still standing, but the cars are all gone. Manuel has a group of workers raking up the trash.

Rossy dispensing meds

Medical Campaign
This was Eddie and my second Festival experience. All in all this clinic was a lot calmer and better organized than last year's. We had a better tent facility than before and the weather was a bit cooler. Our staff consisted of doctors, medical students, nurses, our clinic staff and at least 10 volunteers.

Newly married Paulina in Reception

A campaign of this size involves a system and ours seemed to work pretty well. We used sheets to cordon off consulting rooms for the doctors and I provided them with a formulary of the medications we had available to prescribe. We also had a treatment area for injections and I.V.s . We kept the reception area about 30 feet from the clinic area to reduce the number people pressing around the pharmacy work area.

Betty and Neli labeling meds

The reception volunteers got names, weight and blood pressures (and the temperatures of children) on paper (ficha), and placed the fichas in a centrally located plastic bag. The doctors came and got the fichas and called the patients and when the consult was complete brought the prescription to a box and directed the patient to spiritual care. The pharmacy workers took prescriptions out of the box, filled them and waited until the patients were prayed for, then gave instructions on taking the meds. We had placed the all medications in card-board boxes organized by classifications. We saw over 350 patients in 2 1/2 days.

Dr. Baltazar General Surgeon from Oaxaca City

Dra. Antonieta

Drs Enver and Baltazar. Med students Elijah and Edgar. May I note that these were a really great team to work with!


The coolest part of the campaign for me, besides some really needy patients we saw, was working with the Mexican medical students. It was gratifying to see the medical doctors work together with the students. Somehow I was the person the students came to with questions about the meds. That was satisfying for me, I love working with the pharmacy and try to understand the actions, usages and precautions that accompany each product in my pharmacy. How I would love a job like this in the states….except it would have to be a job that let me come and go every 6 months (thank you Mira Vista!)

Dra. Dulce colaborating with Med student Jesse over patient diagnosis and care.

We closed the clinic around 5:00 o’clock. But the evening brought numerous cases of sick children, one acute abdomen (which turned our to be an ovarian cyst), and one young dancer with a very high fever (104° F). I was dressed up for the evening service but ended up changing into scrubs so that I could help put the young dancer into the shower to cool her down.

Yeseret and her parents. She came in during the evening with otitis media. She shares a birthday with our granddaughter Sarah, so I had to take her picture!

Celebration Worship!
The best part of Festival for me is the evening worship. The churches I attend in the United States worship differently. As our son Josh often says, we all have different styles and expressions that we are comfortable with. I am comfortable with the vibrant Mexican celebration style worship. I usually don’t dance too much, and it isn’t easy for me to jump up and down like they do, but I love it!

I love to be in the midst of people celebrating the glory, and the power of the Lord that has set them free from the bondage of sin and idolatry. You have to be here, walk the streets, see the children, understand the violence and hopeless to understand. Not that I doubt the same hopeless exists in the United States, but we have many diversions that help us ignore our plight.






To see the expression on the face of a young woman who realizes how she is loved by God, or a young man who is growing in his understanding of WHO God is, brings great wonder and joy to my heart. It takes me back almost 40 years when I began to make the same discoveries.

I loved watching a short Chatino woman dressed in her colorful blouse and bright yellow skirt with her long graying braid bouncing behind her as she dances, a kind of trotting dance, with her arms raised high over her head.

Amuzgo woman and grandchild

Chatino women

One day all tribes and people will gather at the Throne!
The Festival opens with a recognition of the many tribes and nations that are called to worship God. Last year flags from each indigenous group were carried by representatives of the group, and then someone in white carrying a banner proclaiming Jesus' name, he wore a crown and gold colored belt and rode in on a white horse. The horse was magnificent as he pranced proudly before the crowd. it was fantastic!

This year the flags were carried in by dancers in different national and indigenous groups’ costumes. The flags were rolled up as the dancers lined up across the stage. And as each one by one began to unfurl their flag, a figure dressed in black kneeling on the ground in front of them began to struggle with the dancer grasping the flag to prevent it from being displayed, pulling the flag back toward the ground.

Needless to say, there was music playing, loud and vibrant. A young woman came dancing powerfully, as if in battle, pointing at the dark figure, rebuking it. As she danced in front of each flag it was eventually released by the adversary and displayed in a most triumphant manner. So graphic was this display, it was breathtaking! I am sorry it was too dark to get a picture.

Cutting open my coconut

Those of you who have attended Bible camps, or missionary camps may have some idea of the county-fair type atmosphere that we have been living the last couple days. There has been food to buy, and t-shirts and CD’s. I bought myself a coconut, which I smothered in lime and chili and salt.

Unlike in the states the campers sleep out of doors under big tarps put out for them, on the ground. This year there were more tents than last, and I think a saw a bus converted into a motor home in the parking lot.

Chatino family

Such a variety of peoples! Different languages and styles of clothing were seen all over. The Mixteco from El Mosco were here, they are probably the most simple living group of those attending Also the Amuzgos came, with their beautifully woven dresses. The Chatino women either wear very brightly colored blouses and skirts, or simple dresses adorned by aprons.

Hey, I have gone on too long. I so wish that you could experience the sights and sounds of Festival Victoria.

If by any chance you would like to experience it, let us know. You are welcome to come and help us by counting pills or taking blood pressures next year!

Seriously!

Eddie and Leeann

A Reminder of the Purpose of Christmas

Chatino family at the clinic during surgical campaign last year

What can the powerless do?
It was an interesting adventure driving through the mountains from the coast to Oaxaca City, and then to Puebla. Wednesday morning we headed out, Dan and Angelica and their baby Jacob in their Explorer, and us carrying the big items in our Toyota pickup. It was a long, winding, road to Oaxaca City made tolerable by anti-nausea drugs and dry toast, and made enjoyable by the lush jungle and sermons on CD of the book of Romans by our old pastor Bruce.

Two hours into the 7-hour trip the cars in front of us stopped. What first appeared to be construction work turned out to be something very different! Eddie and Dan got out and walked up the road to discover that a large group of Chatino men had barricaded the road with cars, a pile of dirt and a discarded refrigerator. They came back with the news that the protestors were waiting for government authorities to arrive to negotiate with them.

A sheet of paper explained their demands. The people of San Juan Lachao had in the previous year been promised that the dirt road to their village would be paved, that they would be given a Central Salud, and subsidies to buy farm equipment. We were told that $13,000,000 pesos had been allocated for the projects, but now the money had “disappeared.”

After 4 hours we were told, “Hurry, hurry! get in your cars, they are going to let 30 cars pass through!” Fortunately many cars had turned around and returned to Puerto Escondido so we made it through. As we passed the protesters, I looked at their faces. They were solemn as we passed; I raised the back of my open hand to them, which is a Mexican gesture for “thank you”. Some nodded and made small smiles. I told Eddie I wished I could take a picture, he said, “don’t.” Sorry I don't have pictures.

All through those 4 hours of waiting, wondering if we too should turn around, we found ourselves relaxed, calm….and in sympathy with the people who had changed out travel schedule. I thought, “What can the powerless do?” Year after year, decade after decade, corruption and fraud handicap even the educated, modern Mexican. How much harder for the mountain people, the indigenous, the bottom rung of the ladder in Mexican society, those who are just trying to live and raise their family. As we waited we prayed, not just that the road would open up and that we could be on our way, but also that justice would be done.

Precaution Pilgrims in Progress!

Struggling in the darkness
We encountered the barricade at the turnoff for the town called Juquila. If you lived in Oaxaca you would be very familiar with the Virgin of Juquila. You see pilgrims all over Puerto Escondido and on the coastal highway from Acapulco to Huatulco (they are in the cars and buses displaying a picture of a statue adorned with flowers, usually gladiolus, on the front of the vehicle.)

As we drove this winding road to Oaxaca we passed bicycle after bicycle with riders wearing t-shirts identifying themselves as pilgrims to the shrine at Juquila. Then after we passed the barricade we saw more. It got darker and darker. We began to pass bicycles in the dark some with blinking lights, other not. Up and down the mountainous roads, mile after strenuous mile on the narrow dangerous road they pushed on, in the dark.

I began thinking “Why?” What were they trying to achieve. What were they trying to earn? Although I knew the answer, face to face with the reality, the danger and the difficulty of the task, it scarcely seemed believable.

Our hosts family, Pastor Jorge and Margloria are at the right

When we finally arrived in Oaxaca Pastor Jorge and his wife Margloria met us. After a night’s rest and hot shower our hosts fed us a wonderful Oaxacan breakfast of Mexican hot chocolate, pan dulce and tlayudas.

As we talked with our hosts I had to return to what I had seen of the pilgrims of Juquila. I have lived and traveled in Mexico for a long time and am familiar with the people’s devotion to their local idols, but somehow the toll that that devotion extracts from their lives had never impressed me quite so deeply as the bicyclists struggling in the darkness.

When I told our host what we had seen, Margloria agreed that the pilgrims were trying to earn points to gain heaven. She then said, “It is all out of ignorance!” She maintained that they didn’t know any other way. Pastor Jorge gave examples of how when people hear the good news of the gospel they rejoice that a better way has been provided through faith in Jesus Christ.

Dan explained to me later that several years ago Margloria’s family had had a terrible car accident on the same road we had traveled. The family was either en route, or returning from a pilgrimage to Juquila. Margloria’s first husband had been killed, her daughter Jossana badly injured. Dr. Angelica had had the opportunity to care for Margloria in her depression after her husband’s death, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with her.

As a history teacher Margloria explained to us that the worship of the idols go back for centuries long before the Spanish brought Catholicism to the new world. She affirmed that Catholic identity had been applied to the ancient deities and the devotion had gone on as before. This is called syncretism. All the way back home, every time we passed a shrine to either Our Lady of Soledad, or Our Lady of Guadalupe, I saw that these were not Catholic expressions, but something much older.

Dan and Angelica's little miracle, Jacob Daniel

image of Oaxaca City

After delivering Dan and Angelica's things in Puebla, we got up early and enjoyed a nice afternoon in one of our favorite cities, Oaxaca. The trip back to the coast was amazing. We traveled along the ridge of the moutains and enjoyed the most dramatic views of small houses hugging the mountainsides, and little villages clinging to the sides of mountains across steep valleys.

Tacos, literally on the side of the road!

Is it really Christmas?
Tomorrow is Noche Buena, or as we call it in the U.S., Christmas Eve. (Noche Buena is also the flower we know as poinsettia, which grows as large shrubs everywhere in Mexico where we have visited.) We will be picking up the medications that we will distribute to patients at Festival, and then going home with Berna and Angie to celebrate in San Jose de Progreso, as we did last year.

Christmas Day we have meetings scheduled for 8:00 A.M. and 5:00 P.M. as we prepare for Festival Victoria. Somewhere in between I will have to make sure all my supplies are ready. The following morning we will set up the clinic outside under tents and start seeing patients.

We have been listening to a little Christmas music; right now it is Bing Crosby. I have some lights up in our room, and a wreath up on our door…and a tiny Christmas tree about 8 inches tall. I think I will make some tea and we can eat some cookies our daughter-in-law sent with us when we left Washington.

You can imagine that it is difficult to be away from our children at Christmas, and Thanksgiving, and Easter (and Sarah and Grace’s birthdays). I have already shed a few tears, and will likely shed more tomorrow or Christmas Day, but…

People like Eddie and I who have so much to be thankful for: wonderful children who are faithful to our God, precious grandchildren, friends whom we love, and who love us dearly, really should not begrudge God of anything. It has been our determination to spend our live on things that last forever. That is what we taught our children, and now WE get to live it!

Those of you that have your family around you enjoy them and be grateful. Recognize that the baby in the manger was the Eternal God, the First and the Last, and the One who gave His life as the price for our sin….and who gave us the right to call God our Father.

Merry Christmas

Love Eddie and Leeann

Mountain Ambulance and Muchas Bodas

Maricela and Pastora Carmela

Mixtexo Missionaries to Ixtayutla Region

Mountain construction and Medical transport

December 2nd we took a team from New Jersey and Springfield, Illinois up to El Mosco and Pueblo Viejo to do some construction work, and hold clinics. Mixteco missionaries, Carmela and Maricela have had a church in Pueblo Viejo for a couple years. The church building is a simple block structure, with a room in the back that they live in. Now they are expanding to start a Bible school and the next step is bathrooms!

Deep in the mountains you work from scratch, and that means that the work team sifted sand, mixed cement, and made the bricks that will soon be the walls of the bathrooms and showers. They also dug the foundations and drain field with pikes and shovels. From what I observed the ground was very hard…and of course, it was very hot.

The remarkable event for the medical team was finding a 15-year-old expectant mother and her husband in Pueblo Viejo. It appeared that she was in advanced labor as her membranes had ruptured, and her legs were covered with blood. Eddie, Hermano Primo his Mixteco interpreter and guide, and Sean, a nurse, brought her to the El Mosco Clinic where Dr. Eder and our clinic team were working. Eder determined that she was not yet dilated and that she should go to the Central Salud (public health center) in Ixtayutla. So off they all went, plus another nurse Bethany.

In two hours they were all back with the news that the Central Salud said she needed to go to the hospital in Jamiltepec, 4 hours back down the mountain. So Bethany started an I.V. and Sean hung some fluids and the young mother was given I.V. ampicillin ….and off they went again. Apparently it was a wild ride, but they got her and her husband to the hospital safely. On their return trip to El Mosco, Andres, the Bible school student who accompanied Eddie along with the nurses, led two young hitchhikers to the Lord. They got back to El Mosco at 3 A.M! (Narrow mountain road in the dark!)

Temporada de las Bodas (wedding season)

So far there have been four weddings at Roca Blanca since we arrived. Mexican weddings involve both the civil ceremony and the religious ceremony, called a boda. And the boda is always a big deal! There is much Mexican tradition, usually a pretty long sermon, lots of music and much food!

December 15th Dr. Eder married the very sweet and lovely Paulina who we got to know well last year. Eddie and I were invited to join the bride and her family at her house and join in the procession to the religious ceremony. We probably walked nearly a mile through a couple neighborhoods preceded by a large brass band, and of course fireworks.

It was a wonderful event. Paulina was so beautiful in her traditional Oaxacan huipil, hand woven in white and embroidered with calla lilies. There was much music, a traditional Chatino wedding dance, barbacoa de res and of course tres leches wedding cake! It was a memorable celebration.

Festival Victoria
We have been busy at Roca Blanca preparing for Festival Victoria, a large 3-day celebration of faith and fellowship held annually during the Christmas holidays.

During the celebration we have doctors and dentists who come to provide free care to the 3,000 to 4,000 people who come. Most of the attendees are from the 70 or so churches that have been planted by Roca Blanca graduates, They are Mixteco, Chatino, Zapotec, Amuzgo, and other indigenous groups, as well Mexicans, and us gringos.

I finished my pharmacy order on Tuesday, and then Eddie and I set out to help our dear missionary coworkers, Dr. Angelica and Dan, move their household from Puerto Escondido to San Mateo, Puebla.

Our trip to Pueble and Oaxaca City was a bit of an adventure so I am putting it on another blog.

He is worthy

Have you read "the Hiding Place" by Corrie TenBoom? She tells of telling her father that she didn't know if she would ever be able to lay her life down for Jesus....her father told her that Jesus would give her the ability if ever the time would come. She was one of the few of her family that did not actually die for Jesus, she lived valiantly for Him instead.

I always remember that thought....could I die for Him? sometimes living for Him is more of a sacrifice.....
it is hard being without my family around me, and I have to die to them
He is worthy

Leeann

First week at Roca Blanca

Culture Shock!
As we left Acapulco’s Diamante area, a sleepy area down the beach from a city we have always tried to avoid, we drove through the jungle that surrounds the road to Oaxaca. I remember thinking, “I don’t feel excited as I usually do.” As I reflected on the thought that the lush landscape seemed commonplace, like I had just left it, I realized that the adventure of living in a foreign culture and place had lost its novelty. The thrill was gone.

Then another thought whispered into my mind, “now you are doing it for Me alone.” And I felt God’s pleasure.

The welcome we receive when we come back to the base each year blesses us. We have made so many friends. We have a family group which is the clinic staff and a few others.
We arrived on Thanksgiving Day, but didn’t celebrate until the next day when everyone was available. It was a wonderful feast; we even had roast turkey this year. Here you see our "adopted" Angie and Berna.

Later that night after our feast I realized that the exhaustion that I had attributed to two day s of driving was actually the onset of illness. Our room is in a house right off the base where the prepa students are housed. Right now we have no air-conditioning, and we are still trying to make our home. In the hot room I crawled under the sheet to relieve my chills.

When I woke the next morning missionary life was not fun, it didn’t even feel tolerable. The smells of a Mexican village (burning trash and plastic, faint sewage smell coming up from the shower drain), and the noise of living among at least 15 teenage boys, could be difficult at best of times, but suddenly I realized I was experiencing the dreaded Culture Shock.

One of the boys turned his sound system up to supersonic levels and I ran outside and walked to the clinic, revolted by the smells all the way. The heat increased the misery of my sick stomach. I found our friends Angie and Berna, and I think I started to cry as I complained piteously of my plight. I finally made myself a bed on the floor of the air-conditioned clinic office. And I slept.

The next day I rested in the quiet clinic on the quiet base. And I read my Bible, and as I read my strength returned. I went downstairs to check on a young pregnant patient’s I.V. And I began to feel at home again.

Monday found us back into our routine of staff meeting, and clinic patients for me, and internet stock market for Eddie. The Lord brought me Luis Alfredo who survived a car accident Saturday night. His face was swollen to almost twice its size, his head was wrapped, and his wounds were stitched. As I unwrapped his bandages and dressed his wounds I found myself singing softly to him. I have changed his bandages everyday this week. Yesterday he said, “Gracias a Dios que me dío Liana para cuidarme”(thank God that He gave me Leeann to care for me.)

Eddie’s and my main jobs here at Roca Blanca revolve around the clinic outreaches to the unreached areas where we travel with teams. Tomorrow a team arrives and Sunday we will take them up to El Mosco,Yucuya’a and Pueblo Viejo in the Ixtayutla region.

Preparation for the first outreach means inventorying the pharmacy we carry and buying the meds, making the formulary sheets and packing the truck. We also organize all the other clinic supplies for any possible need we may have up in the mountains. I have many lists that I have developed over the last few years.

This outreach will be without Laura, our clinic director, so Eddie will be handling the funds and logistics. He also takes charge of setting up the clinic and making sure everything flows as smoothly as possible. He has taken vitals, weighed patients and done triage. He makes sure his staff get breaks and stay hydrated.

I added a picture here of Grace and Hani, they are daughters of Diego and Betty, a nurse who works the base clinic. Our granddaughters Grace and Sarah are almost the same ages. I have always called Grace and Hani “las princessas”. Just like Grace and Sarah they have all the Disney Princess movies, and the Barbie princess movies. But of course they don’t have the dresses or shoes.

Well, it is time to go to bed. Eddie and I made the medication purchase today, Friday, and tomorrow morning early we will go to Rio Grande and buy the food for the outreach. We plan to leave early; I still have much to do to make sure everything we need is packed! We leave for El Mosco on Sunday morning.

Oh by the way....we do have a fan, and the evenings, even days, are cooling off. Berna talked to the boys, and they are trying to be quieter. Last night we lent them a movie and their wasn't a peep out of them before we went to sleep. We cover our shower drain and Eddie uses Irish Spring body wash, so the smells aren't nearly so bad. We are getting furniture, piece by piece, and may soon have a place to hang our clothes. And as usual, my health is best when I am here in God's will, even my plantar fasciitis is barely felt.

Most of all, God is with us in a very real way. The cross of Jesus Christ is before us and His love compels us to serve, and to be joyful!

Love to you all, Eddie and Leeann

P.S. I am not sure whether it will work or not, but if it does there should be a video here of a clinic we held last year at Yucu ya'a, so you can see what we are doing!

Noviembre 20 Día de la Revolución

November 20, Día de la Revolución
I was so excited when I realized that we would be arriving in the capital city of Michoacan, Morelia, on this important national holiday.

A few years back we were in Cofradia on November 20th, and we got to see all the school children parade through town in their uniforms and doing various drills, beating drums and portraying revolutionary heroes.

Well, I take it that every city, and every small ranchito in Mexico does the same thing. We watched kindergarteners through university students march past us. There were even a dozen schools for the neurologically handicapped, mentally handicapped, blind and deaf represented. Eddie couldn’t hold back the tears as the handicapped children passed us, some in wheelchairs, or on tricycles, or led by their teachers. They had banners, and uniforms, and even revolutionary costumes….just like rest of the students….and they got the biggest applause.

Folks, I really love Mexico. I wish you could experience the patriotism and national pride the people who live here have. This city is named after Jose Maria Morelos, who was important in the fight for independence from Spain. The city dates back to the first years of Spain’s occupation of Mexico, and has amazing colonial architecture wherever you look. In fact I am writing this from our hotel which was built in the 18th century, with cool courtyards, stone walls and arches.

After the parade we found the Casa de Artisanos where we saw art and handcrafts from all over the state. Last year we rode the bus through part of Michoacan and saw lots of carved furniture and guitars lining the highway for sale. Here we saw wonderful examples of the painted and carved goods…plus hundreds of fine guitars, plus violins and other stringed instruments made in the town of Paracho.

We just finished off our evening touring the state cathedral, and enjoying some café y leche with the lighted cathedral in the background. What a lovely time.

Tomorrow morning we leave for Oaxaca.

Cofradia de Cuyatlan, Nayarit, Mexico

Half way to Oaxaca
My computer tells me that it is November 16, 2007. We left my dad’s house on Sunday and 2 ½ days, 2800 miles, over $100 US in toll fees, two motels, and one huge bag of kettle corn later, we arrived at our daughter’s house in Cofradia de Cuyatlan, Nayarit, Mexico. It was late, but even the baby was awake to greet us!

Over the years we have spent much time in this little village with our daughter Faith, son-in-law Jay, and grandchildren Isaiah, Elisbeth and baby Kai. I stayed here for 3 weeks in July when Kai was born. Jay and Faith have lived here for over a total of ten years. You can check out their ministry at http://cofradiamexico.com/.

¡Feliz cupleaños !
We arrived in the middle of the kids’ home school year and what seems to be a season of many birthdays. We have attended 3 birthday parties in the last 3 days. At Mexican birthday celebrations the family or the individual hosts everyone with a meal. We had pozole on Wednesday and pozole on Thursday and birria on Friday. This has been a bad week to be a chicken.

Pozole:hominy in broth with chicken, onions, cabbage, and lime added. Served with tostadas and chili.

When you come to a Mexican gathering you walk around the circle of chairs and greet everyone individually, shaking hands, or shaking hands and kissing, or hugging and kissing. Having known these families for many years I get and give a lot of hugs and kisses.

The bowl of pozole or birria is served by the ladies to the gringos and the men. It felt strange to be served by the birthday girl Amalia who had spent all day cooking, but that’s what they do. I got into the kitchen to take a picture of the village comadres working with Amalia yesterday afternoon.

Amalia is the lady on the far right.




Happy Thanksgiving!

Now my computer says it is the 18th. We enjoyed worship and a wonderful message at the church in Cofradia this morning. Now we have a turkey in the oven and will soon celebrate an early Thanksgiving with Jay, Faith, Isaiah, Elisabeth and Kai.





I walked over here to the base where we have Internet to blog and on the way I noticed an old lady sitting on a rock on a dusty corner talking on a portable phone. I have also recognized that there is a great increase of cars here. When we first came here 9 years ago there was only one phone and few cars. Now there are many cars and trucks, cell phones and even air conditioners. The roads are still cobblestone mixed with dirt, but the road out to the town from the highway is paved....although in great need of repair.

Okay, the drive out to Arrayanes is still dusty and bumpy, but even the poorer village of Los Arrayanes has more and more cars. Watermelons were just recently harvested, which means people can make major purchase like appliances, televisions, phones AND cars!

OH, one new addition to Cofradia is a prepa! Kids usually have to go out of town to attend high school, but now there is a prepa here and the students from Los Arrayanes, Cofradia and Santa Fe have a more feasible option for their education! Many of our friends and kids from the youth are attending.




Well here is Eddie and Jay rotating the tires. Tomorrow we are heading off to Morelia, and on to Oaxaca. Later....

Heading for the Border!

Heading for the Border!

We left Washington on Sunday the 4th of November after a wonderful send off by the Gathering. We got to share a little about our ministry, and they laid hands on us and gave us their covering as a church. It was a special moment as the Lord touched us with the love and commitment of these people.

We are in Palm Springs California right now. We are enjoying my Dad's cooking, and wonderful fellowship with Eddie's sister and her husband, and with my brother and his wife. Tomorrow we leave for Tucson to spend the night. The next morning we will cross the border at Nogales.

It is always a test of faith to be calm and not get anxious as we pass through customs, have our visas stamped and get a permit for our car to be in Mexico.

mething new to the blogsite If you look to the right of this blog you will see that we have added a link to YWAM Publishing. You might like to view that link. Any purchase made from the link on this blogsite will benefit our ministry in Mexico! They have a lot of Christian literature including children's material, Christian living, missions, biographies, plus music and DVDs.

A quick note to those who have asked how to send support. To send support and receive a tax deductible receipt you can write checks to The Gathering and put "Eddie and Leeann Kelley" in the memo space on the front of the check. The address is: The Gathering, P.O. Box 512,Mount Vernon, WA 98273. Or if you do not want to go through the church you can send a check written to "Eddie Kelley" to our P.O. Box 1946, Mount Vernon, WA 98273, and Josh will deposit it to an account we can access.

Please be praying for us as we drive to Jay and Faith's house in Cofradia, Nayarit, Mexico.

Love Eddie and Leeann

Almost ready to leave, but we have to pack!

We have just a few more days before we leave, and do much to do. I try not to stress. Tomorrow they come for the modem and router for the Internet so I have to get this done tonight.

We have been spending time with our children and our grandchildren. We have also been enjoying the adventure of joining a new church.

Some of you may know that our youngest son, Micah, co founded a church called The Gathering about 8 years ago. The Gathering is located in downtown Mount Vernon. Their building is a beautiful old stone structure with stained glass windows.

Joshua, our oldest, has just taken the position of Senior Pastor of the Gathering, where Micah has been Worship Pastor for several years. It is exciting to have them working together in this way. It has always been difficult having our sons serving at two different churches, especially when Micah was preaching at the Gathering. Now we all attend the same church!

We are already enjoying new relationships. The Gathering started as a ministry to what has been called "the post-moderns" or others call "Gen-X". So we have a lot of young families, interspersed with grandmas and grandpas like us. We have always believed in multi-generational worship and ministry, so we are very happy to be there.


Already Josh has preached four sermons, and it appears to me that he is finding a place where he can express who God is calling him to be. There will be many challenges as he grows into this position, and we are all so very grateful for the years of experience and learning he has had at His Place Community Church. Pastor Bruce Wersen has been very supportive in Josh's move in many ways.

The church council meeting was held and our membership was approved, as was the Gathering's willingness to send us out as missionaries. They will also be able to give tax-deductible receipts for support sent to us.

Thursday is our home group night and we will be having a Mexican dinner (Tortilla Soup and quesadillas). I am very excited that we have a group of people excited about our ministry, and eager to learn about what we are doing and ready to hold us up in prayer.

As we prepare to leave, I need to wrap Christmas gifts and birthday presents that will be left behind to be given during our SIX MONTH ABSENCE! We have three little granddaughters here in Mount Vernon. Josh and Marilyn have Grace (4 1/2) and Sarah (almost 3), plus Laura (16, who is Marilyn's sister, and lives with them). Micah and Amanda have little Kaityn Rose, who just turned one year old.

You can imagine how difficult it is to leave the babies, knowing that we will miss 6 months of their growing. It helps a little realizing that we have survived much of the growing years of our daughter Faith's children. God has been gracious in binding our hearts to our grandchildren, and theirs to us. And, well, as always with grandchildren, it is about being grateful for the times you have together, making the most of those times, and trying to be ever-present in their lives with pictures letters, telephone calls, and prayer.


It is an issue of faith, and obedience. And the Lord has really been faithful in caring for our children and their families. And so we continue to trust. (Oh, by the way, I was whining a little to the Lord this summer about missing Christmas, birthdays, Easter, etc, with the kids. He kind of spoke to my heart and said,"aren't you glad you get to spend 6 months with them every year." That shut me up fast!) A grateful heart does not complain as it knows that all things are gifts!
Oops, something is missing here....there are the other grandchildren in Mexico! I will have more to tell you about Jay and Faith's ministry, and their plans to move up into the mountains to live among the Cora, but right now I just want to show you my babies!

There are Elisabeth (10 years) and Isaiah (12 years) when they came to stay the night with Grandma and Grandpa. And below is the baby, Malachi. We call him Kai (born July 2nd). It is our hope to meet with them in Phoenix around the 13th and drive back down to where they live in Cofradia, Nayarit Mexico. From there we head south.

As we close we want to ask for your prayers. Because we do not drive through the night, it takes us seven days to drive to Mision Victoria on the coast of Oaxaca. We plan to spend a couple nights in the historic old city of Morelia, Michoacan this year, and hopefully see Lake Patzacuaro. Please pray for our safety, and that our Toyota SR5 4x4 will have no problems.

Also in your prayers remember our health. I have been battling plantar fasciitis in my right foot and am finally experiencing a decrease in pain. Still, I haven't gone more than a day without some pain. I would really like to be free of that, so I am praying that the Lord would heal it. thank you Herm for the use of your ultrasound machine, and Connie for the massage demonstrations....and I am doing my exercises regularly.

We are speaking Spanish to each other often. I am reading the scriptures in Spanish. Going back to the Spanish speaking world is always a challenge. People ask if we are fluent. Oh, gosh no! I am functional, but still have so much to learn.

As we do every year, we work in Mexico without income. This is strange to many of my friends at work in the states. It is a choice we have made. We try to reduce our expenses and Eddie works at the stock market to make up what we need to live when I am not working for pay. We pay a monthly room and board at Mision Victoria, and the ministry pays for our fuel when we make the outreach trips into the mountains. If you would like more information on our finances please let us know.

Well, we still have to pack our clothes, collection of toiletries and vitamins. We have to winterize the 5th wheel, our "cabin" where we have been living. The truck is scheduled for a checkup on Friday. We have been meeting with friends. This last weekend my girlfriends (Diane, Connie and Carol) and I had our annual retreat, which we agreed to do twice a year from now on.

Yesterday we went to the Mexican Consulate for 180 day visas. We met Connie and Lynn Erickson at Pike Street in Seattle for Cioppino at the Pink Door. We celebrate Eddie's and Josh's birthday on Sunday, and then we are off.

Please remember to pray and write to us. Our email address is lvlvwhitewater@hotmail.com

Love Eddie and Leeann Kelley