The evolution of dance

This guy is amazing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMH0bHeiRNg

A Run in with Deer and Nat's 1st Day of School

Little miss Natalie started Kindergarten today. She only went for the afternoon, and on Thursday, she has her first full day. She loved it. When she walked in the door after school, she was all smiles and asked for a snack. It made me laugh!




We were on our way home from Ryan's parents home on September 8th, and a deer ran out in front of our van. God protected us. There is no doubt in my mind about that. Ryan was able to slam on the brakes, and we almost missed hitting the deer. The deer had a fairly large rack on it's head. If we hadn't been able to stop like we did, the damage could have been so much worse. I believe that angels stopped our van for us. There is no way that we could have stopped that quick without some divine help. Very little damage was done to the van, although we still have to replace the hood, the bumper, and the complete light fixture.

Free Hugs

I thought that this was very neat.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4

She's Here!

Our family has expanded! My sister, Julie, gave birth on September 5, 2007. Beautiful Emma Faith arrived safe and sound at 9:00 am weighing 6 lbs, 7 ozs, and is 20 inches. Congratulations John, Julie, Maddie and Davis!

The Girls Birthday and Em's First Day of 3rd Grade

The day after we got home from Mexico, our girls had their birthdays. We had a party with about 25 people for supper. Auntie Katrina helped each of the girls make their own birthday cake while we were gone. Thanks Auntie! Each girl picked the colors, and got to help decorate the cakes. Emily was able to quite a bit on her own. They turned out great.

Natalie chose for her cake to be a princess.

Emily chose a butterfly for her cake.

The Birthday Girls...Emily 8, Natalie 5.

Em's first day of school. I can't believe that she's in the 3rd grade already.

Adventures of Juarez, Mexico, Missions Trip

Our adventure began on August 7th at 9:30 p.m., when we loaded up the bus in Warman, SK, and started our journey to Juarez, Mexico. The 14 of us started out on a journey that, in the end, knit all of us together. As I've had time to "decompress" from the trip, I never expected that I would long to go back to Juarez. I didn't anticipate that this trip would impact me this much. I will try to give you a glimpse of our trip through a few stories and a few pictures.

On our way down, we had trouble with our bus. We made it to Cheyenne, Wyoming, and had to stay there for the night. We had planned to travel to Colorado Springs our first day. We were leaking oil, and upon further inspection, our exhaust pipe was split in half, a fan belt that ran the back air conditioner was shredded, and the oil compressor needed a gasket fixed. We were able to get the first two problems fixed, and then continued on to El Paso, adding oil as we went. It finally was fixed while we were in Mexico. Our guys took the compressor off, Leonardo took it to El Paso to be reconditioned, and they reinstalled it. We had no trouble on the way home.

When we left Cheyenne, we picked up a family of 5 (and a baby on the way) that was hitch hiking to Denver. This was way out of my comfort zone. Mom told me too many scary stories about hitchhikers (thanks Mom!). They had just gotten settled when we stopped and picked up another guy. I kept thinking that they were crazy to pick them up. But it turned out to be the first opportunity that we had to witness to a group of people.

One of the hardest things to get used to while in Mexico was "Mexican time." If we wanted to leave to go somewhere at 10 a.m., we would be lucky to leave by 11. That was fairly frustrating.
We had a great time in Juarez. It was hard leaving the kids for that long. I knew that they were in good hands, but it was still hard. Next time we go, we are going to have to find a way to either take them along, or something.

One of the bonuses of this trip was getting to spend the night at my Uncle Mike and Aunt Linda's house in Garden City, Kansas. My Grandpa and Elvira (his girlfriend), my Uncle Dennis and Aunt Elaine, and my cousin Jason, all came to see Ryan and I. It was a very special time...short, but so special.

Here are some pictures of our adventures.

One of our stops on our way to Juarez was at the Focus on the Family facilites in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It is a neat place to visit. They have a great book store. This cross is made up of the different names of God all welded together. It was so beautiful.

We stayed at the El Camino motel in Las Vegas...New Mexico.

A view of the pool at our hotel in El Paso.

Getting into Mexico was quite an ordeal. We had gotten in the wrong lane going through customs at the Mexico border. We had to turn around, go back to the US, through US customs, and cross the border at another crossing. This picture was taken after we had butted in line headed into the US. See the chartered bus on the far right of the picture? That is where we needed to get to...across 5 lanes of traffic. We then had to take our luggage off the bus, walk through US customs, and reload the bus. The whole ordeal took about 2 hours, when we finally crossed into Mexico.

Our room and our roomie, Jodie! There are 5 rooms that each have a sink and double bunk beds in them. A hard adjustment for me for the first 24 to 36 hours or so. After that, it was home.

We had the chance to go to an orphanage called La Vid, which means The Vine. It is a heartbreaking place to visit, and at the same time it is an amazing place. These children can stay at La Vid until they marry. Other orphanages kick them out when the kids reach the age of 15 or 16. This was one of the highlights of the trip for me. The little girl in the white shirt is Naomi. I was hardly through the gates of the place, and she launched herself into my arms. It was all I could do to leave her there.

Rachel with Lolita, aka Lola.

Dallas with some of the kids.

Armando and Laura, who run La Vid. I asked her if the children called them Mom and Dad or Grandma and Grandpa. She said no but that the children call her "Beautiful."

Adventures of Juarez, Mexico, Missions Trip cont.

Praying over the land the house was to be built on, and praying for a safe build.

The building crew on their lunch break.

The house we built, almost completed. It is 20' x 25' with three rooms. Very basic. No running water, no carpet, no paint on the walls. The family will make it their own and paint the house as they see fit. This is the second house that Christlike Ministries has built on their own...that is without the help of another organization. They built the house in less than 3 days.

This is the family that we built the house for. The house provides a physical need. Bill is handing the mom a Bible that they encourage the family to read daily. The Bible provides a spiritual need.

Frank handing the keys of the house to its new owner.

A church at kilometer 33 that is run by Pastor Luis and his family.

Adventures of Juarez, Mexico, Missions Trip cont..

Our precious friend Fernando. He brought so much joy to our trip.

These are the kids from the Commidore. Most of them don't know who their dad's are because they are the product of prostitution. The kids are picked up via bus on Saturday mornings and are taught about Jesus and given a meal. We had the chance to hang out with the kids and give each one of them a soccer jersey.

Missionaries Leonardo, Rita and their children Rebecca and Daniel. They are amazing people who rely on God to provide for their needs, as they are in Juarez without the support of a missions organization.

It is very common to have as many people in a vehicle as possible. In fact, we had 13 people (12 adults and 1 child) in a 7 passenger, Ford Windstar van.

Bill, Frank, and Robert helped Pastor Rudy baptize 6 people the last Sunday we were in Juarez.

A picture of the scorpion that bit Ryan as he was brushing his teeth at our hotel room in Seminole, Texas. We were sure glad that it wasn't poisonous.

We spent a day doing some touring around the Black Hills of South Dakota on our way home. We stopped in Deadwood, for about 30 minutes. Our bus could find no place to park, and kept driving up and down the streets of Deadwood. A man who was performing for a crowd on the street, stopped singing in the middle of his song and proclaimed, "There goes the Jesus bus!"