Fashion Show!

The other week in Infusion (Horizonte young adults group), we had a progressive dinner where the participants had to all dress up in clothes that don't match...

It turned out pretty well, with the exception of everyone getting to their houses after midnight due to one car running out of gas, one car breaking down, and traffic that involved a 5-lane highway with 4 lanes closed for road repair and a wreck in the other lane!

But it was a good time of hanging out together!  We had TONS of food between 3 houses (had to actually not go to one house due to the late hour!)

And here's our fashion show...

Andrea

Liz

Angel

Abdiel

MEEEEE!

Amayrani and Brisa

And those are just the WORST-dressed!  We like parties!  :)

A Special Wedding!

Phil and Sandy got married on February 7th!  It was a beautiful wedding, and we are happy for them, that they're able to start a life together as a family!

JP and I had fun dressing up for the event as well!  We clean up well!  haha!

The Group That Teaches Itself

We've started having small groups (Metamorphosis) among the young adults here at Horizonte instead of a large group every week.  Our large group time (Infusion) will instead be once a month, and we have, so far, one small group at my house on Tuesday nights, and another at the church on Saturday mornings.  Attendence has been low so far, but we'll see how it goes...

Anyhow, last Tuesday was really interesting.  We were only 5 people, but had an excellent time.  I had prepared a lesson - which I HATE sitting there and "teaching," it seems boring - but I prepared one anyway.  And we read the Bible passage for the week, and I looked at my page of points to talk about and questions.  Then, the students began talking about the passage, and ended up touching on every point that I had learned out of the passage to talk about, plus a whole lot more!  So, "teaching" went out the window, and we had a really great discussion about taking action and not just sitting around (the sick guy in the passage, who didn't have anyone to put him in the pool, did he even TRY to shimmy himself over to the pool and fall in when the water was stirred?  And, imagine the FAITH that it would take to actually fall into the pool, hoping that you really would be healed upon touching the water, so you don't drown...  that taking action requires FAITH.  And another point about Jesus "disobeying" the Pharisees' skewed law about not picking up a mat on the Sabbath, and how we should obey God over our earthly authorities if they tell us to do things that are in opposition to what we know GOD wants us to do...)  It was really a good time of learning together.

Tonight we'll meet again.  I'm  hoping for a few more people to come, but that with whoever comes we'll have an interactive time of learning from the Bible again!

I've been really bad about taking, and especially UPLOADING pictures recently... hence the lack of pictures in the past few posts...  I'll do better soon!

Everybody Fits

One thing I noticed when we went to Oregon in august, was the personal space required by everyone we saw.  I guess I got acostomed to very little personal space here without even recognizing it...

I remember seeing people who I hadn't seen in at least a year, and JP had never met these people, and when we greeted them, some of the ladies gave me a hug, and pretty much everyone smiled, shook hands, and said they were so glad to see us.  Which I'm sure they were.  But, after the initial hug/handshake, JP and I didn't take a step backwards to continue a conversation, so the other person would take like, TWO steps back.  So we'd take another step forward, and they'd take ANOTHER step back!  JP on a few occaisions asked if we smelled bad or something, and I wondered that too, until I remembered that people don't like to stand very close to each other in the States.  At all.  (We love all of you who greeted us in august, and no that no offense was meant, so we don't take offense either!  hehe!)  I'd love to see gringos on the subway in Mexico City at ruch hour...  EVERYONE is smashed up against each other - perfect strangers... 

Then there's THIS:

19 people (JP is taking the picture, so he counts too) smashed into our little living-room/dining-room one day.  And about 4 people had just left before we took the photo...  At that time, we had four chair and one stool in our entire house, and we borrowed 3 chairs from some friends.  And nobody even thought anything of so many people in one little, unfurnished house. 

I remember, in august again, when my parents entered their house on a night when we'd invited lots of people over for a ministry presentation.  There were probably 30ish people in their living room.  I don't think they expected that...  And I have a feeling that many people were rather uncomfortable...  But we weren't!  And people left right away!  (Except for Roger and Lindsay...  Roger is from Queretaro, and Lindsay is just really laid back, they stayed for a long time to chat.  Which was good.)  Maybe lack of personal space and places to sit?  (Or did we smell bad?  hehe) 

We once squeezed 7 people into a 60s-something model VW Bug.  We just "fit."  On Sundays, we frequently have 6 people in our car (like a VW GT I think...) to take people to their houses.  We had 9 people over for Thanksgiving to eat at our small, 4-person table.  Our friends, Justin and Lluvia have a VERY small house - you can litteraly sit on the couch and be eating at the dining room table at the same time.  And they've had 10 adults plus kids in there.  Everyone just "fits."  And no one complains or even thinks anything of it.  It's normal.  And I LIKE it. 

One thing where we DON'T fit - JP and I sleeping in a twin-size bed when we go visit his dad in Mexico City.  We bring a sleeping bag now...  :)