Mexican!

On Friday, I officially became a Mexican!  My "birth certificate" was given to me (emitted on March 22nd, not sure why they didn't contact me sooner!), and says I'm from Mexico City!  Which is funny, because people from Mexico City ALWAYS ask JP and I if we're from "provincia," which means from anywhere in Mexico that's NOT Mexico City.  hehe! 

I'm getting my passport soon, and went in yesterday to get my "voting credencial," which, besides being what I need to show when going to the polls, is the primary form of ID for Mexicans.  And, unfortunately, I'm "supposed" to get a Queretaro driver's license too, but we'll see...  I have several Mexican friends who have a valid license only from the USA, and haven't had any problems...

Anyhow, we're excited for my double-citizenship!  No more paying residency, nor 4-hour visits to Immigration! 

Catita

Catita is a 72 year old woman who lives in a really little town about 40 minutes north of Queretaro.  She goes to church at Horizonte (Yes, she travels all that way EVERY sunday, and tuesday for women's prayer meeting, and saturday for her small group!).  Catita lives in a taco stand.  Yes, a little metal building that's about 7ft X 5 ft.  She sells candies and pop.  She asked us a while back if we could paint her stand.  We went out and looked at it, and sure enough it needed painting, among lots of other work!  It was last painted with water-based paint that we knew would turn all rusty when the rainy season starts...

So we asked people from church if they'd be willing to help out with some money to get Catita all set up.  We gathered up paint supplies and asked our friends Pepe and Juan to help us out.  Pepe has a paint spray gun that gets oil based paint on metal done in a jiffy.  Juan is a welder, so we brought him along to help fix the roof leaks. 

JP, Pepe, and Juan figuring out exactly what needs to be done...  JP is stopping up leaks in the roof...  Catita says she wakes up in the middle of the night to sweep water out of her house when it rains.  She sleeps on the concrete floor with blankets.

Sanding the water-based paint

We had some real quality OSHA-approved tools to work with :)

The ladder that we borrowed from a neighbor:

Catita said she wanted her stand painted RED.  Pepe chose the color and when we opened it up we just about died, it was a flourescent bright pinkish-red...  We didn't want to paint it that color...  But when Catita saw it she said it was EXACTLY the color she wanted! 

The door to the taco stand had a big gap in it.  It was really difficult to figure out how to fix it because Catita needs to be able to open the door from both the inside and the outside.  Juan figured it out, and we're pretty sure the door won't leak now! 

Catita is looking on ask Juan works.

Goofing off

The finished product:

But wait, there's MORE! 

Since Catita sells candies and pops to make a living, we decided to help out by buying her lots of stuff to sell!  Some of the youth group people donated candies and money to this whole operation.  I had a blast picking out candies at the market to give to Catita!

Checking out the new candy supply...

This project took a whole lot longer than we expected - we were there with Catita in the little town of "Pie (pee-EH) de Gallo" (means "rooster foot!") all day.  But it was really a lot of fun!

Catita's situation still isn't ideal...  She lives in a TACO STAND!  And her 8 children don't seem to want to help her out very much.  We are unsure of where Catita takes a bath and goes to the bathroom.  She's always well groomed, and has clean clothes and keeps her taco stand clean inside.  I unfortunately had to go to the bathroom while we were there, and, being a woman, I can't exactly just stand behind a tree to do my business!  She said that she usually goes up a big hill behind the stand to go to the bathroom, but she asked a neighbor if I could use theirs.  You have to understand something about small-town folk in Queretaro - they are generally not very willing to share things or be hospitable to people they don't know.  The neighbor very reluctantly let me use the bathroom...

Catita is somewhat of an outcast in her town.  The people call her a "witch" because she doesn't have and alter to Our Lady Guadalupe (the preferred saint of Mexicans) in or by her house.  It's very clear that Catita doesn't worship Guadalupe, she worships only God.  Please pray for Catita, that she will continue to be strong even in the persecutions in her town, and that God will continue to provide for her!

You and You

In Mexican Spanish, we have two different ways to say the singular "you."  "Usted" (oo-STED) is the formal way, and "tu" (pronounced like "2") is informal.  Usted is used for: people who you don't know who are older than you (or over 40ish), people in authority (polititians, teachers, bosses, etc.). 
Then there's the whole thing of other spanish-speaking countries that have different rules for the use of "tu," or even don't ever use it, or use "vos," and lots of other things that we don't do in Mexico...

Anyhow, JP and I have been going out with one of his college professors to hang out and to share about Christ.  He's only like 7 years older than we are, but being JP's former college professor, he's automatically "usted."  In fact, we wouldn't dream of calling him anything else.  (That would be like going up to a college prof and being like, "hey what's hangin' dude!?" 

So, in one conversation between the teacher and JP, JP had the confidence to share with him that without Christ, he would not go to heaven.  While true, that's kind of a risky thing to say in a friendship!  But, instead of getting upset or offended, the teacher said he'd think about what JP had said and start reading the Bible that we gave him.  Then he told JP to please call him "tu" because they're now friends, not a teacher and student!  This might not sound like that big of a deal to English-speakers but it totally is!  We gained a lot of confidence with the teacher that day!