When My Parents Came!

A few pictures from when Rick and Barb were here in Queretaro with us in February!

Judith (JP's mom), Barb, Rick, Me, and JP at Bernal!

Mom and I on the hike up the rock.

 

In the mouth of the Santa Brigida Mine in Pozos Guanajuato

 We both turned 34 in February!

My parents and I in downtown Queretaro

As always, we had a good time with my folks, going to cool places in and around Queretaro, and eating WAY too much yummy food! 

Christmas and New Year!

 

We spent Christmas in Queretaro this year, enjoying both Mexican and United States Christmas traditions! 

Above, we are at the annual Queretaro Bible story parade, getting our favorite goodies from the food booths!

 Below, watching "A Christmas Story!"

 

We went to Mexico City for New Years to visit JP's dad.

 

 

JP with the Happy New Year 2014 sign in Mexico City

 

Jessica's favorite animals at the Chapultapec Zoo - Giraffes! 

 

JP with his favorite, the Rhino!

 

With the Independence Angel behind us

 

 

Vic (dad) and JP going into a below-ground museum in Mexico City

 

Us with Grandma Conchita and Vic

Mexico City!

The first week in May we spent with JP's dad in Mexico City!  It's always nice to be tourists there!

 

National Fine Arts Palace...  JP is in there somewhere, with a blue shirt and khaki shorts...

 

National Post Office in Mexico City.  Looks like a museum!!

 

JP in downtown Mexico City

 

And now for the FOOD!

Fried quesadillas!  Filled with string cheese and either pulled chicken, mashed potatoes, ground beef stew, or cooked mushrooms!  You can also have them with corn smut!  Yep, the fungus that grows between the corn on the cob and the leaf.  It's not our favorite, but not too bad!

 

I LOVE fried "kekas!"  (KAY-cuz)

 

JP at the famouse churros and hot chocolate place!!

 

It was a good time in Mexico City, but we are glad to be back in Queretaro!!

 



The One About Colorado

I said that I'd tell about our Colorado trip, and never did, so here it is!  :P
We spent a week with Walt and DiAne in Colorado Springs.  Two families hosted us in their homes while we were there, and they were extremely hospitable and nice to us.  Walt and DiAne took us to the USA Olympic Training Center, Compassion International, Focus on the Family, the Garden of the gods, and other fun places around Colorado Springs.
Then we had an intensive three day "business as ministry" training. We plan to use this program in our ministry in Queretaro.   It was an excellent training, the leader took lots of time personally with JP and I to go over questions we had. 
It was a really great week!

 

"Blobsledding" at the Olympic Training Center!

 

Us with Walt and DiAne at the Garden of the gods!

 

Navigating an "Olde West" ghost town!

Lessons from My Ear

If you didn't see about our time at International Teams, scroll down to the next post, or click HERE to see some pictures!

The last few days at I.T. were a little rough, due to an ear infection I had coming on.  I'd never had one before, but ended up going to two urgent care clinics, getting a shot for pain (I NEV.ER. request a shot, but the pain won out this time!), and missing out on some of the fun that could have been had during our stay with Justin and Lluvia.  God blessed me with a few hours of good time to spend with them though - we hadn't seen them in over a year, so it was great to catch up and talk about good times!

Word to the wise - NEVER get on an airplane with a perforated ear drum.  Seriously.  Dude.  But that's what we did.  And I think God taught me a lot from that experience.  This may sound exaggerated, but I have never experienced as much pain for such an extended period of time as I did with this infection.  And on the plane from Chicago to Portland, I couldn't think straight.  All I could do was cry out to God that He would make it stop.  I remember that one of my college professors said one time that during a particularly painful child birth she decided to use that time to praise God that she was having a baby, and praise Him for who He is.  And that scenario came to my mind.  And I started to sing (in my head, not out loud!) praises to God.  Sometimes the pain was unbearable, and I cried, and I think JP was close to tears a few times, and the kid sitting in front of us definitely thought I was off my rocker!  But the phrase that kept running through my head was "The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord."  I can't find that exact phrase in the Bible, although I'm sure something similar is there.  But I just knew that God was in control - He has the power to heal and the power to not.  It's His to decide, and if He decides not to heal when I want, I will still praise Him. 

Then I kind of hoped that after that revelation God would instantly heal my ear, but He didn't.  The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord.  A lesson - or TRUTH - that I will never forget.

We spent uncomfortable two weeks in Salem (I kept telling myself my ear was on the mend even though all signs said it was not) before getting BACK on an airplane to go to Colorado (will post more about that soon!).  I thought I was healed enough to go to Colorado, but apparently not.  The plane ride was a killer again, and our friends Walt and DiAne who hosted us in Colorado Springs changed our plans to go to Breckenridge to take me to the doctor, which ended in a minor surgery to get the *fungus* out of my ear.  The doctor was afraid that it had penetrated into the bones in my ear (I freaked out when I heard that!), so he put me under and cleaned it up, and it wasn't near as bad as he'd thought.  Then the rest of the time in Colorado was quite pleasant, since my ear quit hurting three weeks after it started!

Here's me and the nurse post-op in the hospital.  They gave me a Coke to wake me up!  :)

I T July!

So, considering that it's been like, a LONG time since we've written, and we've had a TON of stuff happen in that vast stretch of time (which is only 3 months, but seems like we had a year's worth of stuff going on), I'll do some pictures of what went on during JULY.

 

We spent the month at International Teams in Elgin Illinois (about 30 minutes north-ish of Chicago).  JP did 3 weeks of training - his "official I.T. training" for being officially a missionary!  And I did kind of a refresher one week course - it's what they offer for new missionaries before coming to the longer training - JP took this in April.

 

So here's our time in pictures!

 

JP and I in downtown Chicago.  You can't spend a month in Elgin and not make the trek to downtown Chi-Town.  hehe

 

 

I was SUPER  happy that Franklin (one of my brothers from Honduras) and his wife Kendra were able to come visit!  Fran had never been to the US before, and Kendra is from Michigan, so they spent a few weeks with her family, and were able to meet me in Chicago for a day (JP had classes and couldn't come).

 

I took a lot of the classes with JP, so I was able to get to know all the other missionaries in training, like Michelle and Chris (with us below) going to Uganda!  We had lots of fun times getting to know the other missionaries and hanging out.

 

We went to "La Villita," which is pretty much Northern Mexico transplanted to Chicago, with Jay, Julianne, and their kids.  They are going to an undecided location in Latin America, and wanted to experience as close to Mexico as possible with some real live mexicans - us.  :)  It was a great day - the busses were problematic, as none of us had any idea how to use them, but we ate at a place that *almost* tasted like home, and found "elotes" (el-OH-tays) (mentioned about 100 times in previous blog posts, and pictured below!)  JP and I were thrilled, and Jay and Julianne and kids have a new favorite food!

 

 

JP with Suzie and Scott at I.T., getting his diploma.  As you can tell, everyone is very serious around I.T. heehee!

 

It was an amazing month!  We topped it off by getting to visit Justin and Lluvia and their baby who served with us in QRO for 6 years (they were there a lot before I came too!). 

Our Last Week in Queretaro

Our last week in Queretaro was a busy one!  We are very grateful to Walt and DiAne who took us in for THREE weeks while we packed up our house and turned it back in to its owners.  We had some unexpected events during our last week - like a minor operation for me which had us staying about 5 days longer than anticipated (everything went excellent!).

During our last week...

We had nightly prayer services for "Week of Prayer" at Horizonte Church

(and it was COLD!)

Me, JP, and Angie:

We went to the community of Pilares in the State of Mexico (about 2 hours from QRO) with Walt and DiAne, where there is a Compassion International project, and where they are beginning micro-finance courses.

JP, a chicken, and DiAne:

We had our goodbye party at RenovArte Cafe (hosted by our friends Phil and Sandy in their place of ministry!) one Saturday night, and TONS of friends came to hang out with us!

Us with my good friends Karen and Pam!

Alex, JP, me, Job, and Cristina at the cafe!

Some of the people who came to our goodbye party!

Part of my womens' group at Horizonte Church (Angie, Moni, me, Brenda, and Silvia)

And JP got his official diploma from college - he's now a "professional" in International Business.  :)

We had an excellent time hanging out with friends and family in Queretaro.  We'll miss living there for several months, but we'll be back!  

Sooo...

SOOO much has happened in the past two weeks, it's crazy!  BUT, we're on our last day of continuous internet access until we figure something out in Oregon, and it's midnight, and we have to be up at like 5am... SO - we stayed longer in Queretaro than we'd planned, going to Mexico City Saturday morning, in Oregon Monday night, JP had his "titualacion" (like graduation for when you're a professional) tonight, said goodbye to everyone and their pet rock TWICE so far this week, tired, looking forward to Paddingtons Pizza, don't have a date to come back to Queretaro yet, going to bed. 
That sums me up for this week!
And here's a picture! 

(Us with Luis, Sandy, and girls)

And this is yummy:

(and big)

At some point in the not too distant future, we'll get a good update on this blog.  Some day!  I promise!

Getting Ready

This week we started making preparations for our trip to the States.  It's still almost 6  months away, but we both absolutely loathe moving.  So we're getting stuff ready for our first garage sale in a couple weeks - selling stuff that we don't use much.  We'll have another one in November for about half of our furniture that we're selling.  It's weird to think of us not living in our house anymore.  It's not actually our house, but it's the only home we've had as a family!
We're looking forward to this adventure of exploring the United States, which will include visits in Oregon, Chicago area, and Atlanta area, and it looks like JP will get his first trip to Disneyland!!
Please pray for us as we continue to make preparations for 6 months away from Mexico - where we will keep the furniture that we're not selling, what to take with us, and where we'll stay for a few weeks after we turn our house over to the owners, where we'll stay in the each city in the States, and what our transportation situation will be like!  Wow, that's a long list!  But we're very excited to take off on this journey of sharing our ministry vision with others!!

The Best Weekend Ever

We just had a ridiculously LONG but SUPER GOOD weekend!!

Why?  Read below!

Singles Conference
JP and I led a group of 24 young people ages 18 to 36 to Cuernavaca (supposedly 3.5 hours south of Querétaro) for a conference for singles at the Horizonte Church in that city.  About 300 people were in attendence, and we had several EXCELLENT speakers that touched on topics that I know many of our young people are dealing with.  At least two of our young ladies are dating guys who aren't Christians, and this topic was talked about very clearly - God's plan for us NOT to be joined together with unbelievers - and I know that these ladies have been thinking about the consequences of their relationships a lot this past weekend.  One of the speakers talked about SERVING the Lord as a single person.  There are SO many opportunities.  And another speaker talked to all the ladies about taking advantage of singleness to serve and living life to the fullest, NOT waiting around for life to "begin" once you get married.  Even JP and I learned a lot of good stuff to apply to our lives!

The group from Horizonte Queretaro at the conference!

Cristina, Pam, and Ramses

The Food
We ate WAY too many tacos at the conference, they brought in the biggest chunk of meat I've ever seen and between 300 people we finished her off!  :)

The Drive
So, as I mentioned above, the drive from Querétaro to Cuernavaca SHOULD be about 3.5 hours.   The 24 of us took off at about 6am from Querétaro in our car, another small car, and a 15 person van driven by JP.  We stopped for about half and hour just outside of Querétaro, as some other people from Querétaro had car problems (they were following us to the conference).  Then we stopped again for potty and coffee break for about 45 minutes.  We entered Mexico City at about 9:30 am.  This will all of the drivers' first time driving in Mexico City - it wasn't half bad!  But one girl got car sick there and we had to try to find a pharmacy to get some dramamine, and kind of got a little bit lost...  We got to the conference at noon - and hour after it started.
Then we left for Querétaro at about 10pm.  And we hit TRAFFIC at 11pm on the parking lot, er, I mean the highway, that circles about Mexico City.  We were stuck on the circle highway for TWO HOURS!  We ended up getting back to QRO at 3am!  But all arrived SAFE, thank God!

Our fearless pilot!

Bus ride! 

(Maricela, Cristina, Andrea, Adrian, Karen, Pam)

Sleep (or lack thereof!)
I don't do well on little or no sleep.  But between the time JP and I woke up at 7am on friday morning and the time we went comatose in bed at 6 pm on sunday, we slept a grand total of 7.5 hours!  And were driving for 10 of them!!  (ok like 11.5 for JP since he has to drive 45 minutes each way to work!)  But it was worth it!

MORE Changes for Horizonte Queretaro
The church leadership of Horizonte was informed of the following this past week:
Juan, the pastor who came after Martin and had gone back to pastor in Ensenada due to health problems, had left his son, Jonathan, as pastor of Horizonte QRO.  However, Juan's health is getting a lot worse (please pray for him!), and he asked Jonathan to please come back to Ensenada to be the permenent pastor there.  So where does that leave us?  With Kike (KEE-kay) and his wife Paulina from Cuernavaca!  Kike had come several times to QRO en the past few years, and had a burden in his heart for the people here (1% evangelical Cristian!).  He and Pau were praying about starting a house church here when Jonathan called up and asked them to pray about pastoring Horizonte Querétaro.  So on sunday, it was annouced that Kike will be our new pastor, beginning that day!  We're sad to not have Jonathan and Evelyn here, but Kike and Pau are awesome, and we know that they will be a huge blessing here!!

Kike and his wife Paulina

Kike and Jonathan

Soccer
The Horizonte QRO girls' soccer team won our second game on sunday!  Just to top of the excellent weekend!!

Dirce, Alma, Ari, me, and Arely after the soccer game

Birthdays and Parents

JP and I had a couple of special days in February...  We both turned 30!  JP on the 20th and me on the 23rd.  My parents were down here for a week too!

Here are some pictures of the fun birthday week!!

Barb and Rick in Mexico City

JP and Jessica in Guanajuato

Us at our birthday party - we had 35 people in our house over the course of the evening!!

Some of the girls from the birthday party!



Honduras!

I (Jessica) was able to spend a week in Honduras this month with my Honduran "family" and friends, thanks to frequent flyer miles finally paying off!

It was an EXCELLENT trip!  I got to meet my friends' spouses that I hadn't met, and their babies that have been born in the past 3 years too!  I just wish Jean Paul would've been able to come...  But next time we'll go together!!

Here's a couple of pictures from the trip:

My little brother Ronald with his wife Ingrid and their son Alejandro:

 My little brother Franklin and his girlfriend Kendra

Me and my honduran mom Suyapa

The whole family at dinner!



I have more pictures on my Facebook HERE