A Weekend of Blessings...

Our trip to Juarez and El Paso was very good and interestingly enough, not that relaxing. While we did go up on Friday and had the extra day on Saturday to do some shopping, a lot of this time was spent gathering resources for the Mexican pastors, to hand out to them at the Pastor's Retreat that Sandy and I are planning for December 8 & 9.

On Sunday morning we went across the Rio Grande to go to the Nuevo Pacto church. I taught the adult S. School class, using material from my Bible Institute course that I am teaching, hoping to entice them to participate in the course. Then we enjoyed a great time of worship in singing before I shared the message.

We went back to El Paso for lunch - this time it only took about 55 minutes idling in the line before we got across. After sitting that long in the line-up apparently I wasn't thinking too clearly. When the U.S. Border Patrol asked me some questions, I misunderstood him and gave him some confusing answers - jokingly, I think, he asked me if I had been drinking. We all shared a good laugh with that and then he sent us on our way.

On Monday we had a great day together as a missionary team, which includes two couples working with the German Mennonites in the area (Don & Minna Thiessen - also from Steinbach, and John & Lorna Wall from Southern Ontario), and then us few Spanish workers (Elma Janzen from Northern Alberta and us).

We all shared about our work and spent some important time in prayer for each other. Then we went out for supper as a team also.

On Tuesday morning we spent several hours helping to tidy up the Guest House and property as right now there are no hosts that live there. Sandy did a great job, as always, cleaning up indoors and I tackled some yard work. We left El Paso around 11:30 a.m. and arrived back to our home in Cuauhtemoc around 6:30 that evening.

We have all been a little slow today, feeling the effects of a busy weekend. But we are so blessed to be here and it was such a blessing to finally connect as an entire team!

While we were in El Paso the "Service Engine Soon" light came on and stayed on until we got home last night. This morning I went to take it to the shop and lo-and-behold the light did not stay on. I am not sure what is going on but as of right now, the Lord seems to have taken care of this concern!

(The kids enjoyed "swimming" and cooling off in the little pool at the Guest House...)

(They spent hours and hours playing in the backyard of the Guest House property...)

On the way home we asked the kids what their favourite parts of the weekend were and among other great answers, Olivia said that her new doll's favourite part was being able to finally get out of the store. We appreciate our kids' humour!