Traumatic Day!

There´s so much to write, so I´ll just start at the beginning. We arrive at the hall this morning for service when the PO told us the car group would be stopping by Sister Cabellero´s house. Because a bus ran into her house! We weren´t really sure what to expect until we pulled up and saw the whole front end of the bus, smashed through the brick wall and sitting in her bedroom!! Apparently it happened the night before at 7:30. The sister lives with her two daughters in their 20´s. The 3 bedrooms are connected together along the exterior. It´s hard to explain but basically she lives in a cul-de-sac/round about at the end of the bus line. The buses turn around and head back down the hill...well this bus driver didn´t complete his turn and smashed right into the bedroom. There was bricks and dust everywhere. The sister had been standing in the adjacent bedroom when the bus came through her wall. After the bus crashed the driver jumped out and fled! He had to be hurt because the entire front end and wind shield were smashed in and there was blood in his seat...

So the entire car group of 8 spent the day at her house helping her move all their bedroom items out and into another part of the house. They actually left the bus in her wall overnight and didn´t extract it until this afternoon around 1. After the bus was out we were tossing brick by brick out of the bedroom. The rubble was so high you couldn´t even see the bed in the room. If her daughter has been in her room for sure she would have been killed! But thankfully, she wasn´t. No one was hurt. The appraisers came, took pictures, the lawyer was there, and the brothers moving all their stuff and patching up the wall until they can get it fixed. The bus company will be covering the expenses of repairing the house...we were worried for a second they might not because after all this is Mexico.

Then later that day...we ate lunch at the ¨Wal-mart¨. I either left my purse, it dropped on the way to the car, or someone took it when I wasn´t looking but my purse was GONE! Hours later when I realized we were on the other side of town. The brother driving dropped the others off and took us back to the store. Believe it or not they had my purse in lost and found. However, everything inside was all jumbled and all my money was missing. So thanks to whomever for returning my purse but STEALING my money! I had $350 pesos...the equivalent of 35 bucks but still that´s some major buying power here...

Alas...the day ended well despite all the crazy hectic problems!

Mexican´s English

The Mexican friends here in the English congregation seem to be very animal conscious people. They are always talking about and praying for Jehovah´s porpoises!

No, really the Mexican pronounciation is soo cute. They pronounce ´purpose´as ´porpoise´.

Figh means five
The Ert will soon be a paradise
Mirackles are what Jesus performed
We read our Beebles daily
and can lurn many things from studying

Mexico English Growth and Need

September´s Kingdom Ministry included a letter from the Mexico Branch office speaking of the growth in the field during the 2005 service year. Here are some of the figures.

There was a new English circuit added last year. Which makes 3 for the country. Our congregation is part of the new circuit that was formed.

There are 642 congregation in all of Mexico comprised of 14,515 publishers. The memorial attendance last year was 57,370 which is 395% of the number of publishers.

In Belize, there are 19 Spanish-language congregations, 18 English, and 2 Mayan-speaking congregations.

Locally, in our congregation we have 38 publishers. The 22 publishers conducted 174 studies last year and the 14 pioneers conducted 297 studies. The publishers in our congregation average 20 hours a month, which makes our publishers to have the highest monthly average in the country!

Although we have such great support in the ministry there is still a great need. The 38 publishers in the Oaxaca english congregation are to canvass the entire state of Oaxaca, including coastal towns, which means the per publisher ratio is 1 for every 20,000!

The PO here is very serious about recruiting Americans. So if any of you are interested in coming down and checking out, just let us know and we can get you all the information you will need!

Sismo!

I just experienced my first ever EARTHQUAKE! Brandon and I were sitting in bed watching TV when the whole apartment building shook for about 30 seconds. It was awesome! They said it was a 5 on the Richter scale... Apparently Oaxaca is sitting on a fault line. I don´t think anyone was hurt. The friends were talking about it the next day at the hall but other than that I haven´t heard any news about it or if it had damaging effects.

Por Fin An Update!

Ok, so I know I´ve been bad about this. But with the brothers being here we´ve been so busy! It´s nice to have friends and some to relate to and someone who actually speaks your language and gets your jokes. We´ve been fitting in. The friends have invited us over for dinner at their house. This one Mexican family had us over for tacos and it wasn´t until after I had eaten 4 that she told me it was cow tongue meat!!!!! Brandon however ate about 15! But don´t worry we walk everywhere! hehe

We also had TOD night with the 2 American sisters living here and two single visiting brothers. This we are bringing back home. TOD-Table of Drinks. As you can imagine it involves alcohol and anything said at TOD night doesn´t leave TOD night. It was a blast. A great way to get to know people and ease the uncomfortable awkward barrier.

We also went out to the coast to Puerto Escondido. I´ve emailed most of you those photos already. It was beautiful but HUMID! We could only stay out in service for 3 hours. We were drenched and dehydrated.

We travelled back to Oaxaca on second class bus with a route that involves over 600 turns through the mountains. Needless to say, our stomachs felt every turn! But it was a beautiful sight...large banana tree leaves grasping to the hillside, endless view of moutain peaks, vultures circling above.

We also made it out to the Tule Tree finally! The whole group of brothers went. What can I say, it was big and it was old. I have some good shots but I didn´t have my camera with me. I used another brothers so as soon as he sends them to me I´ll post them.

There was a going away party for the brothers. They sang, they danced, they played guitar, I got sick. This time with a head/chest cold. I´m still recovering from the cough. Don´t worry it´s all on tape.

We´ve been enjoying service. We have about 5 studies, 15 return visits. Today we went out as well. You can´t not appreciate the surroundings you´re preaching in. In one territory today we passed a lemon tree, a pepper plant, a fig tree, a banana tree (we picked one), a rose bush, mispero tree, aloe plants, etc... It´s a beautiful tropical climate with many plants and flowers we´ve never seen before. And luckily, the hurricane could never affect us b/c we´re surrounded by mountain ranges on all sides. So we´re enjoying our time here and each others company!

Brandon was just assigned the no. 4 talk this morning in service as a substitute so we´ve been working on that this afternoon. It´s the one about Smyrna...yeah, we didn´t know too much about them. But I must go, we have to finish preparing for the meeting tonight.

Miss you all!

22 American Brothers!

Brandon and I walked briskly to the hall in the crisp air of the night. With haste, we knew a gran surprise awaited. Twenty-two brothers from the United States...coming from Texas, NY, Maryland, Raleigh, NC, Detroit...came to support the congregation and field service here. Two of the brothers came to the district convention last year and decidedly formulated plans to bring a group for two weeks to help the need here. Mostly older married couples, 3 single brothers, 2 single sisters...

We entered the familiar hall into an unknown congregation. Perhaps we´ve accustomed ourselves to short stature because these Americans brothers were towering. Some even taller than Brandon. They took all the assignments, gave all the talks and will be doing so for the next two weeks. A nice break for the hard working local brothers. A small group, of the young single people and a fun couple also made arrangements to work the territory on the coast. So we decided to join them. Tomorrow morning at 830 we are taking off for Puerto Escondido with a $10 ticket on a second class bus...the kind with the chickens on the back...so this should be fun. And the gorgeous beach, the waves are calling to us!

It´s just a brief weekend trip, we´ll be back Sunday. Mostly definetly with more stories of adventure and rewarding service to Jehovah. And just in time, as I´ve been quite sick and we missed many service days. The trip will be welcomed! The hours as well! We´ll try to write while we´re gone... in the meantime... have covetous dreams of us on a paradise beach, preaching of Jehovah and tanning ourselves all at once!