Here’s the complete set of photos from the EBM Retreat in Veracruz: EBM Retreat 2011.

If you already looked at the first bunch, advance through the small slides at the bottom to #64.

Well, we got back from the retreat pretty wiped out. It’s strange because usually being tired would be from staying up until 1 am playing Rook. But everyone was too tired and usually bedtime was 11:30. Maybe we’re getting old. We had good sharing, Bible study times, I thought. Really, this was almost the first time all of us got together, so it was a time to get to know each other and pray together and discover that our joint musical ability as a group is pretty limited. I made my feeble efforts at leading with the guitar, and everyone was nice enough not to laugh to my face, but actually to sing. Joshua is just a good book. There’s a lot to pick from. It was fun to do church all together with the kids on Sunday. It was especially fun to speak to Josh and Caleb about their namesakes in Joshua 14-15. We came back later than planned on Monday, and Gavin was almost asleep within 1 minute of going to bed. It was good to be in hot weather and water, unlike Tacoma, where it’s snowing.

Back in Puebla, it’s a little hard to get motivated into the swing of things. Fortunately yesterday was a low-key study day–thesis work and meeting with a pastor. Today was my day at the school. We started our introduction to Windows. I had a couple guys power off a computer without shutting it down and subsequently it went into a start Windows, fail, back to Bios, start Windows cycle…so we’ve broken one…it’s hard to get the kids’ names, starting with 10-15 for half an hour. But it’s fun. They’re in such a different environment and I’m an unknown element that they behave well, so that’s a bonus. I had a bunch of third graders come to the door of the room asking me what I wanted to be when I grew up. It’s pretty fun to be there, although that’s because I’m there by choice two mornings a week–not trying to teach 45 kids, which is the average class size. It’s a really hard place overall. Kids that succeed from there probably do so because of good families. I like the teachers, but it must feel like swimming against the current a lot of the time. The sixth graders had a standardized test today, and one of the teachers told me it came out that a student couldn’t multiply, even by three. Kids just get passed from one grade up to the next. So maybe we can make something of a difference, both academically and spiritually. Check back on that in 10 years!

Finally, I had supper with the neighborhood president and the vice-president of a local university to discuss partnership for development in the community. It went well. It was fun to sit and listen to two Mexican men talk things over, to realize how little I know, and how nice it is to connect people who can do things. I think I will work much better as a connector/facilitator than a planner/organizer. So it looks like they connected pretty well. They want to do some work in parks, planting trees, to do some recycling/environmental education in the schools, and to organize a painting party in the schools. That’s a start.

Well this is full of random bits of information. But it paints a picture of what we’ve been doing. Oh, we got the keys to the house today and moved the first batch of stuff over. We’re not real excited about moving, especially since it’s going to be temporary, but it will be beneficial to be back in Pueblo Nuevo. So we’re taking lots of little steps that we trust God to move us in the right direction.

Well, we’ve had a good couple more days here, and tonight’s the last night. It’s been a good time for everyone to be together, build sand castles, talk, play. We’re grateful to be able to come here and do this. We’ve had good times of sharing and study and singing together. Nothing spectacular, but good. It’s nice to be informal and to be relaxed. We’ll get more photos up in the next couple of days.

Well, we’re here in Veracruz, sitting at poolside, enjoying our free time. It’s been a slavedriver of a conference so far. We were in session until 11 PM last night. Brutal.

Ok, that’s because we didn’t start until after 9:30, after getting back from supper around 8:30. Yup, we don’t take our times too seriously at these things. The goal is relaxation, rest, fellowship, and if we learn a few things along the way, great! That’s because the organizers have a combined 7 kids under the age of 11. So that kind of dictates flexibility and relaxed schedules.

We’re going through passages in Joshua. It’s been good. Bryan took us through chapter one yesterday afternoon, and everyone stayed awake last night while I went over Joshua 2.

Well, I feel duty bound to get back into the water. Here are some photos from yesterday: EBM Retreat 2011.

Drew wanted to know if I could read the Greek in the front of his Gideons NT. Like, duh, who couldn’t ;). Yeah it didn’t really take a genius to figure out it was John 3:16! So that naturally led him to the question, how different is the modern Greek NT from the original? Here are the differences:

16 Οὕτως γὰρ ἠγάπησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν κόσμον ὥστε τὸν υἱὸν τὸν μονογενῆ ἔδωκεν, ἵνα πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων εἰς αὐτὸν μὴ ἀπόληται ἀλλὰ ἔχῃ ζωὴν αἰώνιον.

16Διοτι τοσον ηγαπησεν ο Θεος τον κοσμον, ωστε εδωκε τον Υιον αυτου τον μονογενη, δια να μη απολεσθη πας ο πιστευων εις αυτον, αλλα να εχη ζωην αιωνιον.

Which is the original and which is the modern? It’s probably like reading Beowulf for us English speakers. Drew, of course was fascinated by the accusative and nominative cases and the movable nu.

Well, you know you’re a little past the honeymoon stage when part of your Valentine’s Day outing is spent looking at stoves at Sears (and they were priced much more competitively than we would have expected)!

It was a good time and a good day though; some of the highlights:
– A breakfast discipleship with a friend who’s having some issues with a child. It was a good time of encouraging and challenging.

– The first day at the school giving computer classes. It was great to connect with more of the teachers and to start with about 12 fifth graders. I was able to take inventory and confirm the schedule for the future. If all goes as planned I’ll be there two mornings a week.

– Gavin had a fever today. It seems like since the end of November we’ve had at least one person sick continuously. Nothing serious, but it gets to where you wonder, what’s up?

So those are some of the day’s dealings. The next few days we’ll be getting ready for the EBM retreat this coming weekend: music & devotions to prep, food to buy, and other details.

So, it’s not every day you get a phone call from Paris, but today we did. It was my (Tim’s) cousin, Rachel, calling to say that she got engaged yesterday in Pareee (Paris, but make sure you read it with a nasal tone). So congratulations to Rachel and Christian (especially if you didn’t actually get engaged on Valentine’s Day-that would be way too cliché!).

I write this in hopes of starting something regular, looking back at our week, touching on highlights, showing what our week is typically like, and, hopefully being interesting. I’m pretty wiped, since I took Drew to a football camp in the morning (a missionary friend is running it in the community behind Pueblo Nuevo) and in the afternoon Comunidad Biblica had a ministry time in an orphanage, which involved a lot of soccer playing. So we’ll see how much gets written here.
Constitution Day
Drew had Monday off school, which was a good thing Read more…

Well, after three months of looking, we found a house in Pueblo Nuevo. I suppose I’m not as excited as I ought to be (I think I’m as thankful as I ought to be), because it’s more of temporary housing, and we’ll be sharing space in front with cars (a two car front-to-back garage), a strange water-storing setup, a tai-kwon-do school, and a few other quirks. But we ARE thankful, it gets us into Pueblo Nuevo, and the owners are reliable, good people. They are the owners of our previous house who remodeled it and moved back in. They were renting this place, but those renters moved out. Lord willing, we’ll be in this place only 6 months to a year. I’m kind of resigned to the reality that we’ll be building a house…which has some real good points (we get to design it and outfit it more or less as we want) and hard points (WE get to do it, at least oversee it, which is a lot of work). But this is a step in the right direction, and an answer to prayer, for which we are grateful. Thanks for your prayers!

While it’s not nearly as cool as posting from the iPod, we did send out our prayer letter this last week. You can sign up for our prayer letters by clicking here or just read it here.

We need & appreciate your prayers!
Thank you!