Parque Villa de Fañe in Guasave is absolutely gorgeous this time of year. The city has been renovating it, so it's very different from the park we used to visit when we first came here. A small railroad runs around the perimeter of the park, the city pool has been patched and painted and is now open to the public (for free, no less), the old and incredibly dangerous slippery slide and broken ferris wheel have been removed and the swings and monkey bars have been spiffed. Even the small "zoo" (I use that term loosely) has been cleaned up and the animals look to be in better shape (still makes me sad to see them in captivity, but at least their habitats are clean.) In short, it is a great place to spend the day!
Yesterday the Baginsky family left for their home in California. They spent about 3 weeks with us hanging out and experiencing our life and ministry here. Micah and Doug spent a lot of time planning our upstairs addition (keep praying about that!!!) and even got a couple of cool projects done. Emily and I spent a lot of time in the kitchen (by choice) and the kids mingled and meandered and just generally enjoyed each other's company. We just love when missionaries come to visit!
I have about 200 photos from our time in the park. Don't worry, I'm not posting them all here. You only get to see about a dozen.
I was really happy to see that they hadn't removed the carosel. It still isn't fixed, but it's so...quaint! Don't you agree?
The Baginskis and the Coults (minus Sarah) Like the watermelon? More about that later! This park is a favorite with the boys because of the great skateboard area. Mom, on the other hand, prays a lot when we go there!
A beautiful place for a picnic lunch or just a walk in the shade.
Proof that Doug and I were there!
We were sad to see our new friends leave, but so blessed that we were able to spend time with them praying, working and playing, too! God is so good to us!
About a month ago Joaquin, one of the brothers in the church, approached Doug about starting a baseball camp for the kids of the area. It didn't take a lot of persuasion to get all our boys interested!
The kids from Boca meet with kids from the local village of Alomito six days a week (two days for each of three age groups). Joaquin played semi-professional baseball for several years and is passionate about the sport. Joaquin's passion for baseball paired with Doug's passion for youth is making quite an impact on these young men!
The majority of these jovenes come from homes where the father is either absent or totally disinterested in the raising of the children. Along with instruction in baseball, Doug and Joaquin are hoping to instill in these boys a sense of accomplishment, personal responsibility and dependability. It's a big job! Each day's training session starts with a time of warm-ups and a couple of laps around the cow/baseball field.
Most of the older boys have already been playing baseball for a few years, but have had little or no serious training. The biggest challenges in this group are breaking bad habits and overcoming bad attitudes. However, the men's consistency, along with their baseball ability, is winning the young men over. Even though several of the boys have found themselves running laps because of disrespect or lack of attention, they keep coming back and are improving with every training session -- both in skill and in attitude. The men also struggle with the lack of equipment. We haven't had any serious injuries, but at least one black eye could have been avoided if we'd had batting helmets which fit all the kids. Of course, if the kids didn't horse around so much, there would probably not be as many fat lips and bruised knuckles, either, but better equipment won't solve that problem! We call that "self-correcting behavior". In the older group, Joaquin and Doug frequently have to tell the pitcher to slow down his pitches, since they don't have catcher's gear. When Joaquin showed up at practice with a big piece of fishing net and a piece of rope, the younger boys wondered what he was up to. He tied the net into a nearby bush, but still the boys didn't see the purpose. Only when he lined them up and demonstrated a proper batting stance, did they understand the point of the net. Pretty creative and worked like a charm!
I don't normally try to upload video, but I wanted to share this. Most of you won't understand what Joaquin is saying to the boys, but you'll definitely understand the boys' response to his demonstration.
The boys were obviously impressed!
Practice ends when the local cowboys herd their cows through the baseball field. That's the signal that the day is ending and it's time to wrap things up!
With the help of Doug's sister and brother-in-law in Oregon, we're making an effort to raise funds and gather equipment (new and used) for all the kids. If you're interested in helping with this project with either a financial contribution or the donation of used equipment, please send us an email at allcreationsings@hotmail.com !
On Tuesday, Doug and Esteban took Andrew out fishing (early birthday present). They did well -- although they missed the tide on the way back in and ended up having to haul their nets a bit farther than they had intended! Oops!
They arrived home tired and dirty...and just in time to leave again for our Tuesday night Bible study. One of the wonderful things about the culture here is how flexible everyone is. That can be a frustrating thing when you're trying to actually get something done according to a time schedule, but generally it makes life flow a little more smoothly and less stressfully.
Instead of rushing around trying to eat supper before we left, we just left and took supper with us! When we arrived at Lupita's house, she had just gotten home from Guasave, so bringing supper along worked great for her, too!
I felt bad about her having to make all the tortillas for the group, but she insisted that #1 You can't eat fish with flour tortillas and #2 She'd much rather make corn tortillas than clean fish. I had to agree with that! We let the menfolk take care of the fish-cleaning while Basi and I chopped veggies.
A missionary family from Sacramento arrived on Sunday and it was great to be able to share our friends with them. Unfortunately, we're having to share them with the mosquitos, too. Ugh! Poor thing!
We're praying for a couple of cold nights and cloudy days so the mosquitos die down a bit. Meanwhile, we swat and put on repellant and stay indoors between 5 and 6 in the evening. To be honest, repellant doesn't work that well. The best way to keep the skeeters away is...smoke.
So, we have now celebrated Andrew's birthday twice this year -- and his actual birthday isn't until Saturday. Lucky kid! Tomorrow we're having a pizza party with the neighborhood kids. Of course, I'll take lots of pics of that, too! Now that the duck has moved out of the brick oven, we should be able to use it to cook in!
As we were leaving the get-together on Tuesday night, I heard Lupita say to Julio, "Parties that just 'happen' are always better than those that you have to plan." I'd never thought about it, but it's so true! How many times have I stressed over the preparations for a birthday party? Way too many! I'm learning from the people here to just let life "happen" a bit more and not try to regulate it so much. It's hard for me, but God is faithful!
Well, we haven't posted much lately, have we? You know it's been a long time when you can't remember your username and password! Sorry about that. With the cooler weather here, I should be able to find more energy and time to keep you all updated!
It's late October in Las Glorias and the heat has finally rolled out to sea. Hurricane Rick blew past us last week and it looks like he took all the humidity with him. Thank you, Lord!
Now we begin preparations for our winter mission teams who will be coming down soon. In fact, our first team should arrive next week. Keep them in your prayers! They are a family from Sacramento. In the meantime, we've been doing some "yard beautification" during the past week. A friend gave us some laurel branches to plant. They say that all you do is plant them and water them and in a few months we'll have trees. We'll see what happens! It will certainly be nice to have shade on the house when summer comes back around.
You have no idea how wonderful it is to be able to work outside -- in long pants, no less -- without sweating...too much! The kids are still splashing around in the pool, but it's pretty chilly now when the breeze picks up. The evening temps inside the house now are in the upper 70s. Brrrrr! ;^)
Fishing season is in full swing. While the quantity of shrimp leaves a little to be desired, the quality is out of this world! One of the brothers brought these little beauties over last week. They hardly deserve to be called shrimp!
Continue to pray for the fishermen of our village. With the small amount of shrimp coming in, one would expect the prices to go up. This hasn't been the case, though. The selling price is lower than ever, which makes life very hard on these poor fishermen -- fewer shrimp and lower prices for the ones they do catch.
Sarah continues her work at the deaf school in Los Mochis. Practically the whole school came over last weekend for a day at the beach. We had a blast! It was so good to have Sarah home -- even if only for a couple of days! You can click over to her blog to read her weekly updates. She is adjusting well to life as Teacher and is excited to see what God will do in her next weeks there. She will be at the school full-time until Christmas. After that, well, we'll cross that bridge when we get there!
Meanwhile, kids' classes continue at the church in Boca del Rio. We started the new year in October with new teacher and a new system. God is growing our children's ministry. Hurrah! We've been averaging about 50 kids per week for the Saturday classes and many of these kids have been coming on Sunday morning and Wednesday afternoon church services, too. Wow! Last week, for example, we had 28 kids at the Wednesday prayer service...and only 14 adults showed up! Pastor Ricardo quickly adjusted his message to suit a younger audience. Flexibility is definitely a key to life in Mexico!
Please pray for the children of Boca del Rio. There is so much lack and despair in their lives. Pray that the church would be able to reach out to them and demonstrate God's love for them.
Well, it was a short update, but at least you know that we're still alive and kicking here in Sinaloa!!! More posts will follow -- and, Lord willing, with more regularity!
