We are back in the states!!!

hello all,
We are in Texas. Just crossed the border 15 min ago and are at Mc Ds. Love you all alot. Will write more later!
Love,
Mala

Getting Ready to Head Home

Dearest Friends,

What a great trip this has been.

We just said good bye to all the sweet Mexican people in Jason and Nicole's village. It was a very tearful goodbye as they have all become like family to us. I cried as I hugged each one and when I got to the 72 year old grandmother I said "adios"to which she quickly responded, "No, no, amiga, ...no 'adios'...hasta luego...estes hasta luego!" She was telling me, "This is not 'good-bye' it is 'see you later'." This made me cry even more as I hugged her neck good-bye.

After hugging each one and saying good-bye we climbed into the back of the big blue work truck with all our many suitcases and computer backpacks and headed out to the town of Hachunago about an hour away. The truck has long wooden bench seats down the sides and bars to hold onto in the back. It is a beautiful day outside so riding in the back of the truck was actually very pleasant.

As we drove down the road past the incredible mountains and lush green hills I reflected alot on our trip. Being around Jason and Nicole and staying in their village has been a life changing event. The needs of the poor here are unbelievable and Jason and Nicole are working to help them 24/7. Their giving is endless. For example, Nicole could not ride with us to the bus station because she had to rush into Hachunago early this morning to check on a woman whose intenstines had ruptured and leaked out fluids into her gut. She would have died if Nicole had not gotten her to the doctor and then the hospital in time. Her organs were shutting down like Magdala's did.

Nicole had taken her to the hospital yesterday and waited all day long for a doctor to attend to them. Because it is "Christmas" time there is only one doctor on staff to served a ton of sick people. The doctor finally came and turned out to be very "racist" against the "Mexican Indians" and "Americans". He put Nicole through the ringer before he even began to offer any kind of help.

Nicole called her dear friend who is a doctor in another town to 'help'. His name is Dr Morales and he immediately sent his highest medical assistant to go to the hospital. She arrived and went into the doctor's offices in the back and found all the nurses and the doctor drinking beer and watching TV. This was totally infuriating to her so she "gave them a piece of her mind". This brought about the immediate help that this dear sick sister needed so badly.

Nicole was told they were gonna operate on her this morning at 10 but thanks to Dr Morales and God they ended up doing the surgery at 3 am this morning because she was about to die. They washed her out and then did another surgery later on and took out her very swollen apendix and gall baldder. She is doing much, much better , praise God!

We are now sitting at a nice restaurant . Nicole met us here with Dossie who went with her to the hospital this morning. The bus we were gonna ride to the border on is full so we are going to try and catch a different bus that leaves at 7:30 tonight. It will mean switching buses in the middle of night but we are grateful that there is even a bus to catch.

I love you all and will try and e mail you one more time before I get home if I can. Thanks for all your prayers. Please continue to pray that there is no problems on our trip home etc...We are leaving sweet, dear Aubrey here with Jason and Nicole. She wants to stay and serve along side of them. She has been such a hard worker and has been a blessing in every way. Please keep her in your prayers as well.

Thanks so much!
Love,
Mala

An Amazing Children's Church!!!

Dear Beloved,

It is now Monday and I realized that I had not written to you all about Children's Church. It went wonderfully! Thank you so much for all your prayers. Saturday morning we all got up and us ladies got together with Nicole to practice our "Bible Skit". Nicole wanted to share the story of Christ's birth with all the children so we decided to do it in skit form. We took it from the book of Luke chapter 2. Being the "drama mama" that I am, I put together the script and chose the characters for each part.

It appeared to me that there were 5 basic characters in the story plus Nicole as our narrator of course since she was so fluent in Espanol. The other characters included: Joseph, Mary, the Donkey, a shepherd and the angel proclaiming "news of great joy". I asked Aubrey if she could be Mary, I asked Elena if she could be Joseph, Dossie to be the angel, Me to be the shepherd and I asked Esther if she could be the donkey, to which she replied, "I'd rather not!" So Elena stepped up to the plate and said she would do it. So Esther became Joseph and Elena the donkey.

Of course, Elena did hesitate later during "dress rehearsal" once she found out she had to wear ears and a tail. She quickly recovered and got right back into it as Esther encouraged her on. There was a lot of laughing and joking as we prepared for the skit. Then we all prayed together for God to come. Then gathering up all our stuff we headed down to the big covered pavilion where all the children had gathered. We were blown away by how many children that had come. There looked to be about 60 or more and the little boys sat on one side and the little girls sat on the other side. It was so sweet!

The day before we had filled "candy bags" (60 of them) and gotten lots of colorful poster boards and ribbon so they could make a heart with the bible verse John 3:16 on it. We cut out 60 hearts and 60 pieces of ribbon and guess what…there was EXACTLY enough….there were exactly 60 children who came. Isn't God good ….all the time!!!

We began the children's church with singing the song "Cast Your Burdens Unto Jesus" in Spanish. Frank had written the words for me so I was able to teach it to the little kids who live here in the village and they then helped me teach it to the rest of the children. They loved the song and wanted to sing it over and over again. It was precious. Then Nicole prayed and after that "the drama team" ran into the kitchen to gather our props and get dressed. It is amazing what you can do with a bed sheet and head band. Instantly we became, Joseph and the shepherd. Aubrey was great as Mary riding in on Elena's back. Her "tummy" was a baby doll wrapped up in a fluffy blanket. Esther was laughing her head off at one point when I came out as the Shepherd. I chose to wear my brown skirt on my head as my head piece and in the rush to put it on I failed to notice that my skirt tag was sticking straight up on my forehead like an indian feather in the front. It looked hysterical. Dossie was a beautiful angel and read the part about "glory to God in the highest" in Spanish. She did great. We ended with us all singing the song "Allabare" with all the kids in Spanish.

I guess the kids liked it a lot. Their parents especially seemed to love it and one lady asked Nicole afterwards if we could come and perform "our play" in her village the next day around 2:00 when the town gathered together for their town meeting. Unfortunetely we were not able to do that because we already were scheduled to sing and preach at another home church service around the same time in another town. But it was still really neat to be invited there.

After the skit, Nicole asked me and Dossie if we could share with the children while she interpreted what we said. I went first and talked about how much God loved us to send His only son to the earth to live a perfect life and then take on our sins and faults so we could have eternal life. I got as "dramatic" as I could and used loud voices and lots of hand motions. The kids seemed to really listen and at one point I shared a story about something that had happened the night before with one of the young boys there. His name is Manuel and the night before he had popped a balloon right against my ear on purpose causing me to lose my hearing for a time and make my ear ring and sting inside. I was not happy and when he saw that he went to Nicole and with head bowed told her he had "gone to far" in his joking around and had hurt me. He said he felt very bad and wanted to say sorry to me. So Nicole encouraged him to do so. He came to me and repented with all his heart. His little brown eyes were so sad and he kept on checking on me the rest of the night.

I told the story at children's church because I wanted the kids to know that when Jesus comes inside of you it causes you to "know" when you have done wrong and to feel sad about it then you can say sorry for what you have done and be restored to God again. Nicole had encouraged me earlier to give the kids what ever I could about always making the choice to obey God even when they are really, really tempted to do wrong. That is why I shared the "Manuel story". Manuel was not in the room at the time I shared because he had gotten in trouble for not listening earlier and being distracting. He repented later for that too. :)

After I shared my "dramatic interlude" Dossie got up and talked about our village at Rose Creek and told the kids about our kids. She told the older kids about our older kids and how the choices they make affects the younger kids under them. She told how Aubrey and Esther and Elena all were making choices to follow God and that was affecting the younger kids in our village and causing them to want to follow God more. She went on to encourage the older kids there to choose things that were "good" to be an example to the little ones. It was really good and later I noticed the older kids taking time to read and help the little ones there.

We did the "craft" next and gathered all 60 kids around 3 tables. Each of us ladies worked with the kids to help them weave their ribbon in and out of the hole punches in the hearts and we helped those who could not write the bible verse to write it. The kids loved doing the craft and sweetly asked if they could "keep their hearts and take them home". You should have seen the thrilled look in their eyes when we said "Yes!" They danced about and gathered the heart to their heart. It will very probably be the only little thing they have hanging on their walls.

Next we passed out bowls of hot beans, soy and piping hot homemade corn tortillas. It was cold so the kids gobbled the hot food right up and were finished in no time. The mamas all ate too and it was a very cozy delightful time.

After that came my favorite part……kid's games. I placed 5 bricks on the ground evenly spaced and blew my whistle calling out, "Ben! Ben!" (Come , Come) All the kids came a running. They gathered in one huge group in the middle as their moms sat down in chairs on the side to watch "the crazy gringo lady" do her thing.

I put the kids behind each brick from littlest to biggest in 5 lines, 9 kids per line. ( the older kids did not want to play). Then taking 5 balloons that I had managed to hide from all the kids, I gave each kid at the front of the line a balloon and demonstrated the "balloon hop" game where they place a balloon between their knees and hopped across the dirt floor to the long stick about 30 feet away. Then I said, ready….uno, dos, tres…..then I blew that whistle and off they went. It was hilarious. What made it really "fun" was watching the little girls do the balloon hop in their skirts…they kept loosing the balloon in their skirts. The moms laughed and laughed and laughed. They were the most fun to watch! Next we played the "balloon race" hopping backwards. Then we took the balloons and played "over the top" handing the balloons over their heads till the first was last and the last was first. Miraculously only one of the balloons popped after all that use (another answer to prayer).

At the end the kids broke up into 2 long lines to "hit the 2 pinyatas" hanging from the roof rafters. That was a blast. After about 12 kids that pinnate looked like one big tore up mess and then with "a little help from Nicole" out came the candy all over the ground and the kids shouted with glee and trampled one another to get to it. Out they came with their treasures in their hands smiling triumphantly!

Now it was time to say good bye to the kids and their parents. As they shook our hands they expressed great thankfulness and joy over coming. We gave each of the kids the little "candy bags" and hugged and kissed them good-bye. One little boy came right up to me and gave me his very best and favorite "candy" out of his bag. It was a huge marshmallow, pink and white. I shook my head no at first indicating for him to keep it…but then recovered and said , Muchos gracious!" You see in Mexico it is very impolite to refuse anything given to you. He smiled really big and nodded "your welcome" (denada) He was so sweet. He looked to be around 11 or 12 years old.

Many moms came up and hugged us all really hard and thanked us over and over again. The whole day was simply heavenly! Thank you for all your prayers. It really could not have gone any better!

I will close for now as I need to teach Sed guitar.

I love you and miss you. Please text often as you can!

Love,

Mala

A Home Church Meeting

Dear Family and Friends,

I am sitting here in my bed in our "cabin". I am on the bottom bunk across from Dossie. Aubrey is above me and Esther is above Dossie. Our door is open and the sun shining in which is a blessing because it is sometimes very misty, foggy , cold and rainy.

The girls have gone to the kitchen to help Nicole prepare "preserves" for canning. They are cutting up apples for apple preserves and crushing grapes for grape preserves that we got at the market today. The girls, Aubrey, Esther, and Elena, are real "go getters" and love working along side of Nicole in the kitchen. Aubrey is loving it here and is not wanting to come home yet. She watched Carlos and Pablos yesterday for Carla. Carlos is 3 and Pablos is 1 yr and a few months. She was quite the mama watching them. She bathed both boys in totes in the shower stall and then laid sleepy little Carlos down for a nap. He awoke 2 hours later full of poop and pee. Dossie and I ran around getting water, totes, rags and Asher's towel as Aubrey scrubbed away at Carlos's little body. He came out looking and smelling like a champ.

Last night Dossie started to feel sick so she went to bed. I went with Jason, and Asher to one of Jason's home churches. The brothers had asked him to come preach. They started the service with singing as I sat trying to clap my hands as fast and as long as they all did. Your hands and arms are aching pretty badly by the end of singing 6 songs in a row. I tried to "sing along" as best I could but all those spanish words kept running together pretty fast . Then brother Juan asked me to play a song on my "guitara" . As I started to take my guitar out to play, a woman sitting in the back of the room began to sing loudly and everyone joined in. I looked at Jason and hesitated about taking my guitar out the rest of the way wondering if I should just not play. Brother Juan answered my question by placing the only chair in the front of the room underneath the tiny little TV set and indicating with his hands that i should sit and play. I played one of their songs that was pretty easy to learn because it says the same word over and over again "Alabare" in the chorus. So while I belted out the chorus like Mr Bean singing "Alleluia, Alleluia" the rest of the folks sang all the verses while clapping their hands super fast.

Then Jason preached on everyone in the Body of Christ doing their part. I smiled thinking about all the "preaching" I have heard about that very thing. it is really true. After he preached, two women brought out two steaming pots with something hot inside. The first pot held coffee and the second held a hot steaming thick skinned vegetable of some kind. One of the girls put the hot vegetable in my hand and indicated for me to eat it. As I started to bring the funny looking vegetable to my mouth everyone around me began to laugh. I looked up surprised. Then Theresa, one of the young girls with a very mischievous personality told me that I needed to peel the veg first. Then she showed me how. I laughed along with them and slowly began to eat the "potato like fruit". It was starchy like a potato but very bland tasting. Whoever cooked it had boiled it in a lot of salt water so it did have a pleasant salty taste. I ate the whole thing and then started in on the sweet watery coffee. I only drank half of it with some "cookie type crackers".

After that we headed home. It was really foggy out so it was hard to see the road. A huge dump truck had dumped over on the highway ahead so we had to take a back dirt road filled with bumps and holes. All we needed was a four wheeler. We got home just fine and then headed to bed. So ended our Saturday. I am gonna do another blog about our Children's Church. God bless you all!

Love,

mala

Mala mexico day 4

Dear all,

This will be a quick brief blog as I was just told we are leaving in 10 min for the internet cafe.

I wanted to write to you all about what happened yesterday evening. I think I last wrote about yesterday morning and afternoon.

Yesterday was the "fast" day so we did not eat until 4:30 pm. I had a very bad headache by the end of the day and was hoping that when I finally ate I would feel better. After dinner we loaded into 2 trucks, about 25 of us and headed into the closest town to us called La Coloninia and went to someone's house where Jason was going to preach and teach. Just as we got into the trucks to go Dossie suddenly felt very sick and decided to stay home. My headache was getting a bit worse but I was curious about seeing the home church so I elected to go.

The closer we got to the church house the worse I felt. I got out of the truck and asked where their banya was and was directed to a tiny thrown together wood scrap house with shredded plastic hanging up as walls around the place. There in the center was a bench of wood with a large hole cut out in the middle. This was the toilet. The smell indicated so. I held my breath and went in. Let's just say I walked away from there feeling worse then when I went in.

I tried to push through and went back to the house to sit. I felt dizzy and like my head was gonna explode. The service started with singing and everyone standing and clapping their hands. The room began to sway and I felt like I was gonna throw up. I tried to sing and listen to Nicole interpret the words. "the lord in my healer, and my strength , he is the lifter up of my head, he loves me" I tried to picture Christ touching my head and healing me…I swallowed, I breathed deep, but just felt worse by the minute. Finally I turned to Nicole and said, "I feel sick." "Can I go lay down in the truck?" She told me to step outside and get fresh air. I thought that was a great idea since I would rather throw up outside instead of inside. As we went out the back door and passed by the front I suddenly heard Jason's voice say: "Sister Mala, you're on!" "Im on?" I thought to myself….you have got to be kidding. "Is he asking me to play a song right now…????" Well…he was. I slowly walked forward in a daze and remember him getting my guitar out and looking up I saw Nicole look at me wide eyed and say, "Can you do it?" I heard myself saying, "Yes …I can do it."

So with my head pounding and swallowing hard I began to sing the one and only song I knew in Spanish…"Busque primero el reigno de Dios." "Seek you first the kingdom of God". Everyone there seemed to know it and sang with me. Then I played the song I have decided to follow Jesus…and they all sang that in Spanish as I played. God blessed that moment it seemed cuz Nicole told me later it was very beautiful. Right after that I immediately put the guitar down and was met by the lady of the house. She escorted me to her room and lifted a tent of blankets to reveal a large queen size bed with mountains of blankets on it. Nicole told me to lay down. Tucking my jacket under my head I lay down on the bed laying as stool as I could. The funny thing about the bed was the people lay in it "width wise" because they are so short….it was cute…I fit just fine…. Earlier in the day Asher told me he never realized how very tall I was until he saw me standing next to all the Mexican ladies.

After the service Nicole came and got me. I got into the truck and lay down in the back. When I got home I pulled a large garbage can over to my bed in case I was gonna throw up. Then I took ibrupropen and went right to sleep. Dossie was feeling better as she had taken ibrupropen 3 hours earlier. I awoke this morning feeling better. I am definitely gonna drink more water today.

There was also a fire in the hot water pipe by the bathroom while we were gone. One of the girls forgot to push the long piece of wood back up into the heater so it fell out onto the large wood pile of scraps outside on the ground near the pipe and all that wood caught on fire. Thank God Sed stayed home cuz Dossie stayed home. He put the fire out but it did damage and we had to wait a good while before we could get showers again.

Pray for Manuel, the big one, cuz he really needs to obey but does not and his grandma gets in the way of him getting his much needed consequences that would actually help him obey. The grandma is thinking about leaving today. It is so sad because all they would do is go back and live on the street.

I love you all. Keep praying for us. We feel you so with us. Also pray for children's church tomorrow…about 75 kids to come.

Love,

Mala

Day 3 in Mexico

Buenas stias from sunny, warm (right now anyway) Mexico. It is a beautiful sunny day today and we are all taking full advantage of it. Esther, Aubrey and Elena are all doing our men's laundry. Of course doing laundry is a bit more involved then we have it at home. First they place the clothes one item at a time in the sink, wet it with water from a barrel, sprinkle soap powder on it and using a scrub brush and wash board sink they rub and scrub the clothes till all the stains are out and then they dunk the clothes in a large basin of water filled with downy fabric softener. Once that is done they place each clothing article, one at a time through a hand wringer to wring the water out as much as possible and then it is time to place the clothes into the dryer….which means hanging them up onto one of the 20 or so clothes lines with tiny plastic "mexican" clothespins. (Joy you would have the time of your life doin this :) )

The girls have been working on doing the guys laundry for about 2 hours now and have started on their own. Because it rains off and on a lot here it is important to do your laundry while it is nice and sunny outside otherwise it can be days before your clothes are totally dry.

Today is Thursday which is their day of "fast". They fast from sun up till 6 pm and use today to pray while they work. They usually only drink coffee or water until 6 pm. I know many of you are probably wondering how the "Mexican coffee" is affecting me since I am so "sensitive" to caffeine. Honestly, the coffee is so watered down that it has not seemed to affect me that much. Now…the large amount of sugar in it might if I drank too much but so far so good. :)

The guys are all working around here today. Asher is laying brick on their little "kitchen addition" while Eric is repairing electrical parts on different electrical stuff they have around here that is broken. I know that may sound funny because I said they do not have "electricity" around here, but they do have solar power and once the sun tops the mountain they have plenty watts of power.

Danny and Joel are running rough long boards through a wood planer run by a generator. Dossie is teaching Jason and Nicole's daughter Jasmine her 4th grade school. Dossie is a great teacher and patiently keeps Jasmine focused. Jasmine is a mover and a goer like her mama so sitting still for a long period of time can be a real challenge but she is doing very well.

I am sitting outside in the sun at the top of one of their little hills on their driveway looking over some of the most beautiful green mountains of jungle that I have ever seen. It is so beautiful here and so peaceful. Looking down at the road below you will see an occasional person walking carrying a machete in their hands or hear and old engine popping and grinding climbing up one of the many hills.

I wanted to tell you a bit about our day yesterday, Wed. It was quite full and driving thru traffic made it quite exciting. First I should tell you about the vehicle we took. It is Nicoles little red Ford Ranger extended cab (sorta extended). Yesterday morning all 8 of us plus Jasmine, her brother Sed and 3 of the mexican folks piled into the little red ford truck. That makes a total of 13 people in a truck meant for no more then 5. Nicole, Dossie, and I piled into the front cab part while everyone else wanted to ride in the back of the truck. Whew…what a ride they had.

We drove first to the hardware store in a small town about 8 miles away , maybe it was more like 15 miles, anyway we all got out and using the hardware store's internet we began blogging right form inside the truck. It was great! I loved it. While we were blogging inside the truck two young girls came out bringing us hot chocolate and freshly made raspberry filled white cake. It was a delicious treat and a delightful blessing. The girls were the hardware owner's daughters and Nicole said that the hardware man has always been so good to her and Jason ever since he found out that they reach out to the poor street people of Mexico. The hardware store owner's wife lived on the street when she was a small girl and she knows what it is like to have nowhere to live and nothing to eat. They are both very rich now and have much but they give away a lot to help the poor.

After we finished blogging we left Asher, Eric, and Sed (Jason and Niole's son) there and the 3 mexican folks and c the rest of us continued on our journey to the next big town where they have a Mexican "Wal-mart". This is where we did our grocery shopping and got mexican money (pesos) out of the Atm machine there in the store. We shopped for about an hour and a half and got a lot of vegetables and beans and rice and candy for Children's Church on Saturday. We also stopped off at a doctors beautiful, amazing mexican house where we got given a nice mattress and bunk bed frame. We also received a huge bag of used clothing from the doctor's wife. She is a beautiful person with a very giving heart. The house next door had a large orange tree filled with oranges so Jasmine and I walked over to look at the tree. While we were there the servant of that house asked what we wanted. Jasmine told him, "Some oranges please". He asked the owner and the owner came out and seeing us, smiled broadly and said, "Of course, you may have all you want." He asked the servant to climb up on the roof and get us many oranges as we wanted. Just then it was time to go so he quickly gave us a box of what he had picked. It was the perfect amount for each of us to have one orange a piece. I saved mine for later and this morning I saw little Louise carrying it around and then eating it later. That made me glad.

After Wal- mart we went to a local little outdoor mexican place and for only 1 american dollar we each received a bottle of coke, and a plate of tostados with beans and shredded cabbage and a fried potato filled flour thing. We also hot a tamale and a burrito on the same plate. It was covered in a green salsa or a red salsa. She also gave us extra picante that was out of this world delicious! Whew…I was very full and only drank a third of my coke. :) Our last stop was at the paper shop below the hardware guy's mansion. We bought large different color poster board and ribbon to do an art project with the kids for children's church on Saturday. Please pray for that as there will be about 75 poor mexican kids who will come for it. I am excited. I bought a volleyball for us to play "clothes line" volley ball using our clothesline instead of a net. I think it will be a lot of fun. Nicole also bought a ping pong table for the little kids that she found for just 4. 50 american dollars. It came with the net and a ball and 2 paddles. I played Dossie a game of it last night and she beat me by one point….I tried to take the loss graciously but it was not too easy…especially since I lost in front of many of the kids. :)

The ride home was hilarious. Picture if you will a small truck bed loaded down with about 50 bags of groceries, a twin mattress, a bunk bed frame, a huge black garbage bag full of clothes and Danny, Joel, Esther, Aubrey and Elena all crammed against the sides of the truck bed. While in the front seat sat Dossie, Nicole, with Jasmine in between them and me on the tiny jump seat in the back with everyone's back pack's and computers and personal grocery items loaded around me. What a trip. The road was being repaired and with no stop sins or traffic signals it made driving CRAZY!!!! We almost ran into trucks or cars 3 different times but thanks to Nicole's amazing driving ability we did not wreck once…praise God!!!

When we arrived home 8 house later we unladed all the stuff and brought it to the kitchen. Then we waited for dinner to be served. It was hotdogs and cut up tomato. Yum yum. I was so tired that I went to bed around 8:30 and got up at 6 this morning. I do feel rested…just a bit hungry for some reason…:)

I will close for now as the kids want me to play my guitar…Sed's guitar. I have been teaching him guitar lessons each day and he is doing well. We love you all and are very grateful for all your prayers. God bless you!!

Will try to blog again soon. Oh…you can look up Jason and Nicole's website and learn more about where I am staying at : thevillageglobal.org

Love,

Mala

Here are some pictures of our "journey" to Mexico and some of the villagers once we arrived here.

The pictures are in the wrong order so go from the bottom up and that is the sequence of events that took place in a 24 hour period.

The first pic is of us in the village kitchen eating our first meal together, sweet bread and coffee.

Next is us once we finally got off the bus after our 14 hr ride to the village.

Next pic is of us on the bus riding to Jason's.

Next is us getting our bags scaled down to one bag to take to the bus station. Then the last pic is of us at the Mcdonalds waiting for Jason and Asher to try and see if we could get the van and trailer into Mexico.