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| Where did January go? It seems like just yesterday
it was December. The weather has been crazy this week.
Yesterday we topped out at 92 degrees, but today we stuggled to hit
the upper 60's. Not that I'm complaining about 60-degree weather
in January, but it is a big 1-day jump for us! Of course, the 92
yesterday reminded me of what we have to look forward to this summer,
which I'm not really thinking will be much fun! Language school
presses on, and I believe I'm finally starting to get the hang of
things. I'm feeling more comfortable each day, and we continue
to try and use our newly-found abilities as much as possible around
the house, as well as out in the community. Yesterday we were
able to get a new windshield installed in the van. It's been hit
by rocks a bunch of times since we moved here last August. It
had at least 8 cracks, but several of those had fused together to form
continous cracks both left-to-right across the entire windshield and
also two more from the top to the bottom. So, yesterday it was
time for a new one. Of course, it got hit by another rock today,
but fortunately it didn't seem to create a new crack! Our new
oven also arrived today. The old one died December 27th, so
we've been without an oven for over a month while waiting on the
warranty company. The home warranty company requires a
licensed/insured installer and I found someone today who was willing
to work with it (most didn't want to) and they will be out tomorrow
morning. In other news, we are trying to become prepared for an
organized ministry outreach opportunity next month. The last
week of February, Rio Grande City will be holding their annual county
fair. I've been talking with Steve Andres up in San Antonio
about conducting a fair soul-winning outreach during that event, and
we're going to see if we can get everything lined up. We thought
it was going to be later in the year, so we're not 100% sure we can be
prepared for it this year. Please pray with us that we would
indeed be ready, and that we would see good results.
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| Greetings this fine winter weekend. The weather was
a little cooler today, but we decided to brave the 70+ degree weather
to go out for a brief hike this morning. There is a small town
called Santa Cruz about 4 miles east of Rio Grande City, right on
Highway 83. It has a landmark called the "Santa Cruz
Cross", built on "Loma de la Cruz", which is a Catholic altar that was built during the
drought of 1888-1894. As the history is told, the local
villagers built the cross and climbed the hill daily to pray to it.
Very shortly thereafter, the rain came and broke the drought. They have
maintained the cross since that time and people still climb the hill
to light candles and pray for other things that they need. It's
not a very long climb, and it's not a very fancy altar, but it does
make for an interesting local sight-seeing experience. We've
included a few photos for you to experience this trip with us.
Other than that, no new news to report.
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| A picture
of the altar, slightly zoomed in, from the base of the hill. |
As you
climb up, the path passes by this small enclave which has been converted
into another altar. You can see the remains of several candles that
have been burnt here. |
Missy
decided that I had to stop for a photo as we climbed. |
The altar,
as seen from the top of the hill. |
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| A closer
view of the cross/Christ part of the altar. |
The view
from the top of the hill. From here we could see quite a ways.
Unfortunately, another hill blocks the view of the mountains to the West. |
More of the
view. |
And yet
more of the view. If you look closely you can make out our van in
the small gravel/dirt lot at the bottom of the hill, across the other
dirt road. |
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| A closer
view of the Christ figurine, showing the paint symbolizing his blood on
his hands and head. |
A picture
showing most of us in front of the altar. Melissa would not
relinquish control of the camera to get a shot of her! |
One of the
sage bushes along the path. They have some very sharp thorns! |
A closer
view of the bush, with the thorns. |
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| Not sure
what this plant is, but it did have some big black berries, that looked
like blueberries. I'm sure they weren't actual blueberries, but we
don't know what they were. |
Braden
poses for a shot. |
Addie gets
her photo taken also, with August and I in the background. |
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| Not much to report today. Language school did start
back again for me this week, so I'm busy once again memorizing stuff
that makes absolutely no sense to me. Well, it makes a little
sense, but not much!! I wanted to give a brief update today
about a situation that started a couple days after Christmas (I
haven't mentioned it before). I think it was December 27th that
Melissa went to cook dinner and found that the oven was no longer
working. She set the temp, hit the button, it acted like it was
going to do something and then just shut itself off. Nothing we
did would fix the problem. Fortunately, since we were buying a
foreclosure without the opportunity for a full inspection we did
decide to purchase a home warranty with the house. So, we called
the warranty company and they (eventually) sent out a Sears contractor
to check out the stove. His diagnosis: it's broke. He
tried to find the parts to fix it, but the product is no longer
supported (it's 17 years old). So, yesterday they decided that
they are going to replace the unit with a new one. It's a
"double-oven" that's built into the wall, with an oven on
the bottom and a microwave on the top. The warranty company
selected a new unit that I had to approve. I've not bought
appliances for a long time, and never anything like this type of unit,
so I was shocked to see that it was going to cost $2,100 for the unit
itself, plus shipping and installation. Fortunately, we only
have to pay our $60 deductible. God provides in a multitude of
ways and in this case He is providing simply by giving us the wisdom
and resources to purchase that warranty! We've also decided to
renew the warranty (it expires in March) since our Central AC unit is
17 years old, which means it's at the end of it's expected life
span. We have a 4-ton unit and I'm told it could cost us $6,000
or more to replace it when it finally dies. So, spending $545
for a warranty that will pay for a $6,000 unit if it dies certainly
sounds reasonable. We're thankful that God has given us the
resources to be able to purchase the warranty for these two years, and
that He is allowing the problems to come up at this time, so that the
expense of the warranty is negated by the savings. One other
thing, a prayer request. I mentioned in the last update about a
fire on our road. I didn't mention that the week before the
local Middle School also burnt down. Since the fire on our road
there have been two more local fires, both at the northern end of the
county. Both of those were much larger and burnt a total of
about 3,500 acres of land, plus a couple of buildings and
houses. Things are really dry here, since it hasn't rained in
about a month. That's combined with all the dead grass from all
the rain we got last year, to produce conditions very ripe for
wildfires to spread. We don't anticipate any problems, and fully
expect the Lord's continued provision, but would appreciate your
continued prayer to that end as well. That's it for today, just wanted
to show how God is working in these ways to continue to meet our needs
here on the field!
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Well, we got to meet more of our neighbors today....the
hard way. We were all out talking while we watched the house at
the end of our road burn down. On our road there are only 5
houses, with the last house being the largest (about 4,000 square
feet) and inside of an electronic gate with a cinderblock wall
surrounding the 1.25 acre property. It has been sitting vacant
since before we bought our house back in March. Somehow (too
soon to know how) it caught on fire today. From all appearances,
it will be a total loss, as every building on the property was burning
and smoke was coming from every opening of those buildings. The
fire did spread across the back fence and onto neighboring property,
but fortunately it did not come our way.
Click here to watch a short video of the
fire.
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| Standing on
the road outside of the gate into the property. |
A zoomed-in
shot showing the garage on fire behind the main house. |
Another
shot of the garage. |
A better
view of the whole scene. The house is in the fore-front and the
garage is behind it and to the right. |
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| A closer
view of the house. It was worse when we first walked up (without the
camera), but this first fire crew got that end of the house under control
very quickly. |
Another
shot of the entire house. |
Another
fire truck arrives. We saw crews from La Rosita, Rio Grande City and
Roma all arrive. |
The fire in
the garage continued to enlarge and spread as the fire crews concentrated
first on the house. |
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| Another
further back shot. |
Notice the
garage fire is getting larger. Eventually it did spread all the way
to the fence on the right. This property is certainly a total loss. |
The man in
the black jacked in this photo lives in the first house on our road.
He is also the man that built and used to live in the house that burnt. |
One last
shot before heading home. |
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| No photos, just a couple of updates. First, I forgot
to mention yesterday that I did go in Monday for jury duty. They
only had 1 case left that hadn't been settled, and that one was
settled that morning while we were in the court room, so I wound up
not having to actually serve. That was fortunate. In
talking to the people around me I did find that they called a LOT of
potential jurors. For instance, my card said I was juror
#12. The guy sitting two people down from me was juror
#336. I figure they probably called 350-400 jurors. There
were about 125 or so there in the court room. I'm guessing the
rest were ineligible for one reason or another! Today I've been
working here on the property, continuing to get that strip of land
across the road cleaned up. It's not much fun, but it's a good
work out (and it makes your arms rather sore), swinging a pick, and
axe and shoveling lots of dirt! It's all done....for now.
We'll slowly add some landscaping elements to it to make it look
better, as we have more funds. For now, we'll just wait for the
grass to start to grow in. Speaking of grass, the trench they
dug for the new sewer connection is starting to get some grass
on it. We haven't had a drop of rain, so I've been watering the
seed, in places, and those places are doing well. In the back
yard they filled the old septic with sand, so I had to wait to get
some dirt to finish topping that before planting seed. It was
actually amazingly difficult to find anyone who sells/delivers
topsoil in this area. I finally had 4 yards of top soil
delivered yesterday and was able to use that to cover the sand and
plant the grass seed. We're using portable sprinklers and are
able to cover the entire back yard, so hopefully in about 2-3 weeks we
should have some nice green grass, which will keep it from being a
muddy mess like it is now when it gets wet!! In other news, I've
been talking with a man up in San Antonio about working together to do
some evangelism at local fairs. He first called me back while we
were on deputation and we've talked a couple of times since
then. Since we do not have our own church with workers
available, I have spoken with Pastor Jeremy Mendoza (the youth pastor)
at Iglesia Bautista Betania in Mission about helping out with these
projects. He is interested, and we are just starting to move
forward. If all goes well, we will work together at a fair in
Zapata, Texas in March and then at the fair in Rio Grande City (not
sure of the date yet). We will certainly be able to find other
locations if these events go well. The brother in San Antonio
says they usually have anywhere from 30-50 people at an event who
specifically ask to hear the Gospel plan of salvation, so this sounds
like a very good opportunity.
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| Greetings. Life is continuing down here in the
valley, and we're glad to be much warmer than most of you reading this
update!! Looks like the East Coast, and especially the North
East is having a tough week weatherwise. This week I've
been focusing on getting ready for school next week by finishing up
the typing of the data that was lost. As of today, that is
done. I'm also trying to finish up my scheduling for the brief
return trip coming this fall. That process is actually going
very well. Yesterday I was able to schedule 3 more
meetings. At this point, 4 days left to fill, but have good
leads for 2 of those days. I've also got good leads for 2
additional meetings on non-standard days (ie not Wed or Sunday), which
would be a great blessing. This past Christmas we participated
in a Shue Box program (operates like Operation Christmas Child) that
is run by Valley Independent Baptist Missions in Donna, Texas.
We received photos from them today of the children in Rio Bravo,
Mexico, that received the boxes our family sent.
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| Addied and
August each prepared a box for a child about their age. |
Braden
prepared a box for a teenager. |
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| Not a lot to report. Melissa and the kids are back
in school and I'm taking on some projects here around the property, as
well as doing end-of-year paperwork (including taxes, yuck!)
Paperwork does not lend itself to photos, so I don't have any of that,
but I have given some below of my latest project. The property
directly across the road from our house has a large cinderblock/metal
building on it. We own most of the property between the road and
that building (even though it is across the road from our
house). They own the last foot or two. On that foot they
had a wire fence with barbed wire at the top. It was completely
overgrown with weeds and their was a lot of debris strewn behind
it. Recently they had two trees that were behind the fence
knocked down, which collapsed part of the fence as well. I asked
(and received) permission to remove the remainder of the fence and
landscape that area. This is important to us, because it is not
a part of their property that they care about (since it's behind their
building), and the neglect showed. From our house, however, it
is one of the first things you see and we'd like to give a decent
first impression to those that come by for Bible studies, etc.
So, I have now removed the fence and all but one of the posts (it's
being stubborn). I've also gotten rid of most of the
trash. The landscaping will come later, but it already looks
1000x better. I did find that Mesquite Trees have thorns that
are VERY sharp, and that it's not a good idea to wear short-sleeves
when working with them. I did wear gloves (they became shredded)
which mostly protected my hands, but my arms weren't so
lucky. Live and learn.
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| Part of the
fenceline. This is before the flooding and thus before the grass
grew to be over 4' tall behind that fence. |
A more
recent show from our front yard, looking across the road. The grass
is at and behind the fence, which looks pretty bad and is a perfect haven
for all kinds of critters! |
This is the
week we moved in. It's hard to see the fence for all the people, but
you get the idea. |
During the
flooding. You can see the greenery along the right hanging out over
the flood waters. |
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| A much
better shot. This is part of the worst area, where the grass has
completely hidden the fence and reached the top of the cinderblock
wall. I also found that there were small mesquite trees in
there. Ouch. |
Newly
cleaned up, with all of the fencing and brush removed. We did leave
about 3 bushes which are actually nicely flowering decorative
bushes. Now we just need to landscape along the building and around
those bushes. |
Newly
cleaned up, with all of the fencing and brush removed. |
Newly
cleaned up, with all of the fencing and brush removed. |
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| Newly
cleaned up, with all of the fencing and brush removed. These are the
stumps of the two mesquite trees that were hidden in the brush. They
had shoots coming off several feet and they were sharp. This
photo is the same section of wall as the photo directly above. |
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| We took the opportunity yesterday to visit Falcon Lake
State Park at the western edge of Starr County. It is the
largest lake in this area (by a longshot). The lake normally
covers 98,960 acres, is about 60 miles long and reaches a maximum
depth of 110' at the dam. Right now it is still flooded from the
hurricane and subsequent rainfall. Many of the campsites and
pavilions along the shore are partially submerged, but it still made
for a good day. We didn't walk the entire trail, but we got our
exercise and got to see some interesting wildlife (mainly
birds). We've been curious about what the park offered and
wanted to take the opportunity during our break to check it out.
The weather was beautiful, with a high temperature yesterday in the
mid-80's. After seeing the lake I now want to have a chance to
go fishing, but it is currently impractical (without a boat) due to
the flooding. Just a quick update today (for a change).
Have a great weekend!
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| One of the
entrances to the nature trail. I think this sign speaks volumes
about the park! |
Sitting on
a bench taking a break during our "hike". |
The main
boat ramp at Falcon Lake State Park. |
You can see
this in the previous photo. It is the dam on Falcon Lake. |
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| Bo got a
little warm during his walk. Actually, we ALL got a little warm! |
The kids
pose for a photo in front of a group of sage bushes. |
Bo gets a
drink before we head home. |
Braden in
the van. |
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| August and
Addie in the van. |
Another
shot of bo. He's such a ham. |
This sign
is at the international bridge on Falcon Dam. |
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| Welcome to 2009! Where did 2008 go? We had no
intentions of staying up until midnight last night, but the people
next door (as well as almost everyone around our area) had other
plans. So, we managed to hear the countdown to 2009 (coming from
outside our house) and then a few hundred explosions from a mixture of
fireworks and guns. We've been enjoying our "Christmas
Break", though much of it has not been "relaxing" in
the physical sense of the word. We've managed to get a bit of
work done here around the property. Part of that occured over
the past few days while Melissa's mother and step-father were in town
visiting. They flew in from Virginia on Saturday and then back
out this morning. Richard (her step-father) helped me with
replacing our TV antenna and running CAT5 cable for our network.
Both of these were important projects. Without the TV antenna we
received 1 channel (sometimes), which was an all-Spanish
channel. We couldn't watch the news or keep up with the weather,
easily. Now with the new antenna we can receive about 5-6
channels, which gives us all the news we need! I'm glad Richard
was here, because he had to climb a 30' tower to remove the old
antenna (it was missing a lot of pieces) and install the new
one. I'm afraid of heights, so....... We also dropped
cable for a home network. Today I installed some of the ends and
got Melissa's computer up and running on the internet. We've run
cable to my new office, but I am waiting to finish the other
remodeling work in there before connecting it. I'm also going to
run cabling to the casita so that visiting groups can have internet
access. Our current setup relied on Wi-Fi, but our
cinderblock/brick construction generally blocked the signal, causing
intermittent (frequent) signal losses. Now we have perfect
connections and I can cancel the $5 per month fee for Wi-Fi
service! The work here on our property (in terms of the septic
system) is all completed as of a couple of days ago. They were
finally able to come out and fill the old tanks and now we have no
more holes in the ground. I had already spread grass seed, and
it is starting to come in nicely. The weather has been
cooperating beautifully, with temperatures in the 70's and 80's, which
is perfect for growing new grass. I'm looking forward to getting
the yard covered again, since we can't let the dog out loose right now
(he likes to play in the dirt). Christmas was very good.
We enjoyed some special services at Iglesia Bautista Betania, most
notably their Christmas play. We've also had the opportunity to
get to know more families from the church. I spent the last 3
weeks filling in for the teacher of the teen (10th-12th grade) Sunday
School class and enjoyed that quite a bit. It also gave me the
opportunity to get to know them better, which has carried over into
other areas of the church, as I am able to see a relationship begin to
develop with their parents as well. It's a good foretaste of
what we expect to happen here in Rio Grande City. Not much else
to report. Today is a "cleanup" day. Melissa
removed (almost) all of the Christmas decorations and I've gotten the
boxes out of the house. I also took Melissa's parents to Laredo
(a 4-hour round-trip drive) to catch their flight home. I did
get to see a LOT of birds on the drive, including about a dozen bald
eagles (at different locations). It was very interesting! We don't
have major plans for the remainder of this week, but next week we will
hit the ground running again, as school resumes and I get back to work
on Spanish and other physical work here around the property. One
final note: since my trip to Nicaragua was cancelled I am now once
again scheduled for jury duty on January 15th here in Starr
County. That ought to be interesting!
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| Addie hugs
the new doll that she got for Christmas. |
August is
"assembling" a wooden cabinet that he received. The first
step is to paint it. He also has to attach door latches, a door
handle and the padded feet. |
More of
August painting. This is definitely not his strongest ability. |
Richard and
I working on the antenna. I'm the coward standing on the
garage. The top of the mast is about 30' above the ground. The
antenna itself is 8' long, but only weights about 5-10 pounds. |
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| Janice,
Melissa's mom, standing with her and Addie Grace. |
Melissa's
mom with August at the Roma Bluffs Overlook. Behind her you can see
the Rio Grande River and the Roma International Bridge. |
"Nana"
with all 3 of the grandchildren. |
Richard,
Melissa's step-father, went out on one of the rock ledges at the Roma
Bluffs Overlook. The water behind him is the Rio Grande River. |
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| We saw this
bird down by the river. |
Bo
"nibbles" on Richard's ear. He fell in love with Richard
instantly when he arrived, and hasn't been away from him much since! |
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