I'd walk to you if I had no other way...

Steve's surgery went great! Thanks for praying.
They only took a little piece of the facial nerve :)
They took out a lot of muscle :(
They think the got the whole thing out :)
There were some cells on top of the bone, but not penetrating it, so he'll have to do chemo or something later on.

my girls left at 8 this morning to go be with the family.

I didn't go, I'm going to make sure the "guard" dogs get fed and the fish as well.
(The rottweiler and the retriever are laying right outside my front door right now. It's sorta cute!)
I say "guard" dogs because the retriever is really old, and the rott, well, she doesn't bark at anyone.
It's really nice for it to be so quiet here, but at the same time slightly erie.
I definitely need this break.

My girls were totally up at 5:30 this morning, jumping up and down and screaming and ready to go. They were so excited :)

Last Friday we stayed up late and had a "make your own pizza" night, and someone brought over a strobe light, and maybe we had *too much fun* with all the kids.

Yesterday I ordered pizza, and the girls and I had a movie/pizza night. It was fun.
Maybe I should have cooked for them since no one was home?
(we totally have tons of groceries...)
It was totally confirmed that we have no address here.
M did the ordering, and when they asked where to deliver it to, she just told them our name.
They didn't seem to know where we lived so she told them the name of our town and that we're the first house around the corner, the gray one. (it was dark out, how could they tell the color????)
She didn't specify which corner. and they still made it here!

Thursday I drove for the first time in 7 weeks (and 5 days).
It was only just a couple blocks.
But I have this urgent desire to document it.


(we are so spoiled, someone donated a bunch of starbucks coffee, welch's dried fruit mix, and some trader joe's soup! Tani made augraten potatoes with enchilada sauce and dried nacho cheese powder with white cheese on top the other night. The potatoes had a smokey flavor.)

My girls and I had some interesting converstaions about divorce and dating this week. Occassionally, I hope they actually listen to/remember what I say....with teenagers though, who knows.



well, I'm going to:
go running
use as much hot water as I want
listen to music that the girls wouldn't normally listen to
READ READ READ
...
and then try to figure out what to do with myself?!


(currently listening to a mix my sister made. jmr mix 1 while waiting for my iPod to charge)

in 30 minutes...

...Steve goes in for a 6 hour surgery.

couple things to keep in mind.
1. that they can separate the tumor from the facial nerve
(other wise he'll be paralyzed on the right side of his face- His jobs down here are preaching and teaching at the school, It would be best if his ability to communicate were not hindered)
2. that they can take all the cancer out
(the kind he has won't respond well to treatments)
3. that the family is kept safe
(many of his children from the states have come here to Mexico with their spouses and children, and 3 of the 5 children Steve and Johanne are in the process of adopting are there visiting in Ensenada as well. My girls and I go up Saturday to visit. It's two hours away from here)


thanks...

This is a no drooling zone!

Things have gotten a little rockier with attitudes here. I think/know the honeymoon is over. One of my girls is very controlling, so I have to be sure to not fall into any of her traps. I don’t know that she realizes she does it, but I bet it was how she was raised.

An uncle and aunt visited one of my girls on the 15th. She didn’t want to talk to them, but they had a letter authorizing their visit, so what do you do?? Luckily they only stayed for 25 minutes. They asked how she was behaving and when they found out how great she is here they recounted everything she used to do wrong. :(

I now have another woman helping me with my girls! (well, people already help me by taking them to church or picking them up from school and things) BUT she is dedicated to spending time with them on my days off, and now I should have M-W afternoons off as well. This will be important b/c I haven’t had time to do a lot of things, like email ya’ll (and make sure all my friends/family are reading this blog) and I’ll have more time to build relationships with the others that serve and live here.

Speaking of friends…
I had my first chance to socialize with people without keeping some sort of eye on my girls last Monday night. I wanted to scream and shout and dance for joy the whole time, and to compound my joy, the 8 of us played DDR ☺. Even though it was just an hour I was pumped the whole next day. Yes I’ve had days off, but I usually spend them by myself, or if I’m hanging out I usually stay home and play board games with Johanne or other adults. I enjoy playing board games but the kids are never far away ☺

We had frozen crepes donated to us, so I made crepes with lemon juice and sugar on them. I had to buy the lemon juice at Costco in Ensenada, b/c they don’t really sell too many lemons here. My girls LOVE bitter, spicey food so I thought they’d like these. Surprise. They didn’t! Their argument was they don’t eat bitter stuff for breakfast. They ended up finished their food by putting a thin layer of mango yogurt on their crepes, which they DID enjoy.

I’ve ridden on a bike here more in the last few weeks than I have in 8 or 9 years. I really enjoy it, except on Thursday when I took a short cut through darker colored dirt than I should have, and it turned out to be very wet, deep, clay. :/ It engulfed my shoes as I stepped off my stuck bike, luckily I was wearing gym shoes, and not flip flops.

Steve does have cancer. :( Him and Johanne have been busy with all the extra doctors appointments, and it's definitely stressing out the kids.

Sunday we went to La Bufadora (it's a spot in the ocean where water squirts out of the rocks) for Tani's birthday. She is their daughter and works down here. She turned 25. It was a really fun day, but super long with the 2ish hour drive on either end. I'm proud to say no one drooled on my on the way up or back. It was also a really spur of the moment trip! I'm getting used to the way people do things in Mexico.

Rich was getting his car worked on down here, and so last week I went with him and Jason and we ended up having fish tacos! (yummy) and then we went to this little store and bought 10 popsicles for 20 cents. Unfortunately the lady selling them was confused about the price. She knew how much one cost (2 cents) but it took us explaining to her how to count up or do 2x10 to know how much to charge us. We gave her the money and she looked at it like it was too much! She also asked us to pray for her headache. I think people around here assume you're a Christian if you're an English speaker, but maybe she just knew us.

(sorry for the long wait, we didn't have internet all weekend until Tuesday, so on my days off, not only was I busy, but I couldn't have gotten on anyways.)

Happy Wednesday!

edit: Steve is having surgery Friday.

It's snowing!!!

update on Steve: The doc is 85% sure it's not cancer (from a blood test), but they are doing a biopsy on Tuesday. The tumor is more intertwined with the muscle and nerves than we initially thought so instead of a quick surgery, it will have to be done in a hospital and instead of local anesthetic, he will have to go under general anesthetic.
thanks for praying.

It rained again this week. It's hard to be thankful for something that makes your life so miserable, but I know we need it. It was very foggy and the rain was that light misty rain that spits on you slightly while you're surrounded by it. Some of the kids were running around in it saying, "It's snowing, It's snowing!!!!!" Unfortunately they were mistaken. Hopefully some day they'll get to play in snow.

My life here is so wrapped up in food, Pozole, Tamales, Enchiladas "Chihuahua" style...
I really like Pozole, which is hominy with stuff added. I add chopped cabbage, lime and cilantro.
Why didn't I know about Pozole when I was back home?

While some of the girls were still here visiting for Christmas, we took the time to make California Rolls. The goal was to make enough to feed 22 of us as a main meal, but we realized that was not a manageable goal. At least we all got a couple pieces, and I got to check "make sushi someday" off my to do list. (and imagine, I did it in Mexico of all places?!?!)

We have two visitors from Israel here for the next ten days. They minister to people who have lost family members to terrorism immediately after attacks, as well as help with Arab/Israeli reconciliation. I can't even imagine what that's like. They have various speaking engagements around the area while they are here. So tonite we are having a shabbot meal....with TAMALES.

Funny kid stuff:
I was helping a first grader with his homework, and he drew a q more like an a, without the tail.
So I said, "Don't forget the tail!"
and he said, "Do I have to draw a tail? I don't like tails."

I was helping a 14 year old with her homework yesterday, and wanted to quickly check my email (we had already done more than we were supposed to, and her mom was running late picking her up.) but my internet wouldn't load.
So I said, "I wonder what's wrong with my computer."
and she said, "It thinks you're supposed to be helping me."

The girls finished their latest round of work (I'm so proud of them!), and INEA hasn't gotten their new books to us yet...so I told them to do something to make themselves smarter during our school hours today, but I don't know how keen they are to take that initiative. :) They'd much rather have a break!

I have some cute pictures and video to share when I have a moment free. we'll see.

Big Prayer RequestSSS

Please pray for Steve Manzano -he's the one in charge of accepting new children from Children's Services (DIF), as well as the house dad that lives on the same property as me, and has authority over my girls when they don't respect/listen to me.

He is going to be having surgery on his face this week. There is a growth in a gland that is just in front of his ear and above his jawline. He has a strong feeling it's benign, but we don't know for sure yet. The removal of this will be tricky because the facial nerve that runs right through this gland. There is a chance he could come out of surgery with that side of his face paralyzed. He is already experiencing slight paralysis and pain in that area.

so two three things.
pray that it's benign.
and pray that the surgery goes without complications.
and that things here go fine while him and his wife are in Ensenada (two hours away) getting this taken care of.


also.
I have several older family members, back home, going through severe health issues.
and it's tough.
please pray for them and us, and their grandkids/relatives.
I don't know how they'll feel to have their names on the internet,
but it can't hurt, right?
Norbert, Jim, Shirley.

thanks.

I just wanna...

curl up in my warm scarf on a couch with some dear people.
I think I might go make some tea, that might help.

for now, I'll leave you with all the parts of Gilead by Marilynn Robinson that I really liked...
you don't have to read it if you don't want to.
(my favorite parts are the bigger words.)
of course.

(this is totally unrelated to Mexico)

Then just six months later I baptized her. And I felt like asking her, “What have I done? What does it mean?” That was a question that came to me often, not because I felt less than certain I had done something that did mean something, but because no matter how much I thought and read and prayed, I felt outside the mystery of it. Pg. 21

Water was made primarily for blessing, and only secondarily for growing vegetables or doing the wash. Pg 29

I asked my father in the most offhand way imaginable what exactly would happen to a cat if one were to, say, baptize it. He replied that the Sacraments must always be treated and regarded with the greatest respect. That wasn’t really an answer to my question. We did respect the Sacraments, but we thought the whole world of those cats. I got his meaning, though, and I did no more baptizing until I was ordained….Everyone has petted a cat, but to touch one like that, with the pure intention of blessing it, is a very different thing. It stays in the mind. For years we would wonder what, from a cosmic viewpoint, we had don’t to them. It still seems to me to be a real question. There is a reality in blessing, which I take baptism to be, primarily. It doesn’t enhance sacredness, but it acknowledges it, and there is a power in that. I have felt it pass through me, so to speak. The sensation is of really knowing a creature, I mean really feeling its mysterious life and your own mysterious life at the same time…..You don’t have to be a minister to confer blessing. You are simply much more likely to find yourself in that position. It’s a thing people expect of you.
…
Feuerbach says ”Water is the purest, clearest of liquids; in virtue of this its natural character it is the image of the spotless nature of the Divine Spirit. In short, water has a significance in itself, as water; it is on account of its natural quality that it is consecrated and selected as the vehicle of the Holy Spirit. So far there lies at the foundation of Baptism a beautiful, profound natural significance.” 22-24

I read somewhere that a thing that does not exist in relation to anything else cannot itself be said to exist. Pg. 47

The sprinkler is a magnificent invention because it exposes raindrops to sunshine. That does occur in nature, but it is rare…You two are dancing around in your iridescent little downpour, whooping and stomping as sane people ought to do when they encounter a thing so miraculous as water. Pg. 63

(on gifts of food during a hard time) “My flock had heard (figuratively) an alarm. There was even a bean salad, which to me looked distinctly Presbyterian, so anxiety had overspilled its denominational vessel.” Pg. 127

For perhaps two months I have felt a certain change in the way people act toward me, which could be a simple reflex of the way I act toward them . Maybe I don’t understand as much as I should. Maybe I don’t make as much sense as I should.” Pg. 141

I wish I could leave you certain of the images in my mind, because they are so beautiful that I hate to think they will be extinguished when I am. Well, but again, this life has its own mortal loveliness. And memory is not strictly mortal in its nature, either. It is a strange thing, after all, to be able to return to a moment, when it can hardly be said to have any reality at all, even in its passing. A moment is such a slight thing, I mean, that its abiding is a most gracious reprieve. Pg 162

In the matter of belief, I have always found that defenses have the same irrelevance about them as the criticisms they are meant to answer. I think the attempt to defend belief can unsettle it, in fact, because there is always an inadequacy in argument about ultimate things. We participate in Being without remainder. No breath, no thought, no wart or whisker, is not as sunk in Being as it could be. And yet no one can say what Being is. If you describe what a thought and whisker have in common, and a typhoon and a rise in the stock market, excluding “existence,” which merely restates the fact that they have a place on our list of known and nameable things (and which would yield as insight: being equals existence!), you would have accomplished a wonderful thing, still too partial in an infinite degree to have any meaning, however.
I’ve lost my point. It was to the effect that you can assert the existence of something—Being—having not the slightest notion of what it is. Then God is at a greater remove altogether—if God is the Author of Existence, what can it mean to say God exists? There’s a problem in vocabulary. He would have to have had a character before existence which the poverty of our understanding can only call existence. That is clearly a source of confusion. Another term would be needed to describe a state or quality of which we can have no experience whatever, to which existence as we know it can bear only the slightest likeness or affinity. So creating proofs from experience of any sort is like building a ladder to the moon. It seems that it should be possible, until you stop to consider the nature of the problem.
So my advice is this—don’t look for proofs. Don’t bother with them at all, They are never sufficient to the question, and they’re always a little impertinent, I think, because they claim for God a place within our conceptual grasp. And they will likely sound wrong to you even if you convince someone else with them. That is very unsettling over the long term. “Let your works so shine before men,” etc. It was Coleridge who said Christianity is a life, not a doctrine, words to that effect. I’m not saying never doubt or question. The Lord gave you a mind so that you would make honest use of it. I’m saying you must be sure that the doubts and questions are your own, not, so to speak, the mustache and walking stick that happen to be the fashion of any particular moment.
Pg 178-179