Our New Grand Daughter

We have a new grand daughter born in Thailand on 15 March. Here are photos of this new gorgeous little Heine.

Construction of Baños has Begun

In our April 4, 2009 blog, seen here, we talked about a church project we wanted to help get going, and several of you generously responded. We received approximately half the funds we needed and they have now begun working on the much needed baños, so that we can meet at the new property. Today´s blog gives a glimpse of the building process as it is beginning. We are still about $12,000 short of the estimate but that doesn't prevent getting underway.

First a few pictures of the property as it is today. They have already built a nice brick entrance to the property. Also with heavy equipment coming in and out, the driveway on the property has become packed down firmly. Here are the pictures of the current property. In support of the work at the church property, a prayer meeting is scheduled every day except Wednesday and Sunday when other meetings are scheduled. Sunday dinner at church also continues each week to help raise funds.

Here are photos of the beginning steps of building the baños. It may not look like much but we are just excited about the fact that it is actually beginning. That is one thing we have learned down here with regard to many things - patience. Mañana does not mean tomorrow, it just means "not today".

During the last few months we ran into a hiccup with regard to the new church. In January, while we were in Thailand, a major windstorm came through the area here and did quite a bit of damage. The damage we sustained at the new church property was that the original (used) tarp was torn off and destroyed. Pictures before and after can be seen here. The cost of a new and more durable tarp is on the order of $2,500. If any group or individual would like to sponsor a nice little project, here you go!

Thailand 2010

This blog will mostly consist of pictures of our annual trip to Thailand. This year we spent a whole three weeks there and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. We did not take as many pictures as we would have liked but here are some to give a flavor of what we did.

The first Saturday that we were there was "kid's day" in Thailand. There are all sorts of festivities, free air shows, free rides at various places and many other things. When we arrived at the place where they had rides we not only enjoyed the rides but to see Thailand in true form again. Here are some pictures of what we saw. You will notice some of the things like plastic oil cans used for fuel for the various motors as well as electrical cords all over the place lying on the ground and no guard rails or fences anywhere. One picture we didn't take was of a redundant gas engine sitting next to the one being used just in case. However, the kids enjoyed all the rides and no one was hurt. Here is a video of Isaac "driving" the train. Notice he is steering, an engineer the whole way, must be in his genes. Here is another video but of him waving this time.

Talking about the Thai way of doing things, here is a picture of bamboo scaffolding lashed together with rope. This was a house being built in the development that Adam and Cindy live in.

Cindy has been running three dance classes per week, all different ages. A week after we got there Cindy had a recital for her students. Here are photos of the recital and her classes.

Emmett Blue, a friend of Adam and Cindy's from San Diego, was staying at their house while we were there. However, he was on his way to Africa so we went with the boys to see Emmett off on the train to Bangkok. For $15 USD he took the train from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, an eight hour train ride. Here are photos of Emmett getting on the train and then his train leaving the station.

Our two little three year old grandsons are now attending preschool in a co-op. Here are photos of the school and the boys in the school. They absolutely love it. Speaking of school, Cindy home schools the boys and Sean and Prang's two year old daughter each day. Here is a video clip of Cindy teaching the kids.

One day we took the boys to the elephant farm to see the show and to ride elephants. Here are some photos of that adventure. Here is also a photo of a proud nana and her grandsons at Adam and Cindy's house. Here is a video of our boys feeding an elephant.

Adam and Cindy are in the process of trying adopt a new little girl. She is two years old and was born premature. As a result a couple of months ago she had just begun sitting up and apparently is blind because of being in an oxygen tent too long. Believe it or not, her Thai nickname is Pancake. Here are a couple of photos of Pancake. From watching her, we would say she can see something because she was reaching out directly and grabbing things and was not just responding to noise. She has started standing with help. Here is a video of her actually walking as she pushes a chair around.

One of the last nights that we were there, we went to the Christian Communications Institute, CCI. They had a display of various dances from Northern and Southern Thailand. Here is a video of part of the program. There is narration along with this video in English. It is about five minutes long but it is interesting to see the Thai culture through dance.

Remodeled kitchen

The kitchen in the boy's home was designed to feed a family at the most of five or six. With twenty-five boys and six or seven staff it was barely functional for cooking or storing food. After speaking with the director as well as the ladies who do the cooking, Walt first built new bookshelves and a desk in the living room, which enabled them to move books from shelves in the eating area. This allowed the kitchen to expand into the old eating area, using the old library shelves as a new pantry and building a service counter, to separate it from the living room, and then moving one of the two refrigerators out from a small alcove and building additional shelves in that alcove for a new pantry. This whole remodel is shown, as best as possible, in these pictures. We were actually able to complete it all before Christmas. Now we need to purchase a new stove to go in the expanded kitchen area - next item on the remodel list. So we just keep on plugging away. In January we are going to Thailand again to visit the family there.

Amateur Carpenter's Dream

We had a pleasant surprise this last month. We had heard that a donor was building a workshop for the boys at Casa Hogar "Mi Esperanza". When we saw a picture of the completed building we were amazed at the size. There is a large workshop on the first floor, and four small apartments above. So we went up to see it in person and found out that the Rotary Club of Langley, BC was donating funds for a new Toyota Commuter Van and for wood working tools for the workshop. Here is a photo of Rodney Dutro, Director of Casa Hogar, a part of Shepherd's Hearts Ministry - a local missions outreach, officially receiving the check for both the van and the tools, from David, president of Rotary Club Langley, BC. Since Walt was raised in Langley he had much to talk about with David. Here are photos of the van and some of the people associated with the project.

The amount set aside for the tools was $20,000 USD. Rodney had been serving as the sole leader of the workshop and since Walt has more carpentry experience, was this God saying that we should take a more substantial role? We thought yes, and so Walt helped list tools to be purchased - clearly all would be professional grade to come up to the amount. Nancy was not left out of this new call for us. She used to do wood carving, and half way looking through the empty shop and the prospects of the new tools, the thought of teaching the boys wood carving in conjunction with the woodworking projects came to her mind. She has ordered new wood carving tools for herself and for the boys. Are we ready to take on the responsibility of teaching carpentry and wood carving? We haven't heard "no" yet, and are looking forward to it. As far as the new shop tools, a week or two after specifying what would be desired, we received a call that the tools had arrived so we went and set them all up. A week later David, the Rotary Club of Langley president, showed up and was able to see them set up. They are shown in these photos. These are some serious tools! Each weighs from 235 kg to 365 kg, yeah that is like 500 to almost 800 pounds. The surfaces, legs and supports are all cast iron! We couldn't take them out of the crates, we had to de-construct the crates around the tools. Talk about drooling..... If anyone feels a twinge of jealousy because of all this cool equipment, we sure could use any help in planning an instruction program as well as putting such a program into effect.

When David explained how he found out about this project and it came to fruition, we just looked at each other and said, "God Thing". Apparently David came down to learn more about this area. He attended a week long series of seminars presented by Focus on Mexico, which we had also attended a couple of years ago. Another one of our local missionaries, Meme Thorpe, gives a presentation on local volunteer opportunities and as part of that talks about Casa Hogar. David heard the need and knew his local Rotary chapter had some funds. So he went back and presented it to the local district who said they would match his funds. Then it went up to the zone level and again was matched, resulting in a sizable final amount. So clearly God had big plans for the boy's home and we are excited to be a part of it.

As a quick update on another project that we have been working on, we sent out a request several months ago for donations to help build the bathrooms of our new church so that we could finally move services from the mud in the current place to a concrete floor - especially before the rains begin again next June. Well, we are about halfway to receiving all the funds needed. They announced in church last Sunday that they are planning to begin construction of the bathrooms this week. Of course room remains for additional support if anyone is feeling called!

A Way Late Update

We have not posted anything for a couple of months as we have been continually on the move. Retirement, HA!, just a joke.

We have been to couple of interesting events since last time that we wanted to share to give you more of a flavor of Mexico. The first was we went to a Mexican rodeo with all the charros fully dressed in their large hats and special chaps. We had a special invitation by the owner of the ranch, and three large tour buses took the group from Ajijic to the rodeo. It was very fascinating to see the difference between rodeos here and in the States. There was horse roping, bull wrestling and the proverbial bull and wild mare riding. Since the event was sponsored by a tequila producer, for those who wanted, the tequila was flowing freely. However, we wanted to see the rodeo. Here are some pictures of the rodeo. We also took some videos to give a flavor of the rodeo activities. A video of charros riding formation in the arena. One video shows an event where the charros had to demonstrate horse control by how quickly they could stop the horse from a full gallop. Here are videos of a charro lassoing a horse, one lassoing while riding a horse and another from the ground - notice how the horse, as it is going down, drags the charro. Another video of a charro riding a bull and one more of riding a wild mare, notice the suede leather "horn gloves" on the bull. And a video of wrestling a bull to the ground by grabbing its tail and flipping it. After the rodeo we were guests at a very elaborate lunch with delicious authentic Mexican food. It was outdoors and decorated like a wedding. Here are some pictures of the special outdoor lunch.

A few weeks later we attended a wedding of some friends we met through JUCUM, which is the Mexican equivalent of YWAM. Dale is from the Bahamas and Lisette is from a village called Tapalpa in the mountains of Jalisco. Not only was the wedding of interest but the mountain village was absolutely beautiful and very interesting. The village is at an altitude of 7,000 feet and after a very windy road we got to a plateau on top that was reminiscent of the Route 120 access into Yosemite Valley including, of all things, the large pine trees. We thought we were back in the Sierra Nevada. Since there are a lot of trees, wood is used extensively in their buildings, as opposed to where we live, where little wood is used in building. The walls of the houses line the street right on the sidewalk and are all white with red trim and wood frames around doors and windows. We noticed that all the roofs are sloped, unlike in our area where they are flat, and the sidewalks were very high off the road. We found out why when during the wedding it poured like crazy, and the sloping roof allowed runoff and the streets became flooded. Here are pictures of Tapalpa. The wedding itself was interesting. They actually were married in the Bahamas a couple of weeks earlier and this was the brides wedding for her family in Mexico. The wedding included many Mexican traditions. The one we really liked is when the couple danced and people would break in to dance with them and then had to pin money on their clothes. Here are some pictures of the wedding.

Other happenings: Walt built a kitchen island for some friends. Karen bought some pasta machines for her husband's birthday; Bill is a fantastic cook. However, their kitchen counter made it difficult to clamp the machine down to work it. So the solution? They asked Walt if he would be willing to make them an island, complete with granite top. So with a few pictures and rough measurements Walt, the newly bona fide Mexican craftsman, designed and built the island. Then, true to Mexican fashion, payment was through the bartering system. For his efforts we got a pasta machine, pasta drying rack, pasta cook books and two free meals!! Here are pictures of this endeavor.

One morning last week we were surprised to see what looked like a twig off a pine tree stuck on the screen door. Closer inspection revealed this to be an interesting insect in disguise. Here is a picture of this guy. Note how the green and brown really do make it look like a pine twig, but what pine twig has four perfectly spaced needles?

We are heading to Oregon this week to see Nancy's parents, and then a long weekend in San Diego to visit Kirsty and Will, with a quick trip to Disneyland as well. Kirsty and Will celebrate their one year wedding anniversary on September 27 !

Of Projects and Jellyfish

We have not posted a blog for two months because of all that is going on with projects, travel and the like.

In May Walt was busy making shelves and cabinets for the Boy's Home, Casa Hogar, and bookshelves for the language school we attended, Harvest Language School, a language school designed by missionaries for missionaries. Thanks to them we are beginning to feel quite comfortable with our Spanish. The bookshelves and cabinets are shown here.

At the beginning of June we went to California for Katie's, our boarder for the last two years before leaving California, wedding reception. While we were there we had six very full days. We got to see all of our family, except for our Thailand bunch, and through the auspices of Facebook got to see most of our friends that we have not seen since leaving. We spent the first day in Monterey with Eric and was the only place we managed to get pictures. The only picture we got of Eric was this one. The other pictures we got were videos of some interesting creatures at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Here is a video clip of a jelly fish moving through the water and here is a video clip of a luminescent jelly fish that we found very interesting. Then we couldn't help but be mesmerized by seahorses as shown in this video clip. Then we saw the most amazing seahorse that looks like vegetation moving through the water. You can see that here. We found out Saturday morning that in front of our hotel was the Sunnyvale Art and Wine Festival. Kirsty had flown up the evening before and instead of going to Andrew and Gretchens place as planned, we told them to meet us at the festival. Then we saw a bunch of our FBCLA friends at the reception Saturday night and our GBF friends on Sunday since that is where we attended church. Then Sunday afternoon Nancy had worked out via Facebook to have friends drop by at Red Rock Cafe. A friend saw this discussion on Facebook and told us that she was planning a surprise birthday party for her dad, a friend of more than 40 years, and invited us to come. So, to our pleasant surprise, we saw a host of old friends at that party.

When we returned to Mexico, Walt got busy building three cabinets that our pastor had asked for to store materials for the children's ministries. The added wrinkle was they wanted cabinets with locking doors. The cabinets are shown here.

June is also the beginning of our rain season. To show the difference a bit of rain makes we took pictures of the mountains behind our house a few weeeks before the rains and then a week or two after they began. The difference is clearly evident in these photos.

The rains also had a major impact on our church "under the tarps". Last Saturday night we had a major storm come through and when we showed up at church, the tarps were all down on the ground and because of the ropes holding the corners up, it looked like a huge above-ground swimming pool. Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures but when we showed up Sunday morning for band rehearsal there was no way to get it repaired by the time church started. So we jammed everyone on a terrace. Good news is the new church facility is almost complete. Our little congregation, old church tarps and new facilities are shown in these photos.

While Walt was building the cabinets for church, Nancy was asked by the pastor to make some backdrops for some drama that they were going to do at the new facility. Nancy was responsible for painting a scene of the earth, Heaven's Gate and the door to hell. The earth scene, which because of last minute glitches, never got used, was essentially the view from our terrace. These backdrops are shown here. The interesting thing about this drama is that it was intended for outreach into the community. They had just got the roof of the new facility in place a week ago, had concrete floors, no walls and no electricity. But the idea is, "we have a facility, lets use it!" Electric installation was completed one hour before the beginning of the first service. There were three planned on 20, 21 and 22 July. Nancy's backdrops were key to the play and are shown in use, with views of the first meeting - pretty much packed out, here. The premise of the whole drama was whether we made the right decision on earth, the earth scenario, with regard to admittance to heaven, Heaven's Gate backdrop, or to be relegated to hell, doors of hell backdrop. On Tuesday night, 21 July, we had the worst storm we have seen here, incredible wind and hailstones the size of large peas. Two minutes after the service began the power went out and wind-blown rain began tearing some of the canvas walls down and flooding the concrete floor. But the tenacity of these folks was evident as we continued on and completed the entire service. For a while lights were run off a car battery until power was restored after the drama had begun. A real lesson for us, its the message and not the building that counts.

Speaking of the building, we can't begin Sunday morning services yet at the new site because there are no bathrooms. We are sure the pastor would be very appreciative if he had some additional funds available to build those so we can get on with it. Instructions for helping out in any way possible is in our April 4 blog. Just remember to designate "Church in Ixtlahuacan" on the tax deductible donation check.