Happy 1st Birthday, Jacinda!!

Let me preface this post by saying, "Yes, we're still alive and well!!"  Life has been very busy for us and blogging has been pushed to the back burner.  But now that school has started for another year, I'm hoping to put blogging back into the schedule!  The only bad thing?  The detail and organizational side of me says I need to catch everyone up on all the happenings that have been missed!  Hmmm...why must I let it bother me?  At any rate, I'll try to post a few monthly reviews until we're up to date and we're also wanting to add a few more things to the blog too...so, stay tuned!

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Now I know you haven't seen or heard much maybe about this little girl (due to my lack of blogging), but time has flown over the past year, and Jacinda turned 1 on Sept. 18th!

She's our little sweetie and we love her dearly!

 Sometimes I call her "Jacy."  She likes to smile, clap to songs, and giggle for her brothers.  She doesn't officially crawl, but does a half-crawl-scoot that gets her where she wants to go!  She has two teeth and loves to eat (takes after the rest of this family)!  At times she can act shy and other times, well, she can be very vocal!!  Can't you just see her personality showing in the picture below?  =)

What a special blessing she is.  We thank God for giving Jacinda to us to raise and we pray that as she grows, she will learn to love Jesus.  Happy Birthday, sweet pea!!

And maybe someday, I'll finally get around to posting her birth story and baby pictures!  =)

Evangelistic Campaign in Salvador Urbina

While we were home on furlough, several people from a mountain village called Salvador Urbina (aka: retiro) began attending our church in Tapachula and also began new believer studies with our pastors-in-training.  By the time we arrived, some of these believers were ready for baptism.

We held a two day evangelistic campaign (April 18-19) at the retiro with attendees from our churches in Tapachula, Motozintla, Guatemala, and of course, the local village people.

On Friday afternoon we held the baptismal.  It was a neat little spot.  The water was not deep, but it was a perfect temperature and the refreshing mountain breezes were nice for keeping us city folk cool!

Some of the children finding good seats!

A lot of the adults stood on the opposite bank.
And don't tell anyone, but I stood in a few
inches of water to keep cool and get good pictures!  ;-)

Uh-oh!  Someone looks like he was missing his afternoon nap!

↑  Two of Edith's aunts  ↓

Lucy.  What a change has been made in her life!  PTL

She's the wife of Arturo and a sister to Antonio, Humberto, Diana, and Abigail.

Carlos.  The son of Arturo and Lucy.

I looked up from taking pictures and saw these guys with their phones/cameras!  From what we've discovered in our area of the world...it doesn't matter how little money you make, everyone somehow has a tv and a cell phone!  Priorities, you know?

We had another great happening Friday evening during our service.  Rainy season hadn't officially started yet around these parts, so we thought our outdoor services would be "safe."  Yep - you guessed it!  About the time that Bro. Cruz got up to preach, it decided to POUR!!!!  Most everyone grabbed their chair and ran to the porch of a nearby house, while a few others disconnected the sound system, speakers, and keyboard!  After getting settled, we finished the service crowded in the house and porch.  Great memories!

We are so thankful for how the Lord helped us in this evangelistic campaign.  For now, the people from the retiro are still traveling about 45 mins. to our church in Tapachula on Sunday mornings, and Michael and a few others are traveling up the mountains every Friday evening for a Bible Study.  Continue to keep us/them in your prayers, as the one section of road that they travel on has been known to have robbers stopping travelers in recent weeks.

Our First Weekend Back Home

One of the first things we noticed when we arrived home was the appearance of our yard.  It never was anything to write home about in the first place, but now it was barren of grass and had unsightly clumps of weeds throughout it.  This was thanks to a few extremely hot months with no rain, as well as not having it regularly taken care of in our absence.

So what do we do?  On a Saturday when we really needed to spend more time in preparation for our first Sunday back?  Yeah.  We started to turn over the ground...by hand...with a shovel...in the VERY HOT sunny weather...  What were we thinking?!  :-)

 ( I think our beautiful palm tree has about "bit the dust!" )

We finally did get the one section of ground worked over and most of the weeds pulled out before dark.  Just as the sun was setting, we got it seeded, fertilized, and the water sprinkler turned on.  And now a week later, we actually have some little green shoots coming up!  Yay!  Now to get the rest of the yard worked over.

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We had a great first Sunday back in Tapachula.  There were probably 50 people or so there.  It was so nice to see how God has been working in the lives of different ones!

And, they served a delicious meal for everyone after the service!

Sunday evenings we usually head up the mountain to Santo Domingo.  Some of the people who had been attending previously were unable to make it, but we are hoping to see more this coming Sunday.  Everyone else was happy to see us and to meet Jacinda!

 ( Andrea meeting Jacinda! )

( Benjamin and his buddy, Parker! )

Our to-do list is ever growing, but I hope to be back soon with a report from this past week on how our two day evangelistic campaign and baptismal in Salvador Urbina went.  Stay tuned!

We're Home!

PTL!  We have arrived back home in Mexico!

I really didn't mean to leave y'all hanging here without hearing any news, but life got a little busy these past two weeks as we were preparing to leave.  Let's see:

•    April 2-4  -  Michael and the boys got to attend Missions Convention at Penn View while I stayed at home and packed.

 { Jacinda sleeping in the swing while I'm packing }

•    April 5  -  My sister ended up in the hospital with a blood infection.

•    April 6  -  Parker had a birthday!  He turned 3!

{ the boys }

{ Jacinda }

•    April 9  -  And finally...we left in the evening to drive to JFK for our red eye flight to Mexico!

{ Getting ready to leave.  We had 10 large checked-in suitcases, and 10 carry-ons, plus a dog crate and a stroller!  Special thanks to Gratz EWC for allowing us to use their church van and to Steve Miller for driving us!  }

•    April 10  -  We arrived in Tapachula!

After our last few flying escapades, we were hoping for a smooth, problem free trip.  And you know what?  God answered our prayers and we had no problems!  In fact, at every turn and with each official, we were shown extra kindness and given extra help!

When we arrived at the airport here in Tapachula, we were greeted with a good group of people from our church.  What a surprise!  They helped us to get our luggage loaded up and then brought us back to our house.

Now the fun began!  We had no electric and no water.  We decided to spend the night at a hotel until we could get the situation resolved.  Finally yesterday, the electric company came and turned on the power.  The only problem, the downstairs worked, but not the upstairs!  We called someone to come look at our electric box and it turned out to be an easy fix!  So, we were able to sleep in our house last night.

But, we're still having issues with our water pump.  So, we're hoping to work on that today so that we can have water!  =)    **Update:  we had to buy a new water pump - but our water is now up and running!!

What else can we say?  Even with all the issues that come with returning to your field of service after begin gone for an extended period of time...it's good to be HOME. SWEET. HOME!

Up-to-date News

So...it's been forever since I posted!  How is it that time can slip so quickly out of our grasp?

I've been wanting to do some "posts in review" so that everyone can be up to date with all the highlights from the past 8 months or so, but I've had a hard time knowing where to begin.  I guess that's what happens when you get so far behind!  =)

For now, I'll just do this short post with the condensed version of our current plans.

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September brought the birth of our baby girl (more about that in another post) and the return of Michael  to the US.  We then spent most of the fall and some of the winter doing deputation services.  The Lord really helped us and we were planning on returning to Mexico on January 16th.

The closer we got to that date, the more Michael was feeling the stress of having been in MX by himself for 4 months catch up with him.  Looking back, he feels that he had been close to having a nervous breakdown while on the field.  After seeking some counsel and advice, we decided to postpone our return to the field until the middle of March.

These last few months have been a time of much needed rest and relaxation.  Michael has felt the hand of the Lord touching him and restoring him to full health.  During the first week of March, he was scheduled to preach a camp meeting at H.I.M.'s hispanic church in Ft. Myers, Fl and so we scheduled our return flights to MX for March 20th.

And...here we are still!  Last Saturday night (the 16th), Michael and I were talking about our passports. I knew mine would expire in April and I thought maybe two of the kids' expired sometime this fall.  Upon returning home that night, I checked...and discovered that Kyle and Taylor's passports had already expired in January!  Woops!  Now what?  We were supposed to leave Tues. evening for an early morning flight on Wed.

Michael called the passport center in Philadelphia, but their first available appt. was for Thursday morning (the 21st).  So we called the airlines and told them we wouldn't be making our scheduled flights.

I must say that when Tuesday came, we were feeling a little out-of-sorts!  We were mostly packed and definitely ready to go!  But, we want to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit the most.

Thursday we were able to get/renew the needed passports and now we're ready to go again...only we're not sure of the exact date.  We definitely want to follow God's timing for us, so we're trying to patiently wait for a clear answer as to when to leave.  Would you help us pray to that end?

...And I'll try to keep everyone updated better!!! =)

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And just because a blog post is boring without at least one picture...here's one from when we were just in Philadelphia to renew our passports.  We took a short carriage ride around the old city.  Unfortunately, we had to do it on the coldest day of spring...or so it seemed!!

Our Trip to PA - Part III

If you haven't yet read Part I or Part II of this saga, you can read them by clicking on the highlighted links.

{ THE REST OF THE STORY }

And so, as you have read previously, we had a wonderful time in PA!  Sadly, our departure on Friday May 11th was drawing close.  But we were a little unsure how to proceed.

Because we already had planned that the kids and I would be coming home in July (because of my pregnancy, etc...), we were praying that the Lord would make it clear if we should return to Mexico with Michael as planned, or try to save some money by just staying in PA until the baby's due date.  We felt no direction to do anything other than what was originally planned, so Thursday before we were to leave, I spent the day packing!

Early Friday morning, we, along with my family, were off to the Harrisburg airport.  Well, when we finally got to the counter and tried to check in, we were told our first flights had been cancelled!!  They told us United had cancelled our trip because we had not shown up for the first leg of the trip back in April when we were having all those issues getting to PA!  (read part I) We had no idea ~ I had checked travelocity late the night before and printed our itineraries off, and everything appeared to be in order.  Now what were we to do?!

The agents at the counter said to call travelocity.  We called them.  They said to call United.  Round and round we went!  By the time we were able to get someone to get us straightened out, the boarding process for our scheduled flight had already been completed and we couldn't go.  Just great.

Michael and I looked at each other and realized this was our answer to prayer.  With this development and now the additional costs of needing to purchase new flights, it was not monetarily feasible for me and the kids to return to Mexico.

Although we would have chosen to know this information before we got to the airport that morning, we know that God's plan is the best plan, no matter the timing!

And so, we loaded our luggage back into the vehicles and headed north.  We were able to get a decent flight out of JFK the following week for Michael, and supposedly, we have a little credit from the airlines to help with our flight expense when we return as a family to Mexico in January.

Since that time, the kids and I have been enjoying spending the summer in PA with our families and trying to be a blessing in our home church, while Michael is ministering alone in Mexico.  The Lord has really been blessing and helping him there and I hope to post some updates from him in the next few days.  I'm sure he would appreciate your continued prayers for him.

Michael has plans to return home on September 20th, and our little baby girl is due September 30th!  As of now, we have plans to begin our fall deputation starting the middle of October.  We hope to see some of you at our services!  We'll also be able to spend the holidays here in PA with our families, and then we hope to return to Mexico the beginning of January.

And now, you know the rest of the story!!!  =)  Maybe I can try and keep this poor old neglected blog more up to date, you think?!!!

{ the boys have enjoyed going fishing with Pappy }

To see various misc. pictures from our time here in PA this summer, feel free to follow me on facebook, or my sister who posts lots of pictures of her nephews!  Or if you're not signed up with facebook, you can see pics on this album.

Our Trip to PA - Part II

If you would like to read Part I from our trip to PA, click here.

{ Our Visit }

We started off our month long visit with getting my sister married!  Congratulations to Josh and Brenda!

I hope you enjoy some of my favorite pics...

{ the beautiful bride }

{ me and my little sister }

{ the wedding party }

{ Brenda and her nephews }

{ our family }

{ Taylor preceded the bride down the aisle holding this sign.  It was so cute! }

{ my family - the Pardoe's }

Next, we spent a lot of time visiting with family and friends!  We had many evenings of enjoying good food, fellowship, and conversation!  We also really enjoyed worshipping with our home church family.  It was refreshing and a great blessing to our hearts!

And to those of you who don't know, we also had a doctor's appt. scheduled while we were in PA.  Why?  Well, we are pleased to announce that we are expecting baby #4 in about 10 more weeks!!  They also tell us that IT'S A GIRL!!!!!!

We are very happy and excited!!!  It will also make life a little more interesting as we are planning on starting our fall deputation about two weeks after the baby is due!! Whew...I'd better get busy organizing and planning now!

So now you know almost all the news...but wait!  There's more to this story.  Check back for Part III and how the Lord guided our steps in regards to our return back to Mexico.  Sometimes, the Lord works in mysterious ways...