What To Say?

There is so much that I could write about. There's no way I could possibly do everything in my mind justice, so I'm just going to hit the highlights.

     When we left Amarillo we stopped for a bathroom break in Plainview, TX. Luke and I broke out into song, "Have you seen Jesus my Lord? He's here in plain view". All the Church of Christer's will know that one. Anyway, as I was walking in, a Mexican man was walking out.
     Him: "Are you from Mexico?"
     Me: "No??"
     Him: "No? Well, do you speak Spanish?"
     Me: " Un poco. Lo siento"
     Him: "Poquito"
     Me: "Oh, poquito"
     Him: "You aren't from Mexico?"
     Me: "No."
     Him: "You don't speak Spanish??"
    Me: "No."
     Me: "I'm actually moving to Mexico right now. We are on  our way."
     Him: "Oh, spanish spanish spanish"
     Me: "No comprendo"
     Him: "Where in Mexico"
    Me: "Chapala"
     Him: "Oh, it's very nice down there. Have a good trip"
Then we shook hands and nodded heads and went about our business. NEVER IN MY LIFE has anyone ever asked me if I was Mexican before . . . but on the day I'm moving to Mexico, this. I just felt like the Lord was winking at me. He was telling me He is with us.

     We spent that night in Abilene visiting our great friends there. Marcus was coming down from their loft. He fell.,,broken arm. We weren't expecting that. Luckily we were staying with our friend who is a fireman who immediately splinted the arm and went with us to the ER.  The whole thing was pretty straight forward, but it could have been terrible. Marcus is handling it amazingly well, and he's great at making sure his cast doesn't get wet. I don't recommend you go around him with water of any kind ;)

     Then we went to Austin. My Aunt was there and we really enjoyed our time with her. Austin was very restful, we needed that!

     The next day we crossed the border and drove into Monterrey. Crossing the border was pretty uneventful. The hard part was finding the Cetev. Cetev is where you get your permit to have a car in Mexico. That part was interesting. All of the people watched our family like we were a circus act. I kept hearing people say "cinco hijos". It seems large families just don't happen around here, so we are sort of an anomaly in that respect. They peeked in our windows, it seemed like they were so overwhelmed with the huge amount of stuff in our car. I don't think they wanted to deal with it, so they just waved us through.

     Monterrey was cray-cray!!! Driving in Mexico is INSANE!  The streets are painted like our streets, but no one follows the laws. People drive in the shoulders, they drive down the middle line that separates the direction of traffic, they cross the double solid yellow to pass (which is terrifying!) . . . Trust me there is no texting while driving in this country, you'd be a gonner if you did!

 

  The next day we drove all the way to Chapala. The highway leaving Monterrey goes up into the mountains. The clouds were down over the mountains, so we had very very bad visibility! It was like driving in a cloud...very eery. The rest of the drive was great. We saw trees in the desert that looked like yucca on a trunk. Turns out that's exactly what they are! I guess if yucca plants in Amarillo got enough rain they would grow trunks, too! It was on this stretch we were pulled over by a police officer in AGUASO

     We were so happy when we finally arrived in Chapala! We were greeted by a very nice group of people who live here on campus. Our home here is lovely. More than I had ever expected. I'll take pictures and post about it later. Yesterday Mandie, Matthew, and I did the laundry by hand . . . I'll post about that later, too. Today after lunch we are going to a little village about an hour away that does not have a church. We will be helping the team we are with teach the children about Christianity. I'll post about that later, too.

We have made many friends here. The kids LOVE it here! The hearts of the missionaries here are in the right place. We feel that the direction and instruction we receive here is from the Lord. Luke will start his Discipleship Training class on Sunday, we are going to start our school on Monday.

     Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. Pray that we will continue to build our Spanish vocabularies, and that our kids will treat each other and others with love.

Blessings!! Cassie


**This was written yesterday morning.