Alarm clocks

On Friday night PCS held the annual Fun Fall Fest, the school's alternative to Halloween and Day of the Dead. Like last year, this year I painted faces. Because my station was outside, I had more customers than the previous year when I was inside. The drawback was the mosquitoes. When the dark came, so did they - in great swarms.

Thank you for your prayers for Abraham and I. In the morning on Friday Abraham went with his seminary classmates to some ruins. On the way back they got lost, so the driver tried to make up time while returning to the seminary. As they sped along the road, they hit a dip and flew. The group in the car behind them said it looked as though the car would flip. Typical of Puebla, only the driver was wearing a seat belt, so had the car flipped, everyone would have been seriously injured or killed. Thank God for his hand on them.

On Sunday we visited Flor and baby Jeronimo. He is a very tranquil child and slept peacefully as Abraham and I took turns holding him. Someone from church had donated a crib and some food, so we gave those to the family. Abraham also passed by to see how Don Ezekiel was doing, but he was not home. Please keep praying.

On a quirky note: Abraham and I received the gift of a clock that takes the time from Colorado. Supposedly the clock is always exact. The problem is, Mexico changed time over the weekend and the US did not. I manually changed the clock, but sometime during Sunday night, the clock changed itself again. When the alarm rang at "6:15" this morning, I got up and got ready for the day, all the while with the nagging suspicion that something wasn't right. Why was it dark outside still? Why couldn't I hear the neighbors? When I went to the kitchen to begin breakfast, I saw the normal clock - it was still 5:35. This gave me time to make banana muffins and soup for tonight's dinner , read my Bible, and take the laundry down from the line. I still don't plan to get up an hour early every day. Until the US changes as well, we will put the alarm at 7:15.

Jeronimo!

I have not been to visit Flor since just after her baby was born, but Abraham had the chance to see them Wednesday of last week. The baby's name is Jeronimo, since he was named after the saint for Sept. 30. St. Jerome is not a bad person to be named after; he is called the 'Doctor of the church' for translating the Bible into Latin.

Sunday Dios es Amor celebrated eight years of life. Several people were baptized, and Abraham was the one who baptized three of them. This was his first time baptizing.

Mixed with the happiness and celebration of the anniversary was profound sorrow. Early that morning, one of the elders of the church received the news that his son had died in a car crash at midnight. His son was only 23. He and his friends had been drinking, and the driver drove the car off a bridge, killing all 5 people. Please pray for Andres and his family. This is the last in a series of tragedies that they have faced recently.

Yesterday, the fifth and sixth grade class moved back to the PCS campus. It was an extremely hectic day, since when we arrived we found that there were no chairs, and the desks that had been moved back into the room were the wrong ones (some of them were first and second grade size). Also, all the books that had been on the shelves were stacked on one table, the plants were in the hallway, the fish tank was filthy, and one of the high schoolers had put another spider in with the tarantula to see if they would fight (the tarantula was boarding in another room during our absence). Because the kids didn't have a place to sit or put their text books, I had them help me reorganize and shelve the books rather than try to conduct class. However, after they finished, the desks and chairs still hadn't arrived, so we had language arts and grammar class while seated on the floor. The students had math class in another room, and then it was lunch time, with music class following in yet another classroom. Only during last period did we finally have desks and chairs, and the kids were able to put away all their books. Now the room actually looks as it should.

Abraham continues to work hard with the multitude of seminary homework. There are many times when he goes to bed late and gets up early in order to finish all the reading. Please pray for energy and strength. Pray also for his eyes; the eye infection he had as a child makes it hard for him to see well and makes his eyes tire and sting quickly.

It's a boy (who doesn't have a name yet)

Finally Flor's baby is born. She had to have a cesarean on Wednesday, because he just didn't want to come out. Abraham and I went to visit today. Both baby and mom are healthy, although Flor is, understandably, still tired. Please continue to pray for her as she takes on the responsibility of being a mother at such a young age.

We also visited Don Ezequiel at his home, and he came to the Bible lesson for part of the afternoon. He is doing poorly and talked openly of being tired of life and of wanting to die. He said he would not make it to his next birthday which is this month. Pray for him and for his up-coming medical testing. So far he does not have a specific date for the testing, but it should be soon. He is very discouraged and is in a lot of pain.

Last week on Thursday my students joined the first and second graders for a field trip at a gigantic park in the city. We went to look for insects and composite flowers, since both classes had been studying them in science class. At first when we arrived, we reviewed the information that the children had learned, and then they explored for awhile. About half hour later, we called them back and gave them a list of items to find. Gradually as they were looking for the items, we moved toward the park's aviary, since some of the kids had brought the money to enter. Those who entered the aviary after lunch thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

My students are adjusting well to being at the seminary. It is more difficult, since we share the space and every Monday, Tuesday, and Friday the kids have to stack their books next to the teacher's desk, but on the other hand, the kids have a much bigger space to play in during recess. We'll be at the seminary for at least another month. It's very much a play-it-by-ear situation, and certainly never boring!