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Top Five

Top Five

I’ve been in Mexico five years this month. In celebration here is a list of some of my “top five” things from my time in the tribe. 5 Nahuatl words that English borrows: chocolate coyote avocado chili tomato 5 Things that surprised the Nahuatl about white people: Our babies grow inside our stomachs We get sick […]
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The Rest of the Story

The Rest of the Story

A year ago this month our team was hoping to finish drilling a well in our village.  We had high hopes for supplying clean drinking water for the Nahuatl that didn’t pan out how we had hoped.  The drill bit broke off and couldn’t be repaired.  It was decided that a bigger rig would be needed and […]
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600 Hours

600 Hours

People way smarter than I am say a person needs 600 hours of reading practice before they are truly literate.  Six hundred!  Let’s say that person reads really, REALLY slowly.  That means I would still need about 600 books available in Nahuatl for the students who will graduate out of Las Moras’s first literacy class. […]
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Praying throug the Rainy Season

Praying throug the Rainy Season

The internet has been causing our team a great deal of grief, lately.  For almost two months it hasn’t worked at all, and we are uncertain if it will be working at all during rainy season.  I know many of you use our team’s updates as a way of praying for us, and we are honored, […]
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A Village Funeral

A Village Funeral

What starts with the rosary and ends with a knife fight?  In Las Moras, the answer is a village funeral. This last week as our team was at the cemetery, where the village was mourning the loss of and elderly woman.  The deceased’s son asked me if I knew how to pray the rosary.  I […]
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Afraid of the Dark

Afraid of the Dark

Leo has had a hard week.  Or more like a series of hard weeks.  She hasn’t been sleeping well since December, when her teen-aged daughter Teresa started feeling like she couldn’t breathe at night.  Leo would rub Teresa’s chest and stay up with her, as the daughter was terrified that she was dying.  She said she […]
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Going to the Fence

Going to the Fence

“Going to the fence” is the phrase our team uses for “answering the door” or “seeing-why-someone-is-standing-by-the-gate-screaming-your-name-for-the-last-three-minutes-while-you-try-to-finish-brushing-your-teeth.”  There are lots of reasons for going to the fence but I thought I’d share some from the last few weeks. Ladies came to visit (love this one!) Men came to borrow the shovel…and the pick…and a measuring tape…and […]
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Walkies…

Walkies…

All the cool people in this village have walkies.  It’s like an iPhone; a status symbol and seen as necessary to connect with friends three houses over.  You pick your channel number, tell it to your friends, and then talk to them during the day.  A typical conversation goes something like this: Person 1: Hey, […]
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Good News, Great Joy

Good News, Great Joy

When I was a little girl my dad would often comment on the line in the Christmas story that says, “Behold I bring you good news of great joy which shall be for all people.”  Essentially the angels were announcing what missionaries would continue to proclaim thousands of years later.  There is good news.  When the […]
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Sign of the Cross

Sign of the Cross

We went to a funeral yesterday.  People gathered in the cemetery to mourn for a teenage boy who was crushed by a car.  People from three villages brought flowers from their yards and made the sign of the cross with dirt, with holy water, and with their hands.  The sign of the cross without the […]
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