Hi all,
We made it safely to Miami, and then to Mexico City. Then we took the most comfortable bus I’ve ever seen (much less ridden in) for 3 hours to Queretaro. We arrived around 10 pm, very tired and ready for sleep. After a quick orientation about things you do and don’t do (for example, don’t point, don’t whistle, don’t knock more than once – all are offensive. another example, don’t go without shoes in people’s houses, even to the bathroom, and don’t flush toilet paper – put it in the trash). Then, Paul Lambert (the missionary we’re working with here) took us to the houses we were staying at. Sally is staying at the pastor’s house, Corey and Jimmy are staying at another church member’s house, and Natalie and I are staying with a family from the church, as well. Natalie and I met David, Luz Ma, Andrea, David Jr and Fernanda – the family we’re staying with. They all speak a little english, but not enough to make conversation easy. Then we crashed in our bunk beds, grateful for sleep!
The next morning (Thursday), we ate breakfast with our host family, and then David, who is a taxi driver, took us to the Lamberts’ house. We met up with the rest of our team, and then went out for our first day on the job! They are doing several construction projects around town, and we’ve been able to work on two of them – the church building they’re working on (so they won’t have to rent anymore), and the Pastor’s new house. Most of the buildings are built with concrete blocks and stucco, so the guys were sifting sand and dirt for the mixture for mortar and stucco, and the girls were pulling up bucketfuls of water from the cistern, carrying them downstairs, and filling up big metal barrels, so that they would have water at hand for all of their projects. Natalie and Sally were called away to work on the pastor’s house, so I ended up doing a lot of hauling and carrying. When I filled them up, I had to splash water on one of the walls, so they could put the final coat of stucco on it. It was quite an experience – I ended up soaking myself in the process, as well as the wall. Naturally, the guys thought it was hilarious. Now the running joke is that I was the first one baptized in the church. =) At the end of the morning (here they eat breakfast when they wake up, eat a big lunch between 2 and 4, and eat a small dinner around 9 or 10, so in my mind, the morning lasts until we have lunch), we got to spread stucco on the wall I doused, so that one of the two guys who have been working on the church could come back and smooth it over (and make it look pretty). Then we had lunch (having Mexican food all week has been wonderful!!!) at a little restaurant that has 4 sopas (or soups/appetizers), 4 meals, 2 “waters” (i.e watermelon water, jacaronda flower water, lemon water, or any other flavor of water they can come up with), and one dessert to choose from. The menu changes each day, and you can pick from what they have – until they run out. Then we went out to a local orphanage, but they were having their chapel service, so we didn’t stay long. To fill time, Paul took us to look around the city, telling us about its history, about different areas, about their church, the population, how it’s changed in recent years, etc). We got to see the remaining arches of the ancient acqueduct, and a monument to the mother of Mexican independence, as well as some amazing views of the city. After that, we got tamales for dinner. I never knew there were different kinds! We had green, red, a really spicy one that I forget what it’s called, and sweet ones. Who knew – sweet tamales! After such a long day, I had a sinus headache, but when Natalie and I got back to our host family’s house, they were playing cards, so we joined them. We played “Mentiroso,” which is basically B.S. or liar and “cucharas,” which is Spoons. They asked if we had pictures of our families, and really enjoyed seeing the goofy pictures I had of Joel and Rachel (my brother and sister) on my phone.
Queretero has about a million people (much, much bigger than we thought!), and has a wide variety of people – very rich, very poor, lots of government housing, etc. Some areas are gorgeous, and others are what the average person thinks of when they think of Mexico. Sometimes it feels like a culture shock, but because I’ve been to Spain, I haven’t been extremely surprised by some of the things that I’ve seen, and Paul has been with us most of the time, to help us and explain a lot!
Yesterday (Friday), we did more construction. Sally, Natalie and Corey went with Paul and his daughter Hannaleah to do more stucco at the church, and Jimmy and I went to the pastor’s house. He has bought some land (basically enough for a small house – all of the houses are connected with eachother and have very little, if any yard), and they are “remodeling” the current house. It’s mostly just outside walls, but we spent the day tearing down some of the remaining inside walls. They wanted to save as many of the concrete bricks as possible, so we chipped away at the mortar, and tore them down, brick by brick. I did a whole wall while Jimmy worked on another one, and then Jimmy took a sledgehammer to the rebar-enforced frame around it. It was dirty work! I was sure my hair would never be clean again!! We went to lunch at the same place that we went on Thursday, but they had a different menu, so we got to try something different! Then we went back to work, only Sally and I switched and I went to the church site long enough for them to do the top section of another wall, and then we went back to the Lambert’s for worship band practice. Corey and I got roped into helping with worship on Sunday, and we’re joining the family band – Paul on trumpet, his daugther Alicia and I on flute, Hannaleah and her friend Sophia on clarinet, and Corey on piano. Their usual guitar players are out of town, so it’s just us! “Luckily” they have lots of instruments, so we’re able to play. =) After band practice, we joined a “jovenes” (aka young people – 17 to until you get married) Biblestudy with the pastor, and got to listen to two of their testimonies and share one of ours. Then, we went to get dinner – tacos! True Mexican tacos are usually just meat, and possibly cheese, peppers and onions, plus whatever salsas you want, on tortillas. No lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream, etc. It was all you could eat (because Paul kept them coming), and we enjoyed eating with Paul and his family – his wife, Denise, and their seven kids – Alicia, Hannaleah, Cristiana, Paul (III – aka P.J.), Karina, Joshua and Rebecca. Alicia (the oldest) is going to turn 16 this weekend, and Rebecca (the youngest) is five. David and Luz Ma had to go out of town this weekend, so Natalie and I stayed with the Lamberts. Wonderful, noisy, chaos – seven kids (and sometimes plus two that are staying with them so they can be close to their American football team practice), two parents, a grandfather, two dogs, two cats and a fish. It’s great!!
Today we woke up and went out to a local camp that is run by CAM (Central American Missions) International, where we moved bunk beds from cabin to cabin, moved tables and chairs and set them up, and picked up trash – to help prepare for the camp they’re having this coming week. Then we went to P.J. and Joshua’s football games. There is a small peewee-like American football (not futbol – soccer) league here, where several cities have their own teams. They separate the kids by weight – age isn’t as important as size – and are very serious about it; if you are even one kilo over the limit for your weight class, you can’t play. They have cheerleaders and drums and everything – it’s like a very mild futbol game. If you’ve ever seen any soccer games from around the world – especially latin america – on tv, imagine something like that, but on a smaller scale. It got kinda hot, because we had to sit through a game that was inbetween P.J’s and Joshua’s game, so Paul dropped us off in the city (San Juan del Rio) where the game was, and we grabbed lunch, then went shopping for Alicia’s birthday present, and then had ice cream. After that, we went to the home of another missonary family (in San Juan del Rio), who, in addition to being missionaries, have a library of english books in their basement, especially for the home schoolers in the area. A lot of missionary families have left this area because there aren’t any good public schools (and you have to pay for them), private schools are just as expensive as they are in the states, and because they didn’t want to homeschool. This library provides lots of english resources for local missionary families, to help them homeschool. The house was AMAZING. I could move in tomorrow. 
Then we came home, relaxed for a few hours, and Paul cooked out – hot dogs and hamburgers!
So far we’ve only been here for three days, and I already find myself thinking in spanish sometimes and substituting some spanish words for english ones, and I’m already getting used to some of the cultural things that freaked me out a little bit at first. I’m sunburned from tearing down the wall (I used plenty of sunscreen today!!), my hands and wrists are sore from hammering away at all of that mortar and wiggling those bricks loose, and I’m definitely tired! But, I would say that so far, even though we’ve been working really hard, I’ve felt more relaxed here than I have in a long time. The pace of everything seems slower, I’m surrounded by mountains and trees, the food seems more like comfort food than even fried chicken and mashed potatoes, and the company is wonderful. I’ve met a number of people from the church here in Queretaro, and have been very impressed by their hospitality. However, I’ve definitely been reminded of how good I have it – drinking water that doesn’t have to come from a bottle, all the water I want/need, air conditioning, and tons of stuff that I don’t really need. I’ve seen low income before, but down here expectations are just different. It’s not uncommon for there to be no carpet in a house – just tile or concrete, a lot of walls are bare (sometimes painted) concrete, rooms are tiny, and people are grateful for everything – but somehow more happy than a lot of americans that I know. God is really reminding me of how good we have it in the states, and that life is possible – and maybe even sweeter – even when you’re not in the comfortable life that we’re so often used to in the US of A. God is definitely starting to reassure me that it is definitely possible for me to live in another country, to learn other cultural norms, communicate in other languages, and live comfortably, even if my house doesn’t look like what I’m used to, if I don’t have all the space I think I need, and if I don’t have all of my stuff. And, although I’m not about to become a professional brick wall-smasher, it’s nice to go to bed tired each night.
Well, it’s 11:30 pm and tomorrow is our worship band’s debut/final peformance. I’ll add lots of pictures to the picture page later, but for now here’s a picture of our team in San Juan Del Rio.
Goodnight all!
Sitting in the Spanish Square in San Juan del Rio
