Dirt, Fleas, and Cabinetries

"Two dollars, very cheap!" the Immigration officer declared. He places a small tub of honey and a jar of salsa in front of me. I can't believe the officer who is giving me a tourist visa is trying to sell me products! Only in Mexico! Now I ponder to myself, will he refuse my visa if I choose not to buy his wares? I take the risk and politely decline. He still gave me the visa. Phew!

We left Camarillo to start our new life of adventure on June 30th at 4am. Fortunately, the drive down was a pleasant one. I was so worried I wouldn't even be able to drive due to an untimely sinus cold I caught a few days before our trip. My throat was in so much pain the night before we left that I barely got any sleep. Perhaps at best 2 hrs. I asked family and friends to pray for me and the Lord answered our prayers! Once we hit the road, my symptoms subsided and didn't return until we reached our destination.

Two weeks before we moved down, our friend, Hope, who is a local missionary here in Mexico, offered for us to live on the 3rd floor of her house. It has been such a blessing. Before getting her offer, we weren't able to find any local homes to rent in the area where we were hoping to live. We are in the process of turning one of the bedrooms into a kitchen so we will have a functioning apartment.

Adjusting has been difficult. The food as taken it's toll on our boys' digestive system...if you know what I mean...The house has a problem with fleas. Which really isn't a surprise since there are fleas in the dirt, not just on pets. It's a reality that everyone down here has to deal with. Poor Wyatt is getting bit the worst. Apparently he is super sensitive to their bites and he's their favorite. He has the most bites out of all of us. Today I counted 20! I've been on the war path trying to get rid of them.

Dirt. It's everywhere and it's driving me nuts! It's a fine powdery dirt that gets into every nook and cranny when the wind blows it into the air. Of course, my boys love to play in it. Isn't almost impossible to keep them from getting dirty no matter how hard I try. For myself, my health as been hard to deal with. Right as I was getting over my sinus cold, I got mastitis. Without getting into much detail about it, I'll just say I was in a lot of pain and ended up on antibiotics. Once I got over that, I started to get vertigo, possibly from not staying hydrated enough. Health issues make adjusting to life down here so much harder.

For the most part our boys have been adjusting well and making new friends with other local missionary kids. Out of all our kids, Wesley is having the hardest time adjusting but that is to be expected. He says if he gets to see a tarantula or a scorpion, then he will like Mexico more. Ha ha!

Today, Rich spent most of the day at a local friend's home building our cabinets for our new kitchen. Furniture is hard to come by down here and expensive. So after searching for cabinetry and failing to find what we need, we decided to build our own.

This month our goal as we settle in and adjust to life here, is to build relationships with those we will be doing ministry with and continue to pray and ask the Lord to show us where He would like to use us.

Please pray for health and protection for our bodies as we adjust to the food here, as well as hopefully getting rid of the fleas!!! I hope to post some pics soon. The internet is not very good down here so uploading photos/video takes a long time. Thanks for all your prayers, we certainly do need them and appreciate them!

Hasta Luego!