Just another day of fun in the sun!

Me and half the team. Rigoberto is on my right and his brother Miquel is on my left. We had another 3 guys on the team....don't we look intimidating!!! Well maybe not but.....weeeeeeeeee are the champions of the world!








Gotta dig that state of the art equipment. Gives another meaning to nothing but net.....as there were no nets.










He had no idea what hit him as I crossed over between my legs and went to the hole with my left hand.....wham....2 points!









Looking for someone to pass to.....which way did he go.....








He shoots and he scores.....as I said earlier....nothin but net!







If you look closely, you can see those obstacles that I was talking about in my email. Those little dogs are nothing but trip hazards......actually, they help out your zone defense as well.









No blood, no foul.....that guy in the all white got away with a push in the back and down I went......bam.....all those guys sitting on the benches thought that was real funny....but I got the last laugh on the guy in white cause he went up for a shot later and I sent his shot into the fourth row.....just call me SHAQ DADDY!




Who put that post there!!!!!!!!!!!!! (that is Miguel, Rigoberto's brother)









Here was the crowd......there were about 200 spectators in all.











These were the executive suites.....I think if you look closely you can see Mark Cuban scouting us out!!!!








This was the pressbox.....this is where the high ranking officials sit....and the ones that hand out the big bucks at the end of the tourney.....








and these are all the women....there was not one female around the court the entire day except for my little Sarita....what a great help meet!!!!








part of our great halftime show.....









and this was another great act.....little kids all decked out in cowboy gear just dancing away....notice the little doggie...they are all over the place.










I call this photo: pigs and pineapples.....if you can look closely enough at the photo, these guys were selling pineapples out of the back of their truck and there are two really big pigs walking down the street as usual!!!!!







Here we are getting PAID!!!!! A whole 7 or 8 bucks for this win.












Notice that in Mexico I am probably more suited for a power forward than a point guard. Although there were probably about 20 or 25 guys taller than me throughout the day but only about 10 were taller than 6 feet. Maybe just call me DIRK......but unlike Dirk, I came through in the clutch with a bunch of points in this tourney.....sorry about that you Mavericks fans......




These are some of the pictures that Sarita took of the basketball tournaments the other week. There are no photos of of me "preaching" during the halftime show but I think that she is a pretty good photographer so these are some pretty good shots. As you can tell from the photos we play in something close to that of the American Airlines Arena.....these facilities don´t quite hold as many spectators as the AAC but as you can see from the photos they have a pressbox and executive suites and even great halftime shows. And even the games are a little more excitig as down here we have to keep an eye on the ball, another eye on the other players and then somehow keep another eye on these little obstacles that sometimes run across the court called dogs.

Me and the guys playing a little ball

Just thought that I would post a few pics of me and some of the guys playing a little b-ball on the most awesome courts in the world. Of course I would agree with you that the scenery is just a little bit better than what we see in Texas but it gets a little slippery when playing in the rains that come everyday. I was amazed when we just kept playing right through the rain without missing a beat....or dribble. The next to last photo shows the rain coming over the mountains and the last photo shows us just playing away.

Packing it all up....almost all of it

These photos show our progress as we packed up in Garland for our move to Teopisca. I took these photos primarily to make sure that if I had to unpack everything at the border or at a checkpoint that I could put everything back in an orderly manner but very quickly. It took Sarita and I close to 5 hours to pack everything in our truck so I knew that it would be a big ordeal to take everything out and then have to put back in. But then I decided that I would start our postings with these photos.

The first photo shows me in despair as I was trying to figure out how in the world we were going to be able to fit everything in the pickup. It was at this point that I realized that there was no way we were going to pack everything we wanted to take without getting a topper. The rest of the photos just show the progress of our move.

In the end we had to give away a few more things that we wanted but all in all we got to take almost everything we wanted to take. The last few things we gave away were while we were in the McDonalds parking lot in Wylie before we left that Saturday morning on June 2nd. Sarita and I got in the truck ready to leave and I realized that I did not want to be so cramped up in the cab so I just grabbed a couple of things and handed them to people standing around in the parking lot to say bye. There was no way that I was going to drive 35 hours with all that stuff making me feel all cramped in.

Not a beauty but it works

Well my friends these are pictures of our first house here in Mexico. We spent 2 weeks in this little "casita" as we waited for our God to provide us just the right house in His own perfect timing. The first 2 photos show our house from outside with of those showing what the rainy season is all about here in Teopisca (actually I have been told that the rainy season starts in August...can´t wait). The next 3 photos show us cleaning up and repairing things around the house. Sarita did so much cleaning on this little house to make it a home...I am so proud of my little Sarita. The 6th photo shows me clearing the area around the outside sink area so that Sarita could wash dishes....it was either wash the dishes outside or in the little bathroom sink. Photos 7 and 8 obviously show my little wife hard at work just scrubbing away. Photo 9 has me putting together all the things we took apart to get them into the truck. Photos 10 and 11 show how nice Sarita arranged our things to make a square room into the look of several rooms. Photo 12 shows me and man´s best friend Amos hard at work trying to get a whole pot of water to boil for some spaghetti that we were going to feed all the orphan kids and pastor C and his family
who came over one evening for fellowship (we did not have a stove or gas until later in our stay at the casita) . And photo 13 shows all the kids eating the good food we cooked.

Here is a little of Sarita´s thoughts on all this new life in Mexico....this is the email that she sent out a few weeks ago entitled He is always faithful.....

Deuteronomy 8:2 And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the
these forty years in the wilderness to humble and test you to know what was in
your heart, weather you would keep His commandments or not.

Do you ever find it hard to choose joy? I have been thinking about this verse so
much over the last two week. When we moved into this temporary house I knew it
was much better than some of our neighbor, and even some people in America, but
I was hoping for something a little better than bucket showers and walls that
have big cracks that you can see through.

I found myself thanking God for a concrete floor and not dirt one. But when I
didn’t have the amount of room that I wanted, or I couldn’t wash my dishes
inside the house I would find myself grumbling. I remember this verse that says
“And do not grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroying
angel” 1Cor 10:10. Yet when things are not the way that I want them, even the
little things. I think God, are you sure you still know where I am, and is this
really what you want for me? But I truly believe that God does long to teach His
little children with difficult circumstances and everyone’s “difficult
circumstances” is different.

As we were coming over the mountains on the way here I was listing to one of my
new favorite songs “He’s always been faithful to me” by Sarah Groves I was
thinking Lord are you really Faithful? Lord do you really know what is going on.
Lance keeps telling me that all of this is all worth it, and that God is going
to do great things in our life. But sometimes the path looks so dark, and that
God might not poor out blessing on us.

But God has pored out his blessings on me this week. I went to Spanish class
last Wednesday, and I was suppose to be learning Spanish, but some how my
teacher and I started talking about the differences between being Catholic and
being Baptist. We talked for about 45 minutes to an hour about our religions.
She was telling me about a practice they have where the priest standing behind a
veil. I asked her why her church had this practices and she did not know. I
encouraged her to read Hebrews, because the Bible tells us so much about these
things. She told me that she would. Please pray for more talks like these, and
that she would read Hebrews. I was able to see Gods faithfulness to me in
letting us have this conversation.

Also last Wednesday we returned home from Spanish class. We went to see Larry
and Juanita, and when we entered their house, She held up keys. She said that
the house that we have wanted to rent is vacant, and that we could go look at it
right then. All I have to say is that Eph 3:20 is so true God is able to do more
than we can ask or think. Our little house has an indoor kitchen, with a sink
inside. A shower (Praise the Lord) and it has some room for a family to grow
into. Our God is so faithful.

I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of
the Lord in the land of the living. Psalms 27:13

Crossing the border

We crossed the border into Mexico in between McAllen, TX and Reynosa, Mexico about 12 noon on Sunday and at the border crossing we got a red light at the custom inspections station. There are some check points with a box that has a green light on it and a red light on it (looks just like a stop light in the states without the yellow light) and it randomly gives a red light or a green light. If you get a red light you have to pull over and talk with the customs/immigration officer and tell him what you are doing, where you are going and what you are bringing into the country. And at his discretion he can search your vehicle or let you pass. And it is at this point that you just hope that he isn’t having a bad day or upset with life at that moment because we have been told horror stories about having to unload everything out of the vehicles which could take hours.

Now here is the deal with these customs check points…they are checking your vehicle for any prohibited items AND/OR any items that you have to pay a very high tax on to bring into Mexico. With Sarah and I, we really were not bringing in anything that fit into these categories because we were not bringing anything in to sell and make profit or give anyone items so that they could sell and make a profit. All of our items were for our personal use to live in Mexico. But the problem is that we are going in as “tourists,” not residents and we have been told by other missionaries that sometimes it is difficult to explain why you have certain items if you are just “tourists”….know what I mean. So anyway we have been praying for green lights….green lights…and more green lights; especially since it took me 4 ½ hours to pack the truck for the trip down here. We had that pickup so packed that we had to give away another couple of things at our going away gathering on Saturday before we left so that I could just be comfortable in the cab for the trip.

So when I got the red light you can imagine what was going on in my mind….exactly….. am I really going to have to unload everything? [But in reality this stop is not the one to really worry about as the officer just asks a few questions and usually lets you go on through. It is the customs station 20 miles from any border crossing that are the one’s you have to worry about as these guys are very thorough and strict and, from what I hear, just down right mean.] I got out of the truck, answered his questions and he just let us go on so we went on down to the immigration station to get all the right paperwork (visa’s and truck permit). Praise God for such an easy border crossing even though we got the red light.

The first thing that happened after we left the border crossing is that it started to get really warm in the cab of the truck. Well guess what? You got it. Our a/c went out as we crossed the border. We looked at each other and just smiled and said “well at least we will have a lot better gas mileage from now on.” We just praise God that nothing else went out on the truck the entire time….not even a flat or low air in the tires!
After getting our paperwork squared away at the border and then realizing that we would not have any a/c for the next 1,150 miles we took off on our new journey across Mexico. But we didn’t get but a few miles down the road until we both realized that even with a good map, it was not going to be easy to navigate our way around south of the border. I don’t want any of you to ever complain again about the traffic or traffic signs in the states again ( I sure won’t) because half the streets don’t have signs and the other half don’t have the correct names on them (the map lists street numbers but they all have names….go figure). And on top of that, everyone is driving like they own the road and you are just in their way. There may be 2 marked lanes but all of a sudden you are driving 4 wide and you can reach out and grab the mirror of the guy next to you. And as for one-way signs….forget about it….you don’t know that you are driving the wrong way until you turn the corner and all of a sudden you see headlights and horns coming your way. That happened to me twice within about 5 minutes.

Sight for sore eyes...almost home

We arrived in Teopisca safe and sound without any real problems. Yes we had some eventful times but in the end, the Lord showed Himself faithful as always. Comitan is about an hours drive from us and is about 1 1/2 hours from Guatemala. The second sign says, "Welcome to Teopisca."

The beauty of driving in Mexico

We left the Home Depot parking lot (after asking for directions) and took off on what we thought was the correct direction. Well, after about 25 minutes of aimless wandering around the streets of Vera Cruz I knew that we were not getting anywhere close to the highway we were looking for. I mean I had the map of Vera Cruz and it looked pretty simple to find but it certainly was not. Finally I just pulled over and told Sarah that I was going to use the trick of one of our missionary friends. A few years ago, I was driving with him through Mexico City and we were having trouble finding the right road so he paid a taxi cab to lead us to the correct road. Well that is what I did. I jumped out of the truck, flagged down a taxi cab and finally communicated to him that I wanted him to lead us to highway 190 as I followed. It was a good thing that we stopped and got some help because we were no where close. We actually went back to almost where we came from. But after about 15 minutes he stopped and told me to go straight ahead a little bit and I would be on the right road. I paid him his money and sure enough we got on the right road. Thank you Dr. Jerry for letting me see that little trick because I could have spent the whole day in Vera Cruz backtracking.