Life in Mexico for us

We stopped by the house of Gonzalo and his fam


Here I am wearing Adrian as a sombrero

This is Erin with Griselda (picture taken by Efren)

Last night, as I was getting ready for bed, it hit me that we were in Mexico. We had just finished watching a TV show on DVD and had to blare the sound because the "circus," which is right next door, performs every night and cranks their music from 8 to 11:30pm. We weren't able to do the dishes because the water was turned off, and flushing means going outside and getting a bucket full of water from a barrel (it's back on this morning). So, after brushing my teeth with a glass of drinking water, Erin looked for bugs to kill (only one big one last night and a little mosquito), and then we went to sleep with the dogs barking both near and far.

I don't bring this up to complain. Just the opposite. I love it. I love everything about it. Plus, we know so many people who are in much worse circumstances. We just went over to Gonzalo's and his family on Sunday afternoon. The kids were just taking a bath and getting ready for the start of school. It was going to be the first day of kinder for the twins. Gonzalo told us that he had been working for someone for the past three weeks but they hadn't paid him until just now. Because of this, they had to skip church to go and buy the uniforms for the kids, and they couldn't afford to pay the water bill, which was shut off.

Erin and I love this family, but we don't really know what to do. We want to help, but we don't have money enough to pay for their bills, and we don't know what God wants us to do. We also know many other families who are in this situation. Is it right for us to help this family just because we are closer to them and not others?

The only conclusion that we came to is that entering into their situation with compassion and sympathy is doing something. We know that we will continue to give what we can to them, and they will likely continue to make us food as well. But our problems seem so small compared to theirs. And yet, they have incredible joy that is beyond their circumstances. We continue to pray for them and to have God do what God does...

That is what I am learning. Life is made up of so much more than what we have and what is comfortable. There is a certain richness to living life here, a richness that I am learning about more and more...