Weekend Wrap Up

As you can see, it is not all fun and games in the tropical life. This has been the craziest week ever. Allison has been spending most of her days taking the kids to and fro to each of their schools, gathering and cleaning school uniforms, attending parent meetings, volunteering for the weekly parent clean up teams, and arranging to start teaching a Latin fitness dance class. Every other Friday at the Kinder 1/2 of the parents clean the school and the yard which involves the ever popular yard debris fire typically started by dripping burning plastic on top. We are working on teaching environmental responsibility (these things take time). The greatest part of being actively involved, is in a town of 300-400 people if you work with 10-20 people you are now connected to the whole town. It is so wonderful to walk down the street and not just be a tourist passing through. We have really felt more accepted now that we have made a commitment to this community through ownership and involvement.

Friday night movie night was amazing. This time we spread the word through the schools and friends. Of course this is Mexico and life wouldn't be fun without a few surprises. The man that runs the water district passed away in the night and the viewing and funeral (an all day event) was the same day. There was much talk about the need to cancel but we had already told so many people we (not realizing every in town was going to the funeral) decided to show Beverly Hills Chihuahua, which was filmed in the state of Nayarit (same as Chacala). We decided to start at 6:30 and when showtime rolled around there was no one other than our 5 and a huge garbage bag of Palomitas (popcorn) that Allison had prepared for all the kids. We decided to just go for it anyhow but we switched the language back to English. Just after the opening scene 3 girls made there way back from the funeral and then the masses came. So we started over this time in Spanish. We had over 20 people mostly kids. Three boys showed up and asked if they could bring in their fresh catch (yes you read that right the fish were still wiggling) and of course sat right behind me. Allison had enough popcorn for everyone and there was tons of laughter and cheers. We came home very enthused for next week.
The house has been an amazing journey and a lesson in patience. We have slowly pieced together all of the furnishings that will get us started and allow for visitors or renters to come share in the experience here. I have always heard about the ever popular "manana". I now know first hand that expression all too well. I have learned that sometimes you have to grab a lemonade, lay in a hammock and take a siesta and the stress just disappears. You realize that all the stress in the world is not going to make something happen any quicker and the only person that it affects is you personally. I can almost guarantee you the carpenter or the gas delivery guy isn't losing any sleep over my project. Today as I had a little siesta time and I was able to reflect on the sin of worry and how terribly damaging it can be to yourself and your relationships with others. My prayer is that God will continue to reveal my purpose and more of the areas that He intends on growing me.

Today is family day and it was wonderful to have a day with family and friends at the beach. The kids are really adjusting to life here and are starting to comment on wanting to stay in Mexico. Tomorrow is the day we move into our house. Hopefully the mattress delivery and the table and couch aren't manana and if they are we will just have to lay in a hammock and laugh.

Adios

The Millers