Close Calls, Falls, and Renewals

Close Calls, Falls, and Renewals

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
Philippians 4:8

Dear Friends,

When we came to language school, we came on a 180-day visa. Since that was less time than we needed to finish school, we knew we need to renew our visas at some point. If you fly out of the country, it is included in your ticket price. However, tickets to fly out of the country and back were over $800 US for each ticket. We knew our friends here at school were planning a trip out of Mexico to have someone sell their van. When weighing the cost, it was evident that the more cost-effective way would be to travel with them. The trip cost us about $500 in total instead of over $1,600. After all, it sounds like an easy process to turn in your visa at the border and request a new one upon reentry. Well...that part was fairly painless (keep reading). The trip and plane rides were full of adventure.

Our first leg of the trip was a flight from Puerto Escondido to Mexico City at 2:10 PM. Our plane was an hour late. Fortunately, we did not have a connecting flight. We were taking a bus that ran every half hour. We got to Mexico City and purchased tickets to travel to Ticoman by bus. When we arrived at the bus station in Ticoman, we were greeted by one of the men from El Monte in Cuernavaca. He drove us to get some food and then to the mission base of El Monte where our friend’s van was. We arrived at the base and ate our food. We went to bed around midnight and set our alarms to wake at 3 AM to be driving off the base at 3:30 AM. The 16-hour long drive to Texas was made even longer by a detour on which Google took us. We were directed down a road that, suddenly , turned into a treacherous dirt road. After driving 45 minutes to an hour, we then had to drive an hour back in the opposite direction and go another 3 hours out of our way to get to the border. We got to the border at 2 AM and after having to drive through the line and pay a toll, we realized that we needed to turn around to get where our friends needed to turn in papers for their vehicle. We were able to walk to the immigration office and turn in our visas. At 2 AM there were not many people in line. In fact, there weren’t any. We walked to the building where our friends were dealing with their car. When we walked up the steps, Jenny tripped and bruised her leg pretty bad. That made an irritable situation even worse. We then made our way across the border and stayed in a mission house in McAllen, TX. We picked up some food because we were all very hungry. We got to bed around 3 AM. We had to be back up and out the door by 7:30 AM to meet with people who were going to help our friends sell their van and drive us back over the border to return to Spanish School. Then we took our friends to the airport in Texas for them to fly into Florida for their parent's 50^th wedding anniversary. Jenny and I did some shopping for things we needed for school and a few items that you can only get in the states, like non-spicy things.

On Sunday after watching our home church online, we went to a church across the street. The service was mainly in Spanish, but the pastor spoke English too and interjected a few words here and there for context. After the service, I was able to speak with him about the CCI curriculum and courses and he expressed interest in them for himself and possibly his congregation. Please be in prayer that he will connect with us soon. We then met with the man and his wife who were taking us across the border and to the Reynosa Airport. We got to the airport two hours before our flight as they recommend. Then our flight was delayed by almost two hours. When we got to Mexico City to catch our connecting flight, we had to deplane first and run from terminal 34 to terminal 4. We made it by the skin of our teeth.

On Monday we had a test in Grammar, Vocabulary, and Verbs. We got decent grades on the Vocabulary and the Verbs, but Grammar was a bit more challenging. We passed the test though. We praise God for His safety in our journey, and the guidance he provides.

We are looking forward to finishing this session. We will be having a visit from the President of CCI, David Nelson, during our break in April, and then after he leaves, we will start the last level. We are so excited to complete our language school so we can use all that we learned for the ministry in Northern Mexico.

Thank you for your prayers and support,

Keith & Jenny

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Prayer Requests & Praises

We will get relief at night from the heat so we can get good rest for school
Our daughter Bianca and her fiancé Jordan as they make decisions for their future
Unspoken for our oldest son Jonathan and our grandsons
For us, so we don’t get discouraged at times when things we're learning at school don’t feel/seem like they are sticking in our brain
For Jenny’s mom, Donna, as her doctor found something on her bladder and biopsied it waiting on results. Her father, Frank, his Parkinson’s is starting to progress. His doctor is attempting a medication change and praise God his Alzheimer’s is progressing slowly. It’s hard being away from family when things like this are going on

Our focus is for people to not just be recipients of the Gospel but to also be participants in the Great Commission.

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