Last Friday 11/20 Rory Kyle and I went to San Diego after class to explore and to find a place to enjoy a steak. We hitched a ride with Ryan, who was dropping the speaker off at the sd airport. We were dropped off down town, where we then walked to my friend Addie’s work. I posted on face book that I was going to be in sandiego, so my friend Rachel asked if I could hang out. She drove down and met us downtown. We walked through parts of Balboa Park and went to Black Angus for a steak. After dinner, we met up with Addie again and went to a frozen yogurt place. Later we watched a movie before Addie drove us back to the border. Rory’s mom came down late Friday so a bunch of us met up in sandiego and had breakfast at the hash house agogo. The food was really good but the cool part was the portion sizes, like one pancake 2 feet in diameter. After breakfast a few of us went to Balboa Park to play Frisbee golf, it was my first time and a lot of fun. My friend Justin visited while I was in SD. He and I drove across the bridge to Coronado Island; it sure has a great view.
The night before thanksgiving I visited with raylyn and Phil and others for her friend’s bday. We went to the shout house (a piano bar) .after we left; Johannes’ brother picked me up so I could stay the night with them and have thanksgiving with their friends. It was a cool thanksgiving, we deep-fried the turkey and ate a bunch of pie, after our food comas were gone, we played pool. I lost 5 bucks in a game of pool against Johannes’ sister, but its ok, because I am going to rematch her and win.
Mustache is gone for good. I realized that some things are not meant to be, and some people are not meant to have facial hair. So, im trying to think back to what I have been up to the last week and a half. Well last Monday, Dan’s car was broken into and one of the girl’s purses was stolen. It sucked because she now needs to get a new passport and id and what not. The window on the door was broken as well, so a few of us went to the states to look for a new door at some junk yards. After hours of searching, we found a door with all the parts we needed.
We had a worship sesh Tuesday night, Kelly has been helping me the guitar a little bit, so I had a chance to play some songs with him and dan. Friday, I went to church with a few of the guys at the playas church. After church we had coffee at starbucks and talked about som stuff. While there, there was like 20 police cars that drove by, it was pretty cool. Later that night a group of people came down from sandals. It was nice to see some familiar faces, and to receive the gifts a few had made and got for us. I now have plenty of candy, and had some great home made cookies. The same weekend as sandals, another group came down to stay with us for a few days. They were making a documentary about human trafficking. They started their film here in Mexico, and were making their way up the 5 after a stop in Vegas. The group was a lot of fun, and encouraging hearing their stories, of what they are doing and why they are doing it. We also prayer walked with them in th redlight district. I hate going there, but I felt like I should give it another try. We also met a high ranking officer because he was going to meet with the group and give an interview, but he had other things he had to take care of. Sunday, Kelly and I went to san Diego where we met up with our good buddy Johannes, we went to the flood church which was really cool to go to an English speaking church. The lesson was on our foreign places, and how it doesn’t have to be an actual place, but it can be a time or a way we feel. Like being a father, or just lost a job, depression and so on. I really could relate, because I have felt like that lately, partly being in a different country, but also because I just kinda left my job and im thinking about what im going to do when I get back. I have really felt lately about starting a church, I don’t know how or when, but I will be looking more into that when I get home in December. I still don’t know if I will go back to Baja for the second semester or not, but I really don’t think I will. This week, we have a pastor teaching the book of James to us. He makes sure to take his time on each chapter, which is good for all of us not to rush. I keep promising him to take him to get a burrito, but things keep coming up, but we did get coffee twice now. The first time, we went to a shop up the street from us, it was nice and sure did taste pretty good. The second coffee shop was a pretty fancy one and the brew master is actually an international brewer. I don’t know what my drink was, but it was good, and they put a design on the foam. Since the students helped with the groups on our days off, the dean of men and director took is out for Chinese food. The Chinese food restaurant was big, but there weren’t many people eating there, I guess Chinese isn’t a big thing in MEXICO. Haha. The whole time while we were there, Rory was staring into the room behind us, he swore that there was a mob meeting going on, when we were getting ready to leave, a few cops showed up and looked like they were getting ready to eat, Rory swore that a battle was about to begin and he didn’t want to leave. Lol
so i havent shaved my mustache since ive been down here. i also havent cut my hair since may or june, so its getting pretty long for me. im going to try to update some pictures of them, and some potential hair styles. tell me what one you like, lol. one of the pictures is what happens after i take a nap with brushed hair. lol
my roomate smells so fruity, and i love it. he made me type that, well not that, but he wanted me to write about him, so i will. Rory is a funny guy, there are few nights that i dont go to sleep laughing at our conversations about random things. He and i agree on most things and we dont offend each other over little things. we both respect one anothers gifts and opinions. He is from Denver colorado ( the cold state). He has a hampster named ping ping, who he named after the smallest person alive. I often hear him singing in the shower or making weird noises. he says he is trying to use his other set of vocal chords, but it sounds like he is trying to speak whale. lol. he sometimes joins me for a walk to the park where we run/walk. we have a saying about running here in mexico, siempre manana, nunca hoy. it means, always tomorrow, never today. Rory is verry flexable, he can put both feet behind his head, and he shows this talent off often, mostly because i tell him to show people. i dont know if its because of his flexability, but he falls from time to time, im going to post the picture of him on the ground. we were given sweatshirts from a printing shop up in washington. the sweatshirts had a error on them so they needed to get rid of them. they are a highschools choir sweatshirts, so we were pretending to be singing, and somehow he fell. so look closely, cause he fell during the photo shoot.lol Rory wants to become an evangelist and i think he would be good at it. He knows his stuff and is verry open minded, his humor will help as well. he wants to help fix what is wrong with the church and i hope he helps out. he is a Godly man who loves the Lord and im thankfull to have him as a roomate. Rory Ross appoves this message
This weekend we went to porvenir to visit our friends with ventana minestries. The local church was putting on a misionary conference and people were coming from all over. There were people coming from 5 hours south of ensenada and there were even some people from washington state there to see it. We arrived friday afternoon and were shown around their campus, the town is more of a country town. the scenery looked like back home minus houses. most of the roads were dirt and a lot of the locals rode horses around. my favorite part was the smooth sidewalks and the lacking of giant hills on our way to church. The guys slept in a mobil home with the guy students from ventana. the house was pretyt cool, 3 bedrooms a laundry room and a kitchen and so on. the nights there were super cold and the last night it was super foggy. i could taste the moisture in the air. It sure was nice to be in that town, because its nice to be away from the city and have some good clean fresh air. One of the nights out there, they had a youth conference thing. It was cool, there were like 700 or so people in the one building. If it were in the states, the fire marsal would have been called hahaa. but it was good and the message was good ot hear. Today at church they were going to have the actual conference, but we were unable to stay at see it. Our friends were going to be in a play for the conference where they set a car on fire as a demastration. It stunk to leave but it was also nice to be back home.
In tj halloween still goes on even though Mexicans dont celibrate this holiday further south. We were invited to go watch a Christian movie at our friend's church near the border. Everyone was nice and they fed us nachos and jello, it sure was good to have. The holiday they really celibrate around the same time is el dia de muertos, day of the dead. they go to the grave yeards durring the day and put things on the graves, like food or flowers. The whole graveyard is decorated in some way or another. everyone from the school here went, but i stayed back and slept. I have been really tired lately and i wanted to be able to hang out after everyone got back. This week we are studying the parables that Jesus gave. I am really enjoying the stuff we are talking about and if i have some sort of epiphany i will pass it along. This weekend the students are going to help out the a town further south called por vinir wich means for coming or to come. There is a ministry down there that we are going to help put on a missions thing, im not really too cure what we are doing, but im happy to go somewhere new and be a help to them.
It’s been a while since I have written on here, partly because I have been really sick for the last week and partly because I am getting lazy with it. Last Saturday Kelly’s Mom and Grandma came down to visit him for his birthday. They took us to a town called Puerto Nuevo south of Rosarito. The town is a tourist town, so all of the shop owners were out harassing everyone to come in and shop at their store. I wasn’t there to shop and I couldn’t escape from everyone trying to get me to shop there. It was a very stressful walk down 1 or 2 blocks of vendors. Finally we found a restaurant where we were going to eat some lobster. The lobster was a nice lunch to have with a beautiful view of the beach to our side. The next day I went to a church in El Florido with the Director, the speaker for the week and My roommate Rory. We arrived an hour early because Mexico had a time change a week before the states did, so it threw us off a little. It was ok because they have Sunday school classes for different ages. Rory and I went and sat in on the jovenes class, which is pretty much anyone not married from 15-30. We talked about what we thought we would see in heaven and what the Bible says what we will have there. After class, the teacher asked me if I would explain the congregation what we learned in class, so the English speakers would know. After class, Rory and I had Ryan drop us off at the border so we could go into San Diego. I wanted to take Rory to get a burger at In and Out, because he is not from California. We also did some shopping at a target and walked around down town. That night is when I started to feel sick. I was feeling dizzy and I had a cough. The next morning, I woke up feeling like poop so I went back to bed and wasn’t able to go to class. I had my temperature checked and it was at like 100.8 so I took some Nyquil to help with that. I was still sick the next day and I continued to mostly sleep all day. When I wasn’t sleeping I got really good at freecell and spider solitaire. My back was killing me from all the laying down and I just was tired of being sick. On wed I started to feel better and I even made it to class for half of a session but then went back to bed because I was not ready to be out and about. Finally Thursday I was well enough to come out and participate in class, but I felt so far behind that a lot of the material went over my head. On Friday after class, I went to San Diego to meet up with my Friends Raylyn and Bailey at a piano bar in the gas lamp district. It was nice to be in that environment because I love to sing aloud with other people. Some of the material was pretty bad, but I didn’t stay too late so I could make it back home in time for curfew. On the way home I was ridding the trolleys and I got off in the wrong part of town, it was pretty scary and I thought it was the last stop for a trolley in that area. So after some fast thinking I realized that if I walked 12 blocks east, I could catch another trolley and hopefully make it to the border before too late. Along the 12 blocks there were random ghetto people and a crack head who yelled at me when I asked for directions; I ended up running half of the way to the train station just in time to catch the trolley. I ended up getting on a trolley that was too full and a lot of the people on the trolley were on some sort of drugs. I met a cool guy though names tc from Chicago, he is trying to get into the movie writing industry and I hope he makes it big someday because he was a nice guy. I finally made it back home to the Castillo and felt so relieved after the crazy trip back home.
So, this is our first week after our Spanish teacher has left. We all miss having our teacher/ne friend around. It's funny when we meet people and they often times say they hope that we would visit. I always take those offers lightly, because many people do it as a kind gesture. Jorge said we were like family and offered me many times to visit him in Chiappas Mexico, I am pretty sure he was serious about the offer, but if he wasn't, he is going to just have to deal with it because i want to check out this town he told me about. He said the whether there is always perfect, well sometimes it can be cold, but there is jungle and beautiful mountains and waterfalls and a lot of short people. I can maybe become a tourist attraction down there ha-ha. Well now that we don't have Spanish in the afternoons, we are trying to plan things to do, on weds the guys are meeting together and will be in small groups( spiritual growth groups, or accountability groups). I am glad that we are going to be having a formal time where we can get closer to one another and help one another out with our struggles along the way. We will be required to commit to a ministry in town once a week for a few hours and also become friends with someone in the area who we can practice Spanish with and really get to know. This will help us with culture and help us get more comfortable here in town. Another reason, is we want to have an impact on the town we are in, if we just stay on campus all day, we will never have the chance to get out there and love on the town we are in. I was thinking about what i will do, and i think i want to help teach English in some way. I always though teaching English was what every missionary does because it is the only thing we really have to offer, but i jokingly tell everyone the reason i struggle with Spanish is i never really learned English the proper way. Maybe i can teach myself as i go along. And for a relationship, i was thinking about going down the the gym on the weekends and making a friend. At one of the gyms, there is a climbing wall. I don't know how serious of a climbing wall it is, but i bet if some tall white guys is at it every week, i will meet someone here or there. It worked in Riverside, maybe i can do it here too in Mexico. it is also good, because i enjoy rock climbing, so its a win win situation. well, time to go bug the roomy.
Today in class, we read some more of 1st peter, where it talks about women submitting and husbands need to respect your wives. I never thought growing up that men were more superior to women and i still don't. In chapter 3 vs 8,it says "Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble. 9Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing". I struggle with this more now than ever, i know we need to live together in harmony but i seem to always want to stir things up. sometimes i think it is good to have ideas stirred up and to be on your toes, but i am starting to feel bad when i poke fun at someone or don't feel for someone when they are feeling a certain way(pain, sadness, joy) i have become so guarded that i don't care about people anymore.
The next few are tough as well because it says something about loving others as brothers/sisters. my family has never really been super lovey dovey, so when i think of love like a brother, i think about the way i love my brother. He may never know it, but i have always been one of his protectors. Yeah i picked on him and we never have deep conversations about our lives. I would love to have a relationship with him like you see on TV, but he is so anti social. so back to loving others like i love my brother, I think i already do this in the way i love him, i show my love in weird ways, like making fun of everyone and always having people back when they need me. I'm there when they need money, a ride or even someone who will just listen. Maybe i should stop beating myself up about the way i love, because it truly is my way, i just need to be more conscious of how the other party receives my actions of brotherhood.
Today is day two in our study on 1st peter. The teacher this week is the student pastor from a church in Olympia Wa. He seems to know his Bible and seems to read a lot of books. We are going through a chapter a day, so we are taking it kinda slow. This study has opened up a few topics for debate and discussion. We discussed the topic of predestination, like if God predestins who will go to heaven and who will go to hell. We were also talking about suffering and trials, if they were the same of different. I think suffering is trials, but not all trials cause suffering. I hope to discuss more of these topics tonight or tomorrow with my roomate Rory, he seems to have studied a lot of this prior to Baja Bible.
This last thursday we had spanish class at the beach. After the party Kelly and i walked across the border to meet our friend Matt. He brought us to the castillo where we were having a fairwell party to say bye to the group from Ventana Minestries. The party was a retro party, so everyone was dressed up. We had a BBQ, retro music and a pumkin carving contest. After the party, Matt drove me to my parents house in Riverside. I had to take care of some things in town so i was verry lucky to have the help of him and Brandon to be my transportation. On Friday, i went to the beach and had a bon fire with a few friends. We did manly things like walk across 2x4's that were on fire and stand next to the fire to see who could do it the longest. I had a good time hanging out with them, and enjoyed our good conversations that we had about missions. Saturday i had lunch with a friend and even fed the ducks at freemont park. It was a good time, i dont think that i have fed the ducks in over a year or so. Sat night i watched the angels game at Brandons house with a few other people. Sunday was church at sandals. The sermon was really good, Matt was saying how we need to represent God wherever we are. The way i took the message was, that so many people want to go out on short mission trips to help others, when they dont even help their town. Riverside needs tons of help and people make excuses for why they are unable to help around town. Yeah i may be in T.J right now, and im not here for the sole purpose to help the town of T.J. but i do plan on helping around town however i can. I do the same thing when im home, bassically we need to help and spread God wherever we are.
Today in class we are going over the Sermon on the Mount. Our teacher is pastor Jason from Astoria Oregon. Today we were discussing what was the purpose of the Sermon on the Mount. Was it a way to live by so we can reach salvation? Is it rules to follow as believers in Christ? The conclusion that we came up with was it is neither; The sermon on the mount is an image of what the kingdom of God should look like in us. So the next question is, how do we live this way? The spirit of God is the only way we can truly change. Jason had a cool quote that I enjoyed because it made things more clear. He said “Growing up in a town with lots of trees, I never saw a single fruit tree struggling to pop out a fruit from its branches”. Fruit is not produced by machines. We as Christian often try to do “good things” or things that we think and know God would want us to do, but we sometimes do it just because we know we should do them, not because we want to. So I think the way to answer the question, as to how we live the way the Bible teaches, is to Abide (stay) with Christ. By doing so, his spirit will run our lives. We want to create our own fruit rather than let God create in through us. We need to stop trying so hard to be good people and “relax” and let go of things so that Christ will lead us and run our lives, then we will be able to truly represent Christ and his teachings. If I would just do this, it would change me more and more. I would be a better Brother, son father (in the future) Example to others as a Christian. So what’s holding us back? Another thing that came in to my brain during class was, have you ever been in love? I mean like really in love? With a women, man? If so, you know how it feels to just desire and to really Love them. That’s what God gives us, and for what? Nothing, he loves us and gives us Grace because of it. So this is what I got out of the first day of class on the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount was not intended to be a list of rules for us as Christians to follow or for people to do these things for Salvation.
This weekend I ran in the Long Beach Half Marathon. I was training for it but I don’t think that I took it seriously enough. I got through the first half pretty good, and around mile ten I really felt the pain from all of the running. Around mile 11 or 12 I walked a lot and I barely jogged past the finish line. A few other from church ran in it as well and did an awesome job, I was impressed with the dedication and strength everyone had and gained from the training. We were trained by a volunteer from Sandals Church who enjoys those kinds of things. While we trained, we would meet weekly and discuss things we were encountering and apply Gods word to our training. We would run, stretch and finish in prayer. One thing that was said in our email conversations was “Just like our base we have built up in training for the marathon, so is our base built up with God. Even if we fall away from him for a little while or miss a little bit of training, it is still some work but easier to get back into our training or relationship with God again. I never thought that I was capable of running such distances or ever thought that I would want to run more than a mile, but after joining the Ripped group, I learned a few new things about myself. I currently am studying abroad in Mexico, but when I get back in town I would like to join the next ripped group and maybe train for a full marathon (that’s 26.2 miles). Thanks Tony for your knowledge that you shared with the training and guiding us along with our walk. Thanks to everyone who was encouraging and helped me to push myself further than I thought my body was capable of. I strongly recommend staying in shape and even if you don’t think you can, push yourself and stay on track and you will be able to do it.
This week we had a teacher name Bill Spear. He was a really nice guy and his wife was also very friendly and good to have here. Bill taught on the book of Genesis. we went through the whole book in one week and explained what was going on and why God allows for some of those things to happen. Before coming here, i was fighting on actually wanting to go, beccause i wanted to be comfortable back at home, but now that i have been here for a few weeks, i am groing closer to God and trying to work on my relationship with him and others. Ever since my close friend past away, i have not had the greates relationship with both friends and God, i hope to be able to grow so much more during my time here in mexico. One more week of spanish and then im on my own to learning. I have learned a lot becuase on my teacher Jorge, but it sure was tough. Ill be home this weekend for a half marathon and next weekend to take care of some buisness. maybe ill see ya maybe i wont. but i hope to. untill then. tty
Today was sunday and a few of us went to church in la playas of tj. Playas= beach. It was a nice church that i enjoyed much. After church i came home and had leftovers from the other night for lunch. We then drove to Rosarito to ride horses on the beach. The horses didnt go very fast even though we tried hard to make them trot. We spent some time in Rosarito and saw a pretty cool sunset, pics to follow. After another dinner at renays tacos, i was working out in my room while my roomate was talking to his dad on the phone. i discovered that doing sit ups with my shirt off makes a farting sound because of the suction from my back on the floor mat. My roomate and i couldnt stop laughing, cause everyone loves a good fart noise. We even made a video for it. but i cant upload it cause the internet down here sucks for hte most part. well ta ta for now
last night after class a few of us crossed over to san diego and rode the trolly up north a bit. the trollies are cool cause its like 5 bucks for an allday pass or 9 bucks for a 2 day pass. it takes you pretty far up north, but its kinda slow. so last night got some in and out and explored a bit of the town. today i went back into sd to see what else i could find to do. i ended up going to a rock climbing gym that was ok, nothing like the ones back home. at the gym i made a friend named alex. he and i top roped together, cause the bouldering section sucks there. after that i met up with my friend addie who now lives in sd. we went to coronado cause i had never been there before. we explored a cool hotel and saw a wedding reception on the beach. it was pretty cool. the sun was awesome too. after that we got some frozen yogurt and then she dropped me off back at the border. oh by the wya i walked to and from the border, it was an hour walk each way. man it was tough.
Yesterday was one of the staff's birthday. She turned 21 so we had a little party for her. Everyone got a little dressed up, so i had to bring out the hair gel and make sure i was looking Slick. Dont be frightened by our gangsta looks, we wont kill you. haha. it was a fun night with cake sparkling cider and soda. fun was had by all.
So today i was telling one of the guys that i need to get out for a night and do something, so one of my friends suggested a movie. The movie costs 3.05 and was cool. we saw the new john travolta film where he hijacks the train. i think its called taking metro 123 or something like that. but anyways, it was a good time and helped my mind relax for a few hours.it was also good to hang out with some of the guys here. spanish is still stressing me out, but my teacher told me that we are doing well. i think i am sucking at it, but ill keep on keepin on till its over. i think this weeked im going to run away to sandiego for the day so i can have what i use to consider a normal day. go rock climbing, go to the beach and maybe visit a few friends down there.
so today after dinner, i went in my room and sat alone looking at pictures and remembering my good friend Chris who passed away. it really made me miss all of my friends back home. i have good friends here, but something is missing, it might be me fighting to be close to these people knowing that i wont be here forever or it just might be something else, but either way i dont feel like i am being myself. well its time to bed after a nice talk with my good friend back home, kinda. feeling better already. thanks
So today we started our a new subject in class. We are studying creation and why its biblical. I really like the teacher this week so far. After class i went to the lavanteria to wash my clothes, cause its been over two weeks since i have. The funny thing about my trip was i dont have a hamper, so i used my guitar case haha. its was funny to see a soft guitar bag stuffed with clothes when i got there. People were looking at me not only because i am white, but because i am an idiot or brillant? So yeah i asked for a large washing machine, cause i thought i had a lot of clothes, but the lady told me i could fit more clothes in. so what else did i do but walk back home up a huge hill to get more clothes. did i get a bigger bag you might ask? no i filled my guitar bag once more and carried it back down the hill so i could fill up my laundry. after my clothes were done i folded my clothes and loaded the guitar bag until it was full then carried the rest by hand. once home i realized that i forgot my book and journal down the the lavanderia, so once again i made the hike down and up, by this time i was covered in sweat, buts its good because i didnt wake up this morning to run.
So this weekend was our friend Pastor Danny's 26th anniversary party in El Nino. Danny picked up Kelly and myself and drove us out to his town. The ceremony started around 7 and man was the church full of people. It was hard to understand everything because my spanish skills are still growing. Danny;s wife Yolanda asked me to take the pictures for them, so i took a million pictures of the party. During the ceremony a few of the other pastors from the area spoke and prayed over them. Danny and Yolie both gave a short speach to one another about how thankful they were for one another and there were lots of tears shed between the two; they were happy tears. Once, the ceremony was over, everyone moved down stairs to start the fiesta. There was about three hundred people there and maybe ten of them were gringos lol. We ate lots of birrea ( a beef stew that is awesome) and lots of coke. There was dancing, eating and lots of laughter. Then danny and Yolie made sure everyone took a picture with them, so my shooting finger got a little sore. We finished tearing everything down around 1230 or so and went to bed. In the morning we had birrea again for breakfast. Danny informed us that its normal to have birrea for breakfast in Mexico; I didn't mind, because it was deliciouso. After breakfast we had church, Danny called Kelly and me up on stage to explain what we are doing during our time in Mexico. Kelly explained that we are studying the bible and learning Spanish also. I just told them that i love them and i want to come back often. I don't speak great Spanish and i get nervous in front of crowds that i don't know. After church, Danny's son, daughter and their friends drove us back to our home, the castillo (castle) so they could see where us gringos live. now that im back on campus i unpacked and had time to rest before i caught a ride to the beach to read for an hour or so. The weather was nice and the ocean was relaxing. After the beach it was on to Renayes tacos ( they are the best). Well, its getting late and tomorrow we have class, this week we are studying creation, this should be a cool class, im pretty excited. so i guess im off to bed. ill have more updates soon.
Baja Bible Journal 9-14-09 First day in Mexico! Kelly’s parents drove us down today along with our friend Jeff Minder. We went to Sandals this morning, grabbed some lunch and hit the road. On the drive down, the excitement started a little past Corona when a large truck blew a tire. Once at BBS we were greeted by the staff and some of the new students. The Baja students consist of Kelly, Katie, Rory, Leah Kyle and myself. Rory is my roommate and he is from the Denver area. Kyle is from Minnesota, Leah is from Washington and Katie is from Oregon. Tonight we had 4 new students to join us for the next five weeks. They are from ventana ( about an hour or so more south). They are Daniel from Bakersfield, Connor and Rachel from Arizona and Elizabeth from Temecula. 9-15 Today is the Mexican Independence day; we will go out tonight and join in the festivities. We had our first day of class today with Dave berdette. He was teaching on the 12 languages of culture. After we learned about some of them, we went out to observe for ourselves how the people here act. We caught taxis down to down town by ourselves and it was a tad nerve wrecking for me because I don’t speak much Spanish. This morning Kelly and I started a workout, we ran around our block once for a warm up and then we did sprints up a steep hill next to the Castillo. I felt like I was going to throw up afterwards. We have eaten pretty healthy but at the same time, we have eaten a bit more than I want to. So I need to be careful to stay in shape. My roommate Rory is a tad quiet but im glad I am getting to know him better. 9-16 I just finished eating lunch and boy did it hit the spot. We had tomatoes soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Last night at the calibration, we went down town to hear the Grito, where everyone yells “Viva Mexico!!!” a bunch of times. We had a great time watching the awesome fireworks and being sprayed by foam from the kids and other locals who notices we weren’t from around there. Most of our group is tall, white and over half of us had huge fake mustaches on. They wanted us to feel welcome and celebrate with them I think. Today in class we prayed for the Muslim people around the world. Today is one of their most intense holidays and we are asking God to speak to them. We were sent out again today after class to observe another part of the town.
9/24 So I decided just to sum up what I have been up to the last two weeks. Our first week, we mostly studied the people in the city. We would catch cabs and go to different parts of the town and hang out and observe. This week is a whole new week; we have Dr Fleming teaching World Religions in the mornings and our new friend Jorge teaching Spanish in the afternoons. My mind feels like its going to explode from all the Spanish he is teaching. The world religions class is cool to learn from a Christian perspective but at the same time I feel that it would have been more beneficial to teach it over a longer span and cover more of each religion.
Mexico is cool, but not having a car is hard to adjust to. I can catch a cab but it’s not the same as just going for a drive. So this morning Ryan had to drop off a friend in sandiego so I asked if I could join. We left here at 4 am and had to be back by 730 or so for class. We had to stop by at home depot and the post office, but they weren’t open until 6, so we killed some time by walking on the pier at Imperial Beach. Keep in mind that it’s still dark and the sky is full of stars. We were looking over the edge in the water and we were startled to see dolphins swimming around eating fish. We would only see the dolphins when they the light of the moon reflected off of them, so it was kind of creepy. Today in class I was so tired and wish I could be asleep instead, but it was good to get off campus and visit some new places. Tomorrow is Friday and the end of the week, that makes me happy. Saturday some of us are going to catch a cab to the park in la crea to run. I am hoping to run 8 miles or so, so I can be ready for the half marathon in a few weeks. After the park, Kelly and whoever else wants to join are going to go out to El Nino and stay with our friends pastor Danny’s family. His church is going to have a fiesta for his 25th anniversary. Should be fun. Ill keep you informed more frequently in the future.
Hello everyone, by now most of you knows that I will be leaving for Mexico in September. For those of you who don’t, I am sorry for not telling you sooner. If you are getting this letter, you have most likely made an impact on my life in one way or another and I value as a friend or family.
In Mexico there is a bible school called Baja bible school. While there I will be studying the word, how to be a missionary (if I feel lead to do so) and living in a community.
A few months a go I had the chance to go to visit this school for a week with a few friends from Sandals Church. We had no idea what we were going down there for. While down there, we were rocked from the teachings of Dave Berdette and Eddie passmoore. Ultimately I felt lead to leave my things behind, quit my job and to attend this school for their first term. While in school we will be practicing different kinds of disciplines like showering once a week and living off of bare essentials. There will be no AC and no heating during the winter (and it is really cold). School session is September 14th- April 2nd with a few breaks in between. We get a winter break during the month of December and a spring break Feb. 27th - March 6th. I don’t know if I will be coming home or staying in Mexico during this time. We will be learning from a number of different teachers from all over. Besides studying the bible, we will be learning about different cultures and learning the Spanish language.
The school is pretty costly and I had been blessed to have had work for the last 9 years of my life. I have saved up a lot and have a lot of trust in the Lord that he will provide (that has been the hardest thing to prepare for). Right now I have enough for half of the time and nto sure if I will be staying the whole term.
While down there I could use plenty of prayer from family and friends. I will miss my family and friends but we will be able to have visitors whenever, so feel free to come visit, it’s only ten minutes across the border. We can even come meet you in sandiego if possible. I do have email and face book so please add me to your friends and keep in touch, even if you are telling about the weather or your pets.
Luckily my friends Kelly Crisp will be joining me at this school, and I have become good friends with the staff down there as well.
I am so thankful that God has put you in my life at one point or another.
Welcome! I have this blog to keep in touch with everyone at home while I am here in Mexico. I'll be sharing experiences, photos, thoughts and more of my time south of the border.
