Mexican Elephants and Coca Cola Engagement Rings

Its too early. Ok, anyway, more about yesterday. if i like skip around a lot, firgive me, theres a lot of little details i want to mention and they may be out of order. yesterday we started off with a tour of piedras negras. two things really stuck with me from that. one, the city isn't an endless sea of poverty. there are plenty of middle and upper class families, with nice cars, houses, and grass (grass is really really hard to grow in mexico). but on the other hand, two, going up on a hill in the government housing section and looking back and seeing government housing as far as you could see in what seemed like every direction. what else about yesterday? so much happened, its hard to remember it all. it feels like weve been here a lot longer than two nights. then after dinner, we walked all around their walmart equivalent, which was called...i forget. and i had my first true spanish exchange, when i bought an ice cream cone. they put chocolate syrup on my cone, which made it very messy. not sure if they usually do that or just misunderstood what i was asking. tori and gabby just came back from their home visit.
-Later-
okay, onto today, because so much is happening i cant remember anything that happened over, like, ten hours ago. so today we went to a river for worship and swimming. it was so amazingly awesome. i mean, i swam in a river in mexico. how cool is that? it was really pretty around there too.
-Later-
wow. there is so much happening. i could use a pensieve. its one of those times where there are so many things happening that if you try to remember every single thing, you forget most of them, and lose the moment in trying to remember it. we had our festival today. we did our clown skit (we as in the nine of us from goshen) and then the tribute group did their show choir thing. they were so amazingly awesome. words cannot describe how awesome they were. the entire thing was in spanish, and they still brought tears to my eyes. it was so moving and just fantastic. and i'd say about fifty people were saved, which is great. and there was this adorable little girl, about four, whose name i don't remember, but i call yellow flower because there was one on her shirt. anyway, at one point, she actually got up on the risers and started trying to dance with them. then she came over and was giving me a high five, and then ten, and then i started teaching her patty cake. and she grabbed my fingers and twirled around. she nearly twisted my fingers off, but she was adorable. oh, and i remember somehting from small group at the river i wanted to write down. we were talking aabout gods purpose for us and how we learn from good and bad things that happen to us. i think that can be one of the biggest stumbling blocks in peoples faith, is that bad things happen to good people, and how can a loving god permit that? but god never said bad things only happen to bad people. if god allowed his own son, who never did anything wrong at all, to be crucified, then there's no reason we shouldn't have our own share of tribulation (cool word there) as well. the important thing is, god always has a greater purpose in store, even if we don't know what it is, and if we trust him, he will help us through.


My precious, precious child, I love you and I would never leave you. During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you