Arrived in Tlaxiaco!

After a 15 hour travel day, we arrived in Tlaxiaco around 830 pm Saturday night. Unfortunately, wifi has not worked, and we have been unable to update. Our travel day started very early, as we met at the airport at 430 am. We proceeded to check in and juggle bags, then prayed with those who came out to see us off. Our flight left at 6, and things were basically smooth. We had a slight problem or two in Mexico City, but we made it. One of our team members stepped out of bounds in the customs area and had to take his luggage up to be rechecked. Then we had a scare and thought we were going to miss our connection to Oaxaca, but God worked that out, too. After arriving in Oaxaca, we took a bus to Tlaxiaco. What an adventure. The daredevil driver had some near misses with other cars and bicyclists, and the roads were very twisty. This, paired with a very hot van, resulted in some sick stomachs. 

After finally arriving in Tlaxiaco after a harrowing three hour drive, we were greeted by our hosts and taken to the square in town for a wonderful dinner of....hamburgers. I have to tell you, these burgers were a real treat. We were able to go to bed around 11pm local time which was midnight our time. Some of the team members slept really well, while others were awakened often by the sound of barking dogs and crowing roosters ALL NIGHT LONG. Still, we had nice beds to sleep in, food in our tummies, and were very grateful for our safe travels.

One distraction - a passport has been lost. Turner has been working all day to try and figure out what we need to do to get her back in the country. Please pray that this process will go smoothly and we will have no problems. Also, we will be without internet service while we are in the village, and we need to be able to resolve this before we leave. Our God is able to fix all this!

Today was about church and training. After breakfast we headed to church. Three hours later, we emerged. Beat that, Pastor Don! What a great service. The worship was lively and beautiful. There were even some songs that we sang in English as the church family sang in Spanish. We may not have known specifically what the others were saying, but our hearts were singing the same tune to the same amazing God. The first sermon, which turned out to be a Bible study, was on fear. Amazing verses were given, and I´m sure great teaching was going on. Turner and Agustina were kind enough to keep us up to speed on where to go to follow along, but word for word translation was impossible. After a few more songs, the preaching started. The preacher was teaching on unity, so he had us all split up and sit with people not in our family. The unfortunate problem there is that many of us sat next to people who didn´t know English and couldn´t help us keep up. Pair that with little to no sleep, and it was a difficult hour. One of our hosts came and sat next to me toward the end and helped me to follow along a bit. What I took out of that is that we are all the same and that our skin color and language are irrelevant. We need to be unified and serve our Lord as one. 

We had our first training this afternoon on the village we will be visiting. We leave tomorrow afternoon and will return to Tlaxiaco on Friday. It is extremely doubtful that we will have access to internet or cell service. We are excited to visit the village and encourage the church there. Please pray that we can not only encourage the church but leave a positive impression of Christians on the unbelievers in the community. We have learned that it is a long process for people in these villages to convert, and we pray that we are a help, not a hindrance in the process.

Thank you for your prayers. We feel every one of them. We will update when we can. There are lots of good stories for when we have more time.