Spanish School

The first week is over and I feel great! I've been fighting off a flu for the past ten days, the "Spanish Flu" as my friend Shelly says. I tell everyone I'm in Kindergarten, The teacher is soo nice and soo patient and our class is really small only four students the second level class that is also going at the same time has 9 people in it and they have to pay 5 pesos every time they speak english. My goal for the week was to get a star on the Special board.  Which I did on the last day in the last hours of class!! YA MISTY! We as a family went to church this weekend and for the first time since I've been here I could understand some of what the preacher was saying, and most of the words in the worship songs. I just need to keep practicing and know that for a while I'll sound a bit foolish to my Mexican Friends, but I need to keep it up! I've been given such an awesome opportunity to go to this school that I don't want to waste it! Bill as been amazing during this time, he has been Mr.MOM and he did and is doing a great job! The kids are excited that mom is finally going to speak Spanish. They've been practicing with me all weekend long, and Joey has been helping me with my numbers which I get mixed up all the time, it makes him laugh and that makes me smile! 

Joey and Emily at the Flag Ceremony at School

Hello Readers,

We have been home for about a month now, we celebrated Christmas, sent the fall DTS away on outreach to Peru, received the January DTS 23 students, hosted

 2 sets of Deluxe teams, and the kids started school after a long winter break.

  

We got to visit our cousin Jimmy for a couple of days right after New Years, his mom passed away and he came home on leave from Iraq. Considering the circumstances it was a good visit. We hung out, played board games, Misty got to go see Chris our cousins get sworn in to the Marine Corps, and Joey went to the Marine Corps base and came home with a regulation haircut they call it "high and tight".  It's growing out now and he's going let the freak flag fly for now, maybe in the spring we can get it cut again.

 

Joseph and Emily have been enjoying school, last Monday Mom and Dad went to watch the "honoring the flag" ceremony; it is a big deal there, so much so that if you are late to school during the previous week you do not get to participate. Misty is planning to post the video that we shot soon. Joey is getting more independent at home and doesn't need to be constantly entertained, and we are getting ready to change bed arrangements for the kids; we are going to put in a top bunk for Joey and put Emily on the twin size bed below and graduate Emily from the little toddler bed.  Emily is excited to have a big bed.

 

Bill has a kitchen team now, and we hired a guy named Salvador from Ensenada to help out with cleaning for a few months.  Salvador has been a huge blessing to us all and is filling a need we have on the base to just help out in the kitchen and clean and organize.  Also two other YWAMers, Saul and Moises are helping with the cooking also.

 

So that's what is going on lately, keep reading we will be posting again soon.

 

Ahh a week of rest... Well for some...

Since last we wrote we have been taking it easy. Our base leader and most of our leadership have gone to a leader conference in Guadalajara, and the DTS students are in TJ for a week. So it's just been the base core that has been here. It's real quiet and a nice pace for a couple of days. This weekend we will have three teams here building homes, for our needy families. One of those teams are our very own Sparks Christian Fellowship! We are soo excited and can't wait for this team to arrive.

Juan, Eufemia, Carlos, 9 Juan, 5 this is a post from our HOH team, it has been translated from Spanish to english but you all will get the idea.

Juan and Eufemia came from the state of Oaxaca A very poor part of Mexico. They are looking for a better life here in Ensenada. Juan bought some land on credit and he built a small room with home made mud blocks. They don't have water or electricity and they decided to live in this way because they can't pay the rent of a better house. SCF will be giving the a gift of a home to this family this weekend. Please pray for SCF and the family as they begin building, it has rained all day today and it'll be muddy :) how fun is that! They are on the road as of this post but have reached Tijuana so they are in Mexico now!

We will try to keep you posted during the weekend.

Happy day after Thanksgiving everyone...

Misty has a new job here on the Base she is the new hairdresser... na, she is the personal assistant to the Operations director, Kody Sprang. she will be helping him stay organized, and on schedule, and any other duties that may need to happen i.e. cutting his and a few others hair. (Sandy Foster would be so proud) Now she has a desk to sit at, a Mac Powerbook, and her very own Nextel to communicate with; it is actually a Blackberry unit so I am jealous of her cool stuff. As you know with great power comes great responsibility so be praying for her with all the stuff she is responsible for.

We all have been quite busy here hosting lots of teams and local groups as the building goes on in the community of "Antonio Melendres", this past couple of weeks we have had large teams from the US, alongside the neighbors, rehab center, Pastors, they have built 6 homes in that community and over 14 homes in various other Ensenda locations. So within two weeks we have built 20 homes!! This is a huge praise! We will in a hard working month do about 20 homes but this has been two weeks. My head is spinning.

During that weekend we had the great experience of hosting a group from SCF, Eric, Lisa, Hilary, Dave, Matt, Dane, Stephanie, Anna, and Amy were a lot of help AND A HUGE ANSWER TO PRAYER !! They drove here all the way from Sparks, Nevada and finally arrived at almost 11PM and were up at 6am the next day working. We all cooked, cleaned, organized, visited the community Antonio Melendres, helped with the house build, went downtown to the Red Light District. We witnessed a mugging, experienced a gentlemen totally repent and give his life to Christ, listened to two guys totally wasted speak with us with more biblical truth than anyone we've heard from in a long time (Quentin, you'd be so proud). We went to a local church the next morning, had lunch and shopped and even played a bit of Domino's on Sunday evening. It was FAST and crazy; but above all it was very good. We were so so so much encouraged when we saw our friends from home and meet some new friends. We cannot wait for next week !

Yesterday was Thanksgiving and we had a big feast last night. We ate Turkey, Ham, Mashed Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes, Green bean casserole, Pumpkin Pie... all the good stuff. It was a great team effort and everything was delicious, and I am glad it's over. I looked at all the stuff that was left over and remembered why back home a lot of people go out to dinner at a local casino for thanksgiving dinner and skip the whole clean up part.

Joey and Emily participated in the Revolution day festivities at school earlier this week; Emily was dressed up as Adelita and Joey was Francisco Madero. He wanted to dress up as Francisco "Pancho" Villa but maybe next year. It's really cool to see them experiencing the Mexican culture!

And as the weekend comes up we have a bunch of teams arriving (SCF included) and homes are going up and families lives are changing forever. After that a quieter regular week because the 30 + DTS students are going to be gone to Tijuana for a week and... take a deep breath... Soon we will be coming home to visit before Christmas, we can't wait to see all the changes that have happened at home and visit with family and friends.

Feeding the 100

Yesterday we went to the Antonio Melendez Community center with a group from the YWAM Base. We visited with the people, our Homes of Hope staffers interviewed families to get information for the houses that will be built, and we gave sandwiches and soup to everyone there.

Much more than that happened of course; first we had to drive to the community we traveled as a family in the kitchen Montero, we had a convoy of 3 vans and us and tried to follow the directions but it took some time to find where the community was, see the first time we went it was a different way. The first attempt took us up a hill and we came to some guys property and he told us how to get there, so we all turned around and went back down the hill and went a little farther on around the mountain and up again and then we were finally on our way, about a mile up a steep dirt road and we made it to the community center building. As we drove up we passed several burned out remnants of homes. There were about 100 or so people there, and soon after everything got rolling, Interviews, lunch and clothes were there that had been donated and all that had to be sorted out.

Also we had some other cool stuff happen, we ran into a Local Pastor we know from way back I the 90’s when we went to Rancho Agua Viva, Pablo Garcia. It was nice to see him, and hopefully we see a lot more of him during the next few weeks and months. Joey and his Father spent some time throwing rocks down the canyon on the side of the road, and spent some time talking to a teenager who had rode to the meeting with his dad and 2 other guys on their horses. He let Joey sit in the saddle and Emily too. Emily also had to use a toilet and she took a poop in a toilet, unfortunately it was a toilet that was waiting to be installed so Dad got to clean it up. I saw something like this on Jackass once, it was a lot funnier on TV believe me.

Seriously though we are going to be doing a lot of extra building over the next few weeks and this is going to be an exciting time here at YWAM Ensenada. I was thinking about all this yesterday and I was really happy and want to praise the Lord that we have the system in place, the builders, volunteers that want to come down and help and the money donated to buy the materials, and are poised and ready to really make a difference in this community in the hills.

Wildfires in Ensenada

Hi gang, sorry it's been awhile since we have written, we have been in emergency mode ever since the fires started up in San Diego. A community here in Ensenada named "Antonio Melendez" was hit by a fire. 70 Families have been impacted, and 50 of the families lost everything!

These families have very little as it is! one family has lived in their home for over twenty years, the fire riped through their home and they lost it all. See here in Mexico the families that have been impacted don't have a shelter they can run to or even to get the much needed supplies they need just for survival, they are on their own.

Our first response was to take some food and survey the area and see if anyone needed a warm place to stay. We when arrived there was only a few people left to watch over the area for security purposes. We met with the community leader, and began to repair the community center. We also took up an offering and was able to buy a stove for the workers to cook on and to keep warm at night. Some San Diego staff members came down and when they met up with some of the families, than ran down to our local store and purchased tents, sleeping bags, cots, air mattress, blankets, anything they could get their hands on to help. We are committed to seeing this community back up and running. We are HOMES FOR HOPE! We'd like to bring some sense of hope to these families, we'd like to share that God is here! and really does care from them.

The more information we get out the more help we can get for this community. We have some money that has been donated by the Mayor of Ensenada and by a local builder, for materials. We are looking for others in our community to help here as well, Our goal is to rebuild 50 homes by the end of this year. I have spoke with Rich at Sparks Christian Fellowship, and I'd be happy to talk to anyone else about what's going on here and how you can be a help to us and the families that have been devastated. We do have a phone down here now it's 775-636-8650, it is connected the computer so if the Internet is running and the computer is on, and we are around we will answer. So feel free to contact us we'd love to share with you all what's going on.

Please join with us in prayer and really seek to see what part we all can play in rebuilding this community.

MARINES

We came to San Diego for the weekend to visit my Cousins. On Friday we attended the Boot Camp Graduation Ceremony of our cousin Cody at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot. My Cousin Jimmy, his dad was there and got us some really nice seats since he is a former drill instructor. Misty took lots of video and we shall post a video from this soon; it was a great ceremony and Joey was really impressed and wants to join the Marines when he grows up. Cody looks really good and it was good to visit, later that day we had dinner at a Recreation center in the military housing where my cousin lives and I met Jimmy’s in-laws and saw the friends of the new Marine. It is also a goodbye weekend as well because Jimmy is about to be deployed to Iraq again with his Marine Corps unit, we will miss him and hope to see him soon.

Joey and Emily are doing well in school and we are very proud of them, Emily always has a gold star for her behavior report and got to go to a special trip to the Library a couple of weeks ago, Joey is getting better at the gold star game and on Thursday was especially good and helpful at school. There was little kid there who didn’t speak any Spanish and was crying and Joey served as the translator and let the little boy know it was alright and his daddy would be there soon to pick him up. The School told Misty that Joey did a very good job helping out when she came to pick up the kids after school. I told Joey I was proud of him too and I shared with him about how I was at a bible study the other night and we are studying Proverbs and we were looking at chapter 3 and I was reading the message version and the verse that says “Do not withhold good from your neighbor when it is your power to do so” reads as something like “when you help someone who is in need you are God’s hands” when I saw that the other day I was really excited because it was a different way of looking at it, I usually automatically remember the Larry Burkett Financial Study stuff about this is the proof text that you should always pay your bills on time. Our bible study group actually had a really good discussion because of this verse about us here in YWAM San Diego/Baja and what we are doing here in Ensenada, and also reaching out to the people we meet right in our neighborhood, or the people coming to the side door of the kitchen to ask for food or water. But back to Joey, I told him that and that he was being Gods hands when he helped out that other little kid at school.

October

October has arrived and we are getting into our second year here in Ensenada. We have teams every week till Christmas, these groups come from all over and are church's, families, work places, ect. gathering together to come down for a three to four day trip to build and change the lives forever of one of our poor and needy families!

A new DTS has started. We have over 30 students, mostly girls; last weeks speaker was a man from North Carolina named Jack Kody. Misty and I have nice memories of Jack Kody as he comes every DTS and speaks and we get a chance to catch up.

We are going to visit San Diego next week to see our cousins son graduate from the Marine Corps Boot Camp at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, I am looking forward to that and hopefully Joey and Emily will like it too and are able to handle the ceremony it only lasts an hour so I am hoping they don’t get too antsy.

On Friday night I went out with some of the other staffers to the local red light district to do street ministry. We had a few people playing guitars and a table was set up and we gave out some soup and punch. Good conversations were had with people that came up to us and hung out, One couple was there and they wanted to get help and a couple girls prayed with the couple and we referred them to a rehab center so they can get off of drugs and get off the streets.

Happy Canada Day!!

Emily Turns Three

The Moss Family adventure continues….

The new school year has started and Emily is now in the first year of Kindergarten! She looks so cute in her little checkered dress. Misty went to a meeting for the parents on Thursday afternoon; the meeting went on for 3 hours as all the new rules were rolled out by the Principal. As things were explained Misty found out that gold stars are the best stars to get, red stars mean you are being aggressive towards the other students, blue means you were playing and not paying attention in class, green stars means you are an academic problem. Silly parents! We were thinking that a star was a star and would be so proud of Joey when he had all the pretty stars in his notebook from the teacher. This year we will be more understanding when we see what is in the notebook.

We were having meetings this week in the mornings, and after the meeting we had work projects, a lot of the apartments across the street from the YWAM base needed to be painted. One of the rooms had a nice paint job but the vinyl paint over the old acrylic paint wasn’t a good idea and a bubble developed and the whole coat had to be peeled off because it wasn’t sticking. Speaking of work we are taking a week off to rest a bit, we wanted to have a couple off to come home and visit but that is now delayed till December. The plan is to just hang out and do fun day off stuff while here and the kids go to school and on Thursday next week go to San Diego for the weekend and visit my cousin.
During the last week of programs we had a graffiti contest and a Rap Concert for the local neighborhood kids on the base and I saw a guy there who works at a local Sushi Restaurant where Misty and I have eaten lunch. His name is Juan and he was on the base this week doing something with Omar Murillo our local Outreach coordinator; so I had a chance to talk to Juan and he is actually opening his own Sushi place down the street from the YWAM base. I got to visit this evening, and have a sample of sushi. The menu was being photographed by Omar’s wife Stephanie and they called me and invited me over. It was really good; I never thought that there was going to be stuff like sushi in Ensenada. It was a nice surprise, while there we prayed for Juan’s Sushi shop and that it would be a success and there in the middle of the saws and paint and dust some guy was asking for a California Roll, that’s what we call results!! I’m just being silly, but the sushi is good and I hope it is really a success for Juan.

Family Time!

Ok, so here I am a little sooner than the last time. It has been a pretty good past few days; we had my cousin Jimmie and his family came down. They arrived on Friday evening and we had a good time visiting, playing on the beach, shopping at the Bufadora, and just having family time. They helped clean up after breakfast, that’s always nice and it was good to finally get them out here to visit. Chris took some awesome pictures with his new camera, it is a large SLR digital camera with all kinds of useful features. I love digital cameras and how you can take the pictures and stick them on the computer and see them or post them on your Blog or Myspace , facebook page whatever.

Joey was in the courtyard today and one of the other little kids on the base was riding his bike without training wheels so Joey gave it a try and was able to do it and so then we went to the parking lot of the apartments and Joey rode his bike around, Mom and Dad were feeling so proud of him as he rode around.

We are looking forward to a quiet week, I have the new cycle menu written for the coming fall and I am looking forward to what is ahead the next few months.

Update on the Moss's

Dear readers;

Sorry we haven’t written lately, Bill, the regular writer has been too lazy when he finally has a free bit of time. So much stuff has happened the past few weeks; so much that I can even follow the English 101 standard essay format. We went to San Diego and went to the circus, the last cycle of Mission Adventures went down, we said goodbye to just about all the summer staffers, went to dinner with everyone to celebrate the work we did, and we painted our apartment and have been making the place more and more like home.

The Barnum and Bailey Ringling Brothers circus was in San Diego last month and we took the kids there. My favorite part of the circus is the pre show on the floor where you get to see the clowns up close and animals too. We also got to dress up in costumes too, I have been to this circus a few years ago and I love the way they keep the excitement going the whole time from the moment you enter the building to when you are leaving. While in san Diego we also got to visit the Hurst Family; their kids are the same age as Emily and Joseph. Caleb is just a couple months older than Joey and Chloe is 1 day older than Emily, the kids really love each other and as soon as we start heading to San Diego it is the major part of the conversation: “I want to see Caleb and Chloe” Joey also likes the mom too, “ I want to see Miss Laura” Sorry Joey she’s too old for you.

The last cycle was great, it was a lot more manageable since we only had 2 groups with us, a team from Canada and a team from Montana. The team from Montana had a leader who’s name was Joey, he and Joey Moss were together in the mornings Joey thought it was the greatest that someone has the same name as he does. We were down to only a third of the summer staffers that came down during the last cycle and now just about everyone is gone, a few are going to stay for a couple more weeks and work in departments helping out. Last night we went to the local Brazilian BBQ buffet restaurant. It is called Pampas and you come in and get your table and go around the Buffet for the various salad items and a couple of other hot items and then while you are eating the waiters come around and have different meats on swords that they bring around and cut you a piece. You have beef, pork, chicken, sausages, bacon wrapped shrimp, lamb and then sometimes they turn the lights down low and bring out stuff I cannot identify, it tastes good though so it would be a disservice to call it Mystery Meat, it is Mysterious to me though.

I took off from work on Wednesday and Thursday and Misty and I painted the living room and dining room in our apartment; we did a dark blue and a dark beige color scheme and it really looks nice. It is a good experience when we work together, and that’s one of the things I really like about what we are doing here, working together. Yesterday the progress was faster than today; we worked along and finished painting around 12:30 in the afternoon. This morning Joey cut his cheek on Emily’s dollhouse after he got out of the shower and was starting to get dressed. So we had to bandage that up and had a nurse look at it and do the first patch job. We have a cool photo just ask we'll send it to ya.

Joe stayed home and was around as we did the last bit of painting and finished at nearly 3 in the afternoon. As the painting progressed we also cleaned the area rugs and cleaned all the dust and crap that accumulates behind dressers, chests and couches, our home is nice and clean, at least the front part is…..

Update

Alrighty then, its towards the end of the month and the train of excitement and all the other stuff keeps on rolling! Our last posting was pictures from the group from Sparks Christian Fellowship; we had such an awesome time visiting in the evening, visiting the team when they were out building and doing ministry. My favorite moment was on a Saturday afternoon, we met up with the team at a park where they had been doing evangelism, and helping out a neighbor by painting their house. The team took the sandwiches and other cooler items to the Bahios area (red light district) and handed them out. So I am walking with Emily and getting behind Misty and Sheri Shannon and some others, I was half lost and Emily spotted the rest and we were going up the street and trying to catch up, Emily had a open individual pack of chips and as we walked up the sidewalk we ran into a few of the Prostitutes. It was so sweet seeing Emily giving the girls chips and just being sweet; my heart was touched seeing this. Afterwards we went to the local Applebee’s restaurant THANKS RICH! The whole week was a rush of activity, and it was great seeing everyone.

Since then we have hosted another cycle of Mission Adventures which was 150 mouths to feed, and 2 groups of teams just here to build houses for our needy families, plus we have another team here as I type: 50 teenagers, 4 days, 8 houses, YES 8 Houses! They built 4 houses on Thursday and Friday and another 4 houses on Saturday and Sunday. They are using a new kind of material that we are building here in Ensenada, it's like refrigertation panels, so it keeps the house cool in the summer and warm in the winter. This team as put in some major hours building these homes, we appreciate their hard work, and most of all their willingness to give the most precious gift of a home to the homeless.

Things get a little crazy here sometimes. Joey is doing a 3 week class doing art and learning about the earth and other climates, the other day they went to the beach to find shells and play in the sand. They were near the YWAM Base and when Joey saw the base he told the other kids “hey I live there” (in Spanish) and than took off up the beach and to home; a few other kids ran after with the teachers shortly thereafter. Misty and I had spotted Joey running around and the other kids and so we met the teachers and handed Joey back over to them. Safe and sound. At least Joey knows where home is. Emily is doing great also, growing up into a beautiful little girl.

K till next time.

Los 4 Fantastico

To see more photos of our group and the other students here check out. http://www.flickr.com/photos/ensmaphotos/collections/72157600302608120

Generation Serving in Ensenada

Here's our team serving in the Kitchen. We usually ask the students for six volunteers to help out. Not Generation! Everyone got involved! Many hands make light work, is true. They are doing great and have such a great heart to do whatever is needed of them. Tuesday evening we were returning back to our apartment after a time of teaching and worship, and one of our neighbors was getting his groceries out of the back of his truck and a few of our guys, Jake Z., Steven, Randy, ran over and began to help this guy with his stuff. That was such a blessing to see these young guys take the initiative and help out!!

Generation Meets a Mexican Youth Group

This afternoon the team spent some time with a local youth group. Togehter they will do an outreach event this weekend. Tomorrow they will begin learning together some drama to share, today was a time to do some team building, play some soccer on the beach, and just hang out while downing an ice cream. Emily and Joey are having a blast too!
To have a larger view of the picture just click on it.

GENERATION IN ENSENADA

Look Mom and Dad they made it safe and sound! Here is some of our students from our youth group in Sparks, Nevada. "Generation", is here for ten days to learn some really cool evangelistic tools, give food to the hungry, and build a needy family a home. We are excited to have them visit, it's like getting a gift from home. Thank you Lisa S. for the magazines and other stuff that Hil says she has but hasn't given it to us yet, hey there's still time! I'll keep snapping photos and giving you updates whenever possible, check back often.

SURPRISE!!!!

Joey turned five on the 13th of June and we celebrated Super Hero style! SURPRISE to us the Mission Adventures staff got into dressing up and helping out at the party as well. It was tons of fun!

Misty went to a wedding last week in Reno, her friend Sandy Blancey got married and it was fun for her to actually be able to get away and make it to the wedding. While there Misty was also able to go to church and visit friends, go out to dinner and see her parents. Everyone was asking where the rest of the family was, we appreciate that! We will all be there in September for a couple of weeks to chill out a bit and re connect with people and do a bit of official work related stuff. We just got our FM3 work visas and we are now eligible to get our Mexican drivers licenses. I can’t wait to show some co-workers from my old job. So that was and will be a good SURPRISE.

While Misty was away, dad was home with the kids; they hung around the YWAM Base and spent time reading and watching movies. It was a pretty OK weekend actually, the house got a bit messy though and Misty had a SURPRISE when she arrived home on Monday evening.

Mission adventures for the summer has started and every now and then during the week we have had several SURPRISES: kitchen helpers being called away to go to worship band practice, meal time changes, number changes etc. My plan (not really) is tell the Youth Pastor’s to re route the flights to LA instead of San Diego, then let the staff of mission adventures deal with it. SURPRISE!!!

This past weekend Misty’s parents were in Mexico and we visited. We went to the hotel they were staying in Rosarito called the Newport Hotel, they had a trampoline, kids play equipment, and a huge pool with a hot tub. We went to Foxploration which is the movie studios FOX has there with sets from Titanic and Master and Commander plus some stuff from some other movies: Planet of the Apes, X-Men, True Lies and Monkey bone, and Night at the Museum.

It was really cool all of got these cool makeup scratches, lots of heads were turning and one little boy actually ran up to Emily to ask if she needed help. We love the Mexicans here they are so friendly and concerned with others.

This coming week is the last few days of the first cycle of Mission Adventures, we will then have a few days of fun, and then SURPRISE Generation will be here!! That will be great! Also the school year is ending for Joe’s Kindergarten, when that’s over we are going to keep the kids in daycare for half days, this way they will keep up on their Spanish, and then bring them home for lunch on the base and do stuff with other kids here and let them interact with the Mission Adventures teams.
This is their favorite part!! Ours to actually, there's nothing like pouring your life into young people!

Tuesday June 12, 2007

Hello evveryone who likes to check in and see what's going on...

The next little chunk of the year is coming around the bend, it is time for summer mission adventures. We have about 25 new summer staffers who are going to be helping out with the summer programs; a bunch of new names to learn and new people to get to know. Everyone has been helping in the kitchen and the strategy is to have rotating teams of 5 people learn to cook the various meals we have on the menu this summer. It has been quite a good experience getting to know people. I am happy they are here, it is going to be a good summer.

We all drove up to San Diego on Sunday and went to WalMart and a couple of other stores, some things you cannot easily get in Mexico, like Boudroux's Butt Paste that keeps me (Bill) from getting a painful heat rash downstairs. We also got a new boom box for the kitchen it isn't too big but it is loud enough, the last one dissappeared one night last December and we have been using boomboxes that people bring in from their rooms or sometimes someone has their iPod and portable speakers. So I got something new that has a Radio, CD player and a built in area next to the CD with a plug to go into aforementioned iPod or MP3 player. I think I will fill it with Batteries and set it next to the window, what I really want to do sometimes is listen to baseball games from the San Diego Station in afternoons. Speaking of Baseball, my cousin had a ticket and took Joey with him and his two other younger kids to the Padre's game on Sunday, Joey had a great time playing with the Yo Yo he got at the gate, and likes his cousins especially Tristan who is 8. Joey doesn't exactly understand baseball yet though so he needs to wait a while till he goes again. I am so happy for him to have had that day at the park though, I can't wait till I go.

While Joey was with his cousins Mom and I were shopping with Emily, she is our little friendly girl, "Hola" a waitress at the Sizzler we had lunch at was from Mexico so Emily said Hola to her and told her her name and showed her 2 fingers when she asked how old Emily was. I love Emily so much, she is so sweet to people, when we walked outside she ran over to a little girl who was with her mom and another lady visiting before leaving the parking lot and Emily and the little girl gave each other a hug like it was a reunion or something, kids are so friendly. Once the hugs are over then Emily goes to the open trunk and starts to have a quick look around to see if there is something there she wants to look at so we had to get her out of there before the ladies think we are some professional thieves or something.

So I guess I will close and share what is happening inside of me also, I was thinking the other day about Carrying the Cross like Jesus said to do, I read up some and I guess it means dying to my selfish wants and being others oriented, there is a guy who has carried a cross all over the word though since 1985, I think I saw him at an Agricultural Fair in New Zealand in 1989. Related to carrying my cross is Laying down my rights, Jesus laid down his rights when he was on the earth and I find that when I remember to lay them down I get less mad at people. I don't want to become mr. doormat of course but sometimes if I remember these things I can spend time reaching out to hurting people or encourageing people instead of being VERY Offended at all the jerks who are making me mad.