the new "normal"

I am failing in my pledge to blog more in 2008.

As I was thinking about why, I realized that early on things were so different and strange that every day created exciting stories to share. Lately, however, we have felt very much at home here. Over time, you adapt to a new environment and create new routines and a new "normal" for your family. I believe that has been God blessing us and helping us feel at home here where he has placed us for the time being.

So, in short, here are a few updates as part of our new "normal".
1) we have now had three weeks of video messages with Marco and my fourth week of preaching in the english services. Both have been well received, we have continued to add people each week. This weekend, we had around 280 adults between the three services...including 40 in the english service.
2) As a language update, I have now completed the rosetta stone program and can follow a conversation pretty well. I am also trying to force myself into situations of having to speak the language more...that is usually the last piece that comes. Kaycee is sometimes a little too busy for formal lessons with two little kids right now, but she is learning and practicing with our helper Wendy who now lives with us. Emmy just yesterday spit out her first few un-prompted spanish words that I have heard. She spouted "hola" to Wendy as she saw her in the morning, and was telling me "Ven daddy" to get me to come follow her. The latter of which was not taught by us. Amazing how sharp the 2-year-old mind is.
3) Our message series are now in sync with Community of Faith - Houston and so we are set to begin a series called "One Month to Live" on Feb 16/17 here in Cancun. We are working on marketing the church through this series and hope to bring in new people who are un-churched and do not know Christ. Also, we are planning on new service time schedule starting that weekend to hopefully spread out the crowds a little better between the services and to accommodate growth. We will have a Saturday night spanish service at 7:30, Sunday morning at 9:30 (english), 11:00 (spanish), and 12:30 (spanish). The good thing about our Spanish preacher is he doesn't get tired no matter how many services we do. Please pray that God will bring people to hear His word and experience Him.
4) We are excited to be hosting my mom for a long weekend coming up. "Grammy" is coming to see the grandbabies primarily (without a doubt), but is also bringing a gift for Emmy and the family...a 6-week-old, white, bishon-mix, puppy. We are planning to call him Morpheus since he fits the image so well.

Well, we hope to hear more from you guys as well...we covet your continued prayers.

-NW

First weekend with Marco on video

This Sunday was very well received. Marco's message via video was excellent, but more importantly, God met us there yesterday. At Marco's request, I took some pictures of the new-look worship room.

setup complete

after a crazy-long day, we now have the room ready to go for this weekend's video messages. I spent all day Wednesday with a crew of guys hanging a 7.5' x 10' screen and a projector, then running appropriate cables to the projector to get the room ready. I plan to take some pictures of the action this sunday and post them here. Overall, everything went pretty smooth and it looks really good in there. The quality is very good, so hopefully there are no distractions for people to hear God's message through Marco this week.

This is a big answer to prayer that the school where we meet is letting us hang these as fixtures in that room, because there would be no good way to do that portable every week. I left the school at about 6:30 last night very pumped up after getting to test the look of it.

I can't wait to see what God has for this weekend.

NW

First weekend preaching

Ok, there is no looking back now. Marco and Carina left with their family on Thursday and are now busy getting settled in Houston. This was our first weekend without them here as well as my first weekend preaching. Overall, it went pretty well. (I have yet to hear the audio from my English message to critique myself, but I did get positive response...even from Kaycee). Marco's presence will be missed, but we have been purposing to keep the energy positive in talking about the changes. I think people are still in a wait-and-see mode for the video messages. So pray for us this week as we finish setting that up and begin video messages next weekend.

As a tribute to Marco's leadership over the past five years, there has already been people stepping up and filling in various gaps. Our right hand people are now Luis Garcia and his wife Aleda. (their 3-year-old daughter Renata is Emmy's right hand as well). He has now started in his role as the "face" for the spanish church and she is now leading the children's ministry. They are an awesome young couple and already good friends (thanks more to their english than our spanish).

Tomorrow morning is our first leadership meeting without Marco as well, so I am going to go on to bed to be fresh for that. He may be joining by video eventually, but I don't think he has his internet service set up yet.

We will keep you posted.
-NW

Happy New Year back in Cancun

After a very enjoyable visit with families in Houston for the holidays, we are back in Cancun today...refreshed and ready to get back to work. It was great to see all of you that we were able to.

Along with trunks of Christmas gifts, we brought several things back with us for the church, including a upgraded projector and an acoustic/electric guitar for worship. We are excited about these new tools to help people experience Christ.

We need your prayers because now is when we hit the ground running. Marco and Carina and their family (our strong support system here) are leaving tomorrow for their move to Houston and the final stage of operation "pastor swap". We will miss their friendship and leadership dearly. Pray as we go through another level of adjustment period with culture life and church life.

Part of my new year's resolution is to blog more...so be checking in. That's all for now.

-NW

Early Christmas

We decided to let the kids open presents here a few days early to allow for some time to play with new things for a few days before leaving them behind to get on a plane. It was a last minute decision to do it yesterday, so we built it up for Emmy in the morning and then wrapped presents during her nap for her to "discover" when she woke up. So our first Cancun Christmas was at 2:30 pm on December 19 on a warm sunny day. Here is a fun video from our Christmas dinner. We look forward to coming to Houston on Sunday afternoon.

Merry Christmas to all! We will probably begin posting again more frequently after the new year.

-nw

it has been a while

Whenever I have some "down time" on the computer, I usually start up my spanish lessons. Here are a couple updates for all you millions of subscribers:
1) my plans to drive the altima back from houston changed. we should have a car by the end of this week. we found a 2001 nissan pathfinder that we are able to buy from another american...which makes the title transfer much easier. Having a car again will be a significant upgrade for us.
2) believe it or not, we still do not have our living room furniture...seven day delivery has been rushed to this thursday after 2 1/2 weeks
3) only 3 weekends left here together with Marco and his family...which means we are now rushing to get technology pieces in place for video sermons. Or else they will be hearing some really bad spanish :)
4) even though i have never met this family...i feel a connection with them. plus, they are better bloggers, so I will just ditto a lot of what they say. seriously, it's kinda freaky. I'm sure God was smiling through both of our developments
5) Some things are moving much slower than we would like. We are trying to learn patience in adjusting to a different-paced culture. :)
6) Kaycee's parents are coming to visit us for a long weekend, which will be a welcome site from home.
7) I read a good quote on Perry Noble's blog that has been a good reminder for me "I have learned that I can either do ministry from memory or ministry from the overflow of what God is doing in me–the latter is ALWAYS the most fruitful."
8) My prayers lately have been echoing Moses in Psalm 90:16-17

Thank you for your continued prayers. If you are reading this, then we love you.

-NW

new friends

Now that the honeymoon period is over for living in Cancun, reality has set in that we are without our family and friends here. Thankfully, we have made some new friends here to help us cope with these changes and the lonliness. There are six or seven ladies at our apartments that have kids the same ages as ours. They all go outside at the same time with their kids so we go out and play. Emmy has made lots of new friends with names that are hard for her to say (like Yair and Valesqua and Roni) but they have fun together. We have also met two Jewish ladies who live here. Be praying for one of them named Yamit. Nathan got a chance to talk to her a few nights ago. She was raised Jewish but she doesn't believe in anything. She had a lot of questions for him and seemed really curious.

We have also been making friends at church. There is a couple who barely speak English who are missing their three grandkids so they took us to lunch last week and said they wanted to adopt us as their own. David said our kids can call them abuelo and abuela. :) They were so sweet.

Overall I think people here are much friendlier than any where else I have been. I mean, they kiss you on the cheek the first time they meet you! It is so welcoming!

Happy Thanksgiving

Although thanksgiving is not as celebrated here, we are looking forward to the holiday season.
here is an early gift from us to you.

Peso Pobres

We have been looking for ways to get around with no car. Yesterday we decided to take a cab to the hotel zone and go to the beach. We tried to get a cab at the gate of our apartment, but they told us they couldn't call one. So, we walked a couple blocks to the super (a mexican grocery store) to try to find a taxi. We waved one down and jumped in. To the "zona hoteleria" Nathan told the driver. He takes off and we are driving back down the way we had walked. Nathan decided to ask how much this ride was going to take. When the driver told us we realized we did not have enough pesos to get there let alone back too (for some reason, Nathan was thinking the 50 pesos in his pocket was a lot of money...equals about 5 dollars). So, the driver pulled over and we got out, paying him 30 pesos for a ride back to where we started. We were right back at our apartments! hahaha We were laughing and decided to walk to the Extra (convenient store) to get a snack and drinks.

We spent 5 minutes deciding what we wanted and took it all up to the counter...hoping to pay with credit card here. The lady says "Solo efectivo" (cash only) Nathan handed her our one bill of 20 pesos and said what can we get with this? She pulled out the things we could get with the small amount of cash we had and we sat in the store eating our snacks and laughing at ourselves. It is amazing the thousands of cultural cues that are different every day can sometimes overwhelm your brain and make it shut down. Oh well, it makes for a funny story.

church

Noviembre 19
Today we had our second church service. I sang in Spanish for the first time since we have been here. I think it went well. A few people tried to talk to me afterwards in Spanish. I am getting better though about understanding a little of what is going on around me. We had a few lunch invitations too so I think people like us regardless of our Spanish.

FURNITURE!!!

Noviembre 18
Well, we lost our internet connection today which means no phone calls, no online Spanish lessons, NO NOTHING!! We had nothing to do and I was bored out of my mind. There are only so many times you can swing on the kids play set and pretend you are having fun. I even thought about crying because at least it would be something different than anything else I had done today. Without a car it was hard to jump up and go see the sights. We finally went to the mall around 5 to walk around. Marco dropped us off and went home to finish up his message for tomorrow.

There was a really nice furniture store having some sort of blow out sale. The furniture was 50 percent off. We got a couch and loveseat, coffee table and end table all for less than the price of just a regular couch everywhere else here! And it is one of the nicest stores in town. They should deliver it when it gets here in about a week.
We also bought a little loveseat at the grocery store yesterday to go in the tv room. It makes out into a bed that is about 5 feet long. Definitely for the shorter Mexican people living here…not for 6’3” Nathan. We thought we could let kids sleep on it though.

Even after going stir crazy all day long the day ended well. Soon we will have furniture and I will post pictures of the house furnished! ☺

Internet down

Apparently the wireless internet we were receiving at the apartment wasn't just a perk. The construction company moved out and the management company is taking over operations and now the internet we had access to is gone away. We realize how much we depend on internet to keep in touch, our phone service, working, and even for spanish lessons. We are working to get new service up ASAP. Thanks for patience. Love to you all.
-nw

our Cancun address

For those who have been asking:

SM 17, MZA 1, Lote 10-01
Av. Nizuc #4 departamento 702
Torre Messina, Condominio Mediterranee CP 77500
Benito Juarez, Cancun, Q. Roo, Mexico

Price Comparisons

The prices of things here are so different from in Houston. I bought oranges last night that were 90 cents for 2 1/2 pounds! I bought a salmon fillet that was almost 2 feet long and an inch and a half thick for $9!!! Fresh produce and seafood are sooooo inexpensive here. We can eat so healthy for so cheap. A meal at a nice restaurant runs less than $10. We had a nice buffet for $8 the other day and Emmy's kid buffet was less than $2. That is exciting.
On the other hand...furniture is crazy expensive in Cancun. Wood is not cheap so any furniture reflects the price of the wood. Baby accessories like walkers, high chairs and bed rails are really outrageous. We bought a portable high chair for Davin in Houston at Walmart for less than $20. Here it was almost $100. A $30 bed rail was almost $60 here. The areas where we are saving money are being made up for in the areas where things are so expensive. : )