HOME =)

sorry it took me so long to post my return post. last wednesday was a very busy day for us and i didn't have a chance to use the computer. then thursday and friday i was traveling home and finally got a chance to go to the library today and write a little.

my ride home was crazy and i'll tell the short version. i flew from acapulco to mexico city on thrusday morning. my next flight was to chicago. i was offered by aeromexico chance to stay overnight in mexico city for $300 in international credit so i volunteered. i was a little nervous about being in mexico city alone and wasn't sure what mike would think. but we could travel if i got this! anyway, at the alst minute they didn't need me after they already gave away my seat. so they put me in first class to chicago =) well, the plane ran out of fuel and we had to stop in houston. this put me 2 hours behind so i missed my connecting flight to KC in chicago. i ended up staying overnight in chicago courtesy of delta and was booked for a 7:40 flight the next morning. well, i go tthere really early fo rmy morning flight and they told me i didn't have have a ticket, just a reservation. to make a logn story really short (because i'm going to be logged off this computer in a minute) i spent the next two hours talkign with the delta ticket agent and he finally got my tickets straghtened out. i didn't exist in the computer or something. so i missed the 7:40 and went on another flight at 9:40. i'm so thankful for that guy and i'm also thankful to be home!!!
god bless,
kristi
i might post more pics later!

two more days!

we had a great time making cookies with areli. we were forunate to be able to use susie yanez´s kitchen. it´s super nice because she loves to cook and they just built a new kitchen. it´s amazing, there is a 6 burner stovetop and everything =) she also had baking powder, vanilla, and chocolate chips which are about impossible to find here. we even had to go to FOUR different stores before we found one that carried flour, nobody bakes things like that here =) we had to go to three different stores to find one that carried butter too. it´s funny the things that are our staples that are impossible to find anywhere else. we have cookies to the yanez, dr. steinneman, dr. nela (she also owns the hotel we are staying at), and of course, our cooks (las cocineras)!

areli, megan, and i hung out and talked last night. it was a great time to just chat. we listened to different praise songs in english and areli wanted to learn some of them. we also practiced saying each others name and of course, making fun of how are pronounce it. i could just never say her name right and she couldn´t say mine because the r´s are so different you really have to grow up with the language to say it correctly. it was funny!

today we were at the hospital again all day. i never feel like i tell very exciting stories about the hospital but i don´t know that it´s all that interesting to everyone!! we always have great discussions with dr yanez about how medicine is practiced in the united states. the privacy act HIPAA would be appalled at how things are handled in mexico. but it works for them so that´s just fine. patient confidentiality doesn´t really exist. Curious patients have been known to stand in and listen to others, there are 10 people in one hospital room with no dividers or privacy, and after an ultrasound many patients just get up and walk out-bearing their backside to everybody in the hallway on the way to their room. it´s just really funny here. medicine is a lot simpler and there´s not even patient history forms, dr yanez explained . many people can´t read or write anyway so it´s actually more of a hassle but he says it takes up a lot of his time getting a family history on them. and, of course, everyone is in charge of their own medical records, dr´s don´´t keep that info. it´s really been interesting learning more about the logistics of a hospital in a third world country. it´s a lot simpler and sometimes i think that´s a very good thing!

one funny thing that happened is that dr. yanez was talking to a patient about her separation from her husband. he asked me what i think she should do. i said, i don´t know because i don´t know her. he asked me again to give her advice since i am the married one of us girls, and so i said, i would talk to God about it and go to church. this was great because then it was kind of an opening for him to talk to her about her spiritual life. they talked about it at great length and he was telling her about some of the churches in ometepec. maybe she can find strength in the church because she´s having a rough time.

tonight we are going to the church again to hang out with the young adult group. it was a lot of fun last time so i´m looking forward to it. and tonight we get PIZZA! it´s our first time to eat at a restaurant in mexico. we had the same pizza at church the other night so i´m sure it´s fine. and we don´t really care, we are looking forward to some americanish food. hopefully i´ll get to write on wednesday. it will be our last day and the woods are having us over. it should be very nice =)

have a great day!
love in Christ,
kristi

galletas!

have i ever told you all that we have cookies for breakfast here? fine by me but it´s always a little funny taht we have like four packages of cookies to choose from every day.

so italia won and that made me happy since the french people don´t really like americans. yeah for italia! it was fun to watch the game here!

today we spent hte whole morning in the hospital as usual. it was really interesting and megan especially saw a lot of interesting cases-a woman with bell´s palsy who was pregnant, a baby who might have achondroplasia (dwarfism), and other interesting ones. we had agreat review of EKG´s today with dr. yanez, the cardiologist. it´s good to keep up on this stuff and review!

this has to be short because we´re going with areli tonight to make cookies (galletas) to say thanks for all of the doctors and cooks especially. we get to use susie yanez´s kitchen and i´m excited to see her house. i´m also excited to taste the chocolate chip cookies =) we have to go to the store today and since nobody bakes here we think it might be a little hard to find the ingredients! i better look for a recipe!!
have a great day!

to Him be the glory!

NARNIA =)

so narnia was great and i´m so glad that i saw it. mike and i just never go to the movies so i didn´t have a chance. i still really want to see End of the Spear, a movie about ecuadorian missionaires. it was supossed to be great too!

it was nice watching the movie, there were about 15 of us there. andy wood made popcorn and brought pop. the wood parents were in acapulco so it was nice that we could all get together so that andy and susie would have something fun to do =)

this morning we went to Fe y Luz, areli´s presbyterian church. i enjoy the worship and singing but it´s so hard to listen to the sermon. the sermons are about an hour and it just is hard to concentrate in spanish for that long. i always miss a lot but this preacher was VERY vibrant and i really didn´t think the use of the microphone was necessary =) he´s so welcoming and they all prayed for us while we were there. tonight i´m going to the later service. there is santa cena (communion) and a baptism. i´ve never had communion here or seen a baptism so i thought that would be fun to go to. there´s another sermon so hopefully i can concentrate better this time!! we´ve really made quite a group of friends here and all of them attend Fe y Luz. carla plays on the worship team and areli plays the guitar so it´s fun to see them doing what they love. i´ll really miss them areli a lot. she´s 25 and this is a small town so it´s hard to meet new people. i told her that i´m going to pray that a new christian guy moves in town for her =) i better go, i want to see how france and italy are doing!! i can hear everybody cheering and the t.v.´s are all on so something is happening!

love in Christ,
kristi

truenos y rayos!!!

well this past week has definitely been great. i have been hoping and praying to be able to work with the church more and i got to do that a lot this week. yesterday was friday and we were at the clinic. i had the opportunity to work with dr. steinneman again. he is a really great doctor and i also enjoyed talking with him about the opportunity to have medical students come and work. i got a lot of valuable information that we can share with the medical benevolence foundation about this. i also found out a little more about the history of the hospital. apparently this hospital was rebuilt in 1995 after a horrible earthquake here leveled the entire place. there are many temblors (tremmors or small earthquakes) but this was a terremoto (big earthquakes). he invited me to go with his wife to a nearby village for their vacation bible school. that was probably one of the highlights of my trip.

he met his wife here and they married in 1982 and had at least three children (i can´t remember exactly). he said he misses switzerland but loves it here. i went with his wife and two girls to Alianza . it is a nearby very poor village that doesn´t have a single church. the wife explained to me that they are hoping that if they can get the children interested, then the parents will follow. they called them all to school through a loudspeaker that reaches many parts of the neighborhood. they came running barefoot and smiling =) there were probably 30 children that showed up for the vacation bible school last night. we met outdoors under a makeshift cover with wooden poles. on one side was a pig pin and the other was a local area set up for the women to wash clothes together. the children were so sweet and very eager to learn. i enjoyed learning the spanish praise songs too! sra. steinneman put all of the songs to hand signals and had little word charts for them to follow along with music from the stereo she brought. i´m very happy that these children have someone like her who cares so much about them and wants them to be sure they know that they are ALL loved by a great wonderful God. that was the theme of almost all of the kids songs. sra also told them the story in Daniel of Shacrach, Meshak, and Abednego which is one of my favorites. it was wonderful to hear it in spanish and hear her animations along with her. then we broke them into groups according to ages and they all did activities related to the story. it was a wonderful time!!

after that, i met the girls that evening for some mango hunting with areli and carla. we were on the church property and found some great mango trees. so naturally, we decided it would be a good idea to get them. fortunately we didn´t run into any snakes!!! Using a net we found on the ground hooked to a long bamboo piece, we were able to get about 5 mangoes. i got mine by climbing a tree and using the net-so fun!! we had dinner that night with areli and carla and afterwards we all sang around listening to megan and areli sing praise songs. they are both so good. it´s really fun when we can sing the same song in different languages at the same time!

that evening there was a horrible storm and i heard some awesome thunder. melissa and erin thought that megan and i were crazy for falling asleep and sleeping through it but i can sleep through anything-it´s a gift =)

today we decided to go to the market with areli and carla since it was our day off. we all bought some things for our families and ended up walking around town for 3 hours!! i´m not kidding when i say that we walk a lot here! the market was lively because all of the people in the small villages come to the ´big´ city, ometepec, to sell their crafts and food. we all bought a fresh coconut and the guy on the street opened it for us. we enjoyed fresh coconut juice in the zocalo (town square) with areli. her sister, leslie, came later too and went shopping with us. right now it´s the after noon and i need to take a siesta and then i´m off to the deportivo!! tonight we´re watching Narnia with areli, leslie, and the wood kids. i´ve never seen it and i´m really looking forward to it. forunately, we have an english version because my head needs a spanish break =)
thanks for the prayers!

God Bless YOU!

center-areli and megan
photo 2-anesthesia machine (you have to turn your head to the right!)
photo 3-operating room

hace fresca!

whew, finally it´s a little bit cooler here because i think it´s going to rain which is good because i´ve been drenched in sweat all day. lovely, i know . . .

last Tuesdaywas super fun playing volley ball at Areli´s church. we played with the young adult group and there were about 15 of us there. i was really thankful for that time because i had been hoping to do more with the church. again, it was nice to hang out with people our age and be able to talk with them and learn a little more conversational spanish. the church we played at was the first Christian church built in ometepec by the tim and barbara´s parents along with boyces, other missionaries from the states. i just finished reading a book about them and how they got started in ometepec. i love reading books about missionaires and this one is called I Heard the Donkey Bray by Marguerite Boyce. She was the lady who came and visited the first week mike and i were here. i´ve been doing a lot of reading here actually. it´s been good for me and i always enjoy having extra time to do more devotions and time with the bible.

i was totally motivated and planned on going ot the deportivo yesterday morning but my bed was just too comfortable. (actually, my bed is at a slant and i need to pillows under my head to make it even =) we had a full day at the hospital yesterday. i worked with dr. yanez jr again and learned alot. megan even got to apply osteopathic lymphatic techniques to help a patient with all of the edema in his leg. he had ascites (for all of you med nerds) from drinking and had the biggest belly i´ve seen. it was very distended and we drained it with a tube. it was like deflating a balloon. i felt sorry for the man as he was very cachectic and probably wouldn´t make it much longer. there was an interesting surgery involving taking a bullet out of a man´s leg. it had been in there for FOUR years!! they´ve tried surgery on it twice but is in the synovial cavity and keeps moving around in the knee. there is not endoscopic surgery here!! the man also apparently tried to take it out on himself. well, they got it out and erin was excited to assist. there were many other patients but i can´t remember them all now. every day we work with dr. yanez is fun and i always learn alot about medicine. i also enjoy it because we all get to help with taking patient histories.

areli and her friend, Carli, invited us to go to church with them again yesterday. it was a wonderful worship service in spanish and a good message about ephesians 2 8. areli is a very talented guitar player and it was beautiful to hear it. afterwards we heard a guy from the youth group play the piano. he was amazingly talented and learned it only two years ago. he was playing chopin, mozart, beethoven-all by ear and without music. truly amazing, he has a great gift that he is able to share with the church.

today was our last day in xochis. but i´m rnning out of time and only have one minute to write about it. dr. carmelo took us to the museum over lunch. it was a cute little museum and he was very excited to show us it. our time with dr. carmelo has been fascinating. i am just so glad that i met him. he really has devoted his life to translating the word of god and that is truly amazing. he is just the nicest person you´ll ever meet. he would like to come visit churches and sights in the states but says it is impossible to get a visa. our time there has been totally worthwhile and hopefully we helped that little town. we gave a lot of chupas (suckers) away today and left the rest of our donated gloves and mouth covers with dr. carmelo. that about covers it, i better go eat with the girls now. there is always so much to say!!
love in christ

photo 1- me, erin, dr. carmello, melissa, megan outside the clinic in xochis
photo 2-melissa, me, erin, riding in the combi from xochis

july 4th!!!

Happy July 4th!!! Erin started the morning off by giving us barrettes she brought from the states. they are in july 4th colors and we all wore them in our hair. this morning the woods invited us to susie´s graduation from sixth grade. she is their youngest and only daughter. i could tell they were very proud of her because she is in the top four of her class. the graduations here are a really big deal. there was a parade at the school with a flag salute, songs, and marching by the four top students in the class-susie did a great job! she was adorable and definitely stuck out as the only caucasian!! the younger grades all did a presentation for the sixth graders. it was some sort of typical dance with regional costumes. the girls wore beautiful braided hair with large flowers on the side. they were gorgeous. they had on long colorful flowing skirts with beaded tops. the clothing is so beautiful that it always makes me feel very plain!! the sixth grade class also did a dance for the guests and i took a lot of pictures. the tradition here is to give the students fake flowers for graduation. it´s kind of funny but i guess it lasts longer. the flowers were HUGE displays that they carried to the graduation. i can just picture steph´s face if we brought something like that to here dance recital =)

i´m glad we got to experience a typical mexican graduation. the doctors weren´t in today so there wasn´t much work to do. we are planning on not going to xochis on friday so that we can do more in the hospital. also, last night areli came by with another girl. areli is so nice-she copied for us a CD of a christian band. so i gave her my new favorite CD from Jars of Clay called Offerings. it has amazing worship songs on it and i gave it to her to copy. of course, it seems even more illegal to copy a Christian! CD but i rectified it by saying that it was because you can´t buy them here. hopefully she will enjoy it-she plays music for her church and enjoys it a lot.

well, i better go we are going to the bank together and then going to teach english. areli is coming by later tonight to play volleyball with us. it is such a blessing to have her as a friend here. i better remember my bugspray!!!

in Him!!

salimos acapulco!!

okay, just wanted to write and say that everything is fine. erin is feeling much better so we are leaving at 100 for ometepec! hope all is well with you all-thanks for the prayers!
love,
me

Acapulco time =)

well, i woke up saturday with the girls ready for our acapulco trip! we were excited and left at 7am to get a cab. the ride didn`t make me really sick this time because i was sitting in the front seat which was nice. our driver was interesting and everybody is full of questions as to why we are in ometepec-it`s not exactly a tourist town.

we arrived at the beautiful hyatt regency hotel three hours later. i think God had that preordained for us becasue megan found it for only $70 a night!!! i checked on prices for them again and it`s now $174-night so i`m not sure where they`re staying after the trip (the rest of the girls are spending a weeks vacation in acapulco when we`re done but i didn`t want to do that and especially not without mike). we felt like real people today, getting to relax by the pool and getting dressed up. i think our favorite part was getting ready to go out to dinner again because we could wear nice clothes. we spent most of saturday by the pool. i prefered the pool over the sand because there nobody was nagging you to buy things every 5 minutes. plus it was sooo HOT there and i had to cool off. we went for lunch at a restaurant called 100% natural and it was wonderful. i am a little forgetful and forgot my money, well nobody takes credit cards so i`m trying to survive on $9 in cash for the weekend, we`ll see . . . i ended up with a large juice which was delicious and ate the free bread-but hey, i`m a student and that`s typical =) that evening we went to a nice restaurant in the evening (that takes credit cards). it`s called the Flamingo and apparently it`s where Tarzan stayed. its really beautiful but it was in old acapulco and nobody goes there much but the history was worth it. we saw his house (actually we are still trying to figure out who the real Tarzan is ?) and enjoyed some lovely fish. this was the famous restaurant where many well-known drinks are made, including the CoCo Loco. it used to be owned by Carey Grant and that just made Erin`s day that we were in the same place that he might have been.

one thing that`s funny about mexico is their rules regarding election day. today is election day and all day saturday and sunday they don`t serve alcohol, i guess it`s to keep the people in proper voting condition =) fine by me but it was interesting none the less. oh, and the elections are going fine, we feel safe and no craziness is on the streets.

after dinner we went to see the Quebrada, they are the famous cliff divers. they jump from a really high cliff (hence why i called them cliff divers) into water below and they have to time it exactly with the tide. it really changes depths quickly. there were even three children who started the show diving off shallower depths. the final diver was really high and it made me nervous for him! our taxi driver stayed with us the whole night and then drove us back to the hotel afterwards.

the bad part is that during the night erin got really sick. we had ordered the same thing to eat all day so it couldn`t have been the food because i wasn`t sick. she was sick all morning and afternoon. we were supossed to leave at 430 today but she wasn`t well enough to travel. so we are staying another night, it would be impossible to take that drive with her getting sick and feeling so queasy. so please pray for erin, she hasn`t eaten all day and we finally got her to drink some gatorade tonight-that we bought at Wal-mart-imagine that!! hopefully she`ll feel better tomorrow. it`s just so horrible to be sick in a foreign country, there`s nothing like it to make you miss home even more. so please pray for erin and that she doesn`t get dehydrated and feels strong enough to travel tomorrow-also please pray that the rest of us don`t catch it from her.

the rest of us just kind of hung around at the pool all day and watched over her. it`s been relaxing but we certainly weren`t wanting to stay in acapulco for this!! thanks for your prayers and responses to my blog, i love reading what you think!!

have a blessed day!

ps-i hope you like your present, steph =)

photos are of acapulco beach!