Week 6 & 7

We woke up early Saturday at around 6am and our hosts woke up with us. Ruby made us a quick breakfast and some coffee, we hugged and said our goodbyes and Tim took us ashore in the dingy. It was still dark out and when we got to Roldopho's house he was there waiting out front to walk us up to the bus station. We caught the 7am bus (though it didn't arrive until about 7:20am) and took the 2 and a half bus ride back to PV. Funny on the bus all the women were bundled up in parkas and scarfs as if it were 10 below outside. I was in my shorts, shirt and flipflops though I didn't get a little chilly and put an extra shirt on.

The food was great though it had some strange effects on Ken.

At the restaurant, we see this man sitting by himself at one of the tables and he looks like he is english-speaking so one of the brothers said hello to him. Come to find out he is from the same small town that Tim grew up in. Tim went over and started talking to him and found out that the man lives in one of the houses that as a boy Tim delivered newspapers too! Weird huh.

We went all went ashore our last evening for dinner at one of the restaurants. These guys asked if we could help them push their panga farther up on the beach so when the tide came in it didn't reach their boat.

A beautiful sunset on our last evening on the boat. We were suppose to catch a bus back to PV on Sunday but there are no buses that come to this village then so we had to go home early on Saturday morning.

Tim spotted these guys coming from afar off and knew who they were. He said they come around everynight in this particular bay and the father asks if you have anything for the children. Tim decided to give them some money if they would take our bag of trash and dispose of it for us. Then he gave the kids a frisbee as well that they seemed pretty excited about.

Just a beautiful view of the bay. Our sailboats are anchored just to the right of this.

This land is owned by Hugo's father or grandfather, I can't remember. They grow the agave plant here which is what Tequila is made from.

When I saw that Hugo was wearing a Texas Longhorns shirt I had to get a picture with him. I the background is the pavillion overlooking the ocean where we ate lunch.

We stopped at these cabanas called El Cielito to have lunch. One of the guys who worked there was Hugo who lived in the states for several years and spoke excellent english. We placed some magazines with him and then he gave us a little tour of the cabanas. This hammock was on the porch of one of them and so I decided I needed a little siesta.

These are the kids of the family that Warren and Tracy found in the little town of Maito. They moved from the States and the kids only speak English and were all studying. They were so excited to have the witnesses visit them.

Waiting in the shade since the truck was dead and Warren and Tracy were on a call.

There's an adventure everyday here. This time it was the truck not starting. Fortunately it was a standard. First me and Ken tried pushing it but we couldn't get it going fast enough so then all 8 of us had to push.

Though having been hit by a car twice in her life, Chastity still hasn't learned. She would rather soak up the sun in the middle of the road and chance getting hit by a car than to sit in the shade with the rest of us.

You see these a lot in peoples backyards. Some of the houses in the poorer areas don't have kitchens so they cook over wood in these outdoor stoves.

Brian witnessed to this english speaking man for quite some time.

A fence of cow skulls, kind of eerie...ok...it would be if you were a cow.

6 Canadians, 2 Americans and 1 Columbian (Rodolpho is actually from Columbia not Mexico) all well-dressed and riding in an old truck. YES, we got lots of weird looks!

Brian had to syphon the gas from this plastic jug since there are no gas stations in this village. We were pretty sure he swallowed more than he put in the truck.

I spotted this man on the pier waiting with his daughters and he spoke excellent english. He said he liked the bible and though said he was catholic he accepted the tract, "Would you like to know the truth?"

Here we all are getting ready to head out into the ministry Friday morning. Brian had come ashore the day before and rented a truck from one of the locals for our day in service. When he told the man that we were Jehovah's Witnesses he said that one of our brothers lived here in the village. He took him to Rodolpho, an unbaptized publisher who only spoke spanish. Rodolpho was so excited about us being there and asked if he could join us on Friday. When we got ashore he was dressed and waiting. He had also hand drawn a map of the area for us to show us where some of the english speaking people lived.

Here's our little cabin. Chastity was still snoozing the next morning.

On our way back to our boat after dinner on the other boat, we had this flying fish fly right into the dingy. They are everywhere at night and will often fly several feet out of the water. Really cool!

The "Faraway" at full sail on our way to our next stop, the village of Tehuamixtle. This is where we spent Thursday night. Unfortunately, the water was pretty rough in the bay and so Tim put out the stabilizer to keep the boat from rocking too bad but just before the sun set the rope broke and we lost the stabilizer. It was a rough night on the boat. It rocked so bad all night I was pretty sure I was going to upchuck all my food from dinner.

Just before we left the village we talked to these fishermen repairing their nets on the shore.

This little dog came up to say hello while we were finishing up.

Here's the mans house from the side. He has plastic bags sticking in the cracks to stop the wind draft from coming through. Very poor but he DID have a satellite dish on the back.

Brian stopped to check on Ken and let him know that we were all done.

This man didn't speak any English but when Ken explained to him that we were speaking to people about the Bible he wanted to show Ken his bible. He invited Ken to his house and they sat and talked for quite awhile while Brian and I continued searching the village. After covering all the houses and finding no other english speaking people Brian decided we should go to the school in the middle of the village and that perhaps the teacher there would know some english. I was a little nervous walking into the school yard to this little 4 classroom school. Brian knocked on one of the classroom doors and the teacher said in spanish, "Come in!". When Brian opened the door all the young kids immediately stood from their desks and said "HOLA!!" Brian asked if anyone spoke english and all the kids laughed out loud. The teacher thanked us for stopping, shook our hands and all the students said "ADIOS!!" and waved goodbye. The kids here are SO respectful of older ones. Outside a little girl was leaving the school and she ran up to Brian and started grabbing his hand and saying something in spanish. Brian got out a spanish tract and gave it to her. Her little eyes lit up and she took off running to her house!

Here's our first encounter in this village. Soon after though we met three men walking through the center of the village and Brian asked if any of them spoke english. One of them did and Brian was able to place a Bible Teach book and study several paragraphs with him. He had a great conversation with the man who loved what he was learning and asked Brian to teach him more. He stated that he was only visiting some friends here and that he in fact lived just a couple blocks from the kingdom hall where Brian attends. He gave Brian his cell number and address and Brian plans on continuing the study when he returns!

Since this was such a small village, just the three of us came ashore. Corrales was the name of it.

Thursday morning headed to our next stop, Ruby and Chaz enjoying the sun.

Brian Thompson, Tim & Ruby Arniel

Yes they have sweaters on, it was actually quite cool. From left to right, Tammy and Ken Rempel, Warren and Tracy Nygard.

Wednesday night Tracy Nygard cooked the dinner. Yummy!

Here I am yelling out, "Buenos Dias!" There was no one home. Most of the houses here in Yelapa are open air as this one was.

Yelapa just has these cobblestone paths running throughout the village and it's much more lush and green than what we are used to in PV. Truly a beautiful place!

Some kind of beautiful bird walking along the beach.

Tim and Ruby headed up to a house in Yelapa.

Our second stop was Yelapa, a really awesome little village that lots of tourists visit from PV by boat, about a 45 minute panga ride. We only worked a small part of the village because when the other boat arrived, Brian said that his congregation actually works this little village quite often and was just worked recently. We did speak to a few tourists but no interest was really shown.

The girls are waiting for our panga to take us back out to our boats. One man was found on this first stop, Matteo. Matteo gave one of the brothers his phone number and address and wants them to return.

Now you see why we call Brian, Arnold. I'm not sure what we should call Ken.....Mr. Ed?

We followed this little path around until we found some locals building a house for David, a man from America who wasn't there today but we left them some literature to give to him.

On of the first families we witness to turns out to be our brother's and sister's! They didn't speak any english but several in our group spoke spanish and translated for us all.

Something we didn't anticipate: Deep water + sandy beach + no towel = a real pain to clean your feet and get your dress socks and shoes back on. Hey, it was a new experience for all of us.

After sailing for about 3 hours our first stop was this little village called Pizota with just a few families. Here one of the locals with his panga picks up the friends from our sister boat. On board is Warren & Tracy Nygard, Ken & Tammy Rempel & Brian Thompson aka Arnold Schwarzenegger.

We were promised to see lots of whales and that we did. Not even an hour after setting sail we saw this little guy "wave at us". What a sight! This one creation of Jehovah truly puts you in awe when you see it up close.

Tuesday we arrived at the Ardiel's sailboat Tuesday evening. Since we had our meeting on Monday, we stayed behind on the boat to get acclimated to it while they headed out for their meeting. They have lived on the boat now for I think around 4 years. It may sound glorious but it certainly is not an easy life. Everything takes twice as long and is twice as hard....ie, getting to land in a dingy with your dress clothes on and not getting super wet.

After talking with Ruby and Tim we got a clearer picture of how this whole trip came about. Apparently they had taken the circuit overseer out in their boat when he was last here to get an idea of how suitable it would in handling a tour of the southern part of Centro congregation's territory. There is alot of villages along the coast south of PV which is almost impossible to get to by car since the mountain range separates the main highway from the water. So the circuit overseer contacted the branch in Mexico who then contacted Brian Thompson (the coordinator in Centro congregation) to request that two boats cover this territory, keep a detailed log of all interest and report back to the branch. What a privilege to be a part of!

Sunday we went to the Bucerias congregation about 35 minutes north of here. They had 134 in attendance! They have around 65 publishers but always lots of visitors from the friends who are vacationing in the area. We went to meet Tim and Rudy, the couple that we will be spending almost a week on their sailboat with.

Thursday Ken calls us and asks if we would be interested in going on a sailboat preaching tour and of course our answer was, "YES!". Apparently when the circuit overseer was visiting Bucerias he asked the two brothers there who have sailboats if they would be interested in covering the many bays and inlets south of here all the way down to Manzanilla (about 150 miles of sailing). So there will be two sailboats, one with the 4 of us and the other will have 5. We drive to LaCruz where the boat is anchored on Tuesday and spend the night on the boat at the marina and then Wednesday morning we set sail across the PV bay and make our first stop to preach. Sunday we should arrive in Manzanilla and from there Chastity, myself and another brother are catching a bus back to PV. We have to be back by Monday since the Megan's are flying in then. The rest of them will then sail back out in the open ocean to fish and just relax on their way home :( so sad we couldn't accompany them for the fun trip back. Oh well, it should be an interesting and fun trip on the way down. We'll take lots of pictures and I'll update the blog when we return.

Finally! Now that's on up there! (you'll have to click on the picture to see the kite)

A little higher!

This ones for Donna. When we got back home on Saturday the boys were out playing with the kite. They love it! They were having a hard time getting it up in the air though as you can see.

Gary's shoulder was hurting him so after service Ken took him to his favorite massage therapist and he worked on his shoulder right out on the sidewalk since he had customers inside getting massages and there's really no waiting room. 30 pesos to work on his shoulder, $2.40!

After service on Saturday we stopped for lunch at this little taco stand and this mariachi band was playing. I was intrigued by the instrument on the left. It was a tin pale turned upside down with what looked like a wooden broom pole with long rubber bands attached to it that the man was plucking. Right out of the Beverly Hillbillies!

Even the security cruise around on Segway's.....lucky!

After we dropped Donna off at the airport on Friday we stopped at this mall on the way home. I was amazed at how clean the underground parking lot was! They also had classical music playing throughout the garage. Who needs to go shopping, I'll just hang out in the garage.

You see alot of these bikes here on the streets. They use them to carry their cargo from place to place or sometimes they are selling items out of them. It could be fruits and vegetables to fresh baked pastries.

This couple came out to say hello to us as we walked by. The man spoke pretty decent english and explained that he and his wife are studying the bible with Jehovah's Witnesses in spanish. They invited any or all of us to stop by anytime in the evenings. He said he's usually home after 4 or 5pm and said if we stopped by sometime they would cook us dinner. The people here are just amazingly hospitable to even strangers.

Sister Knapp felt like she didn't get the memo on what to wear. Chastity and sister Well's were in matching attire.

Thursday we had our first cloudy day since we've been here. We were sure it was going to rain but never a drop, just clouds and cool weather. It hasn't rained a drop in over 3 months!

Here's the young boy who comes by every few days selling pastries. He's headed to one of the neighbors houses, goodies balanced on his head, working hard to help his family make it.

Another little darling girl that used her cute little face to sell the girls some handmade knitted animals.

This is dried cochineal, the insect used to make the reddish dyes. The weaver demonstrated how it works by putting some of the ground up insect on his hand, pouring a little water on it and rubbing it around on his hand which quickly turned bright red.

Interesting rug, this man is a Zapotec weaver. They are Mexican indians who raise sheep, shear the wool and use it to make these beautiful rugs. The dyes are all natural. For instance the reds come from the cochineal insect. See above picture.

This young girl approached our table selling some bracelets she had made. I loved this picture because she looked up just as I took the picture.

Don't even THINK about shoplifting at Sam's Club!

So Monday in the field ministry I had a wonderful conversation with a young man named Patricio. He learned to speak English through his job working at the marina. Raised Catholic and no longer goes to church, when I showed him the Truth tract and asked him which of the 6 questions he would like to know the Bible's answer to he picked the 5th one, "How can I pray and be heard by God?" but said he was busy right now but said I could come back another day. We set up a time for Wednesday morning since he had that day off from work.

Wednesday we dicussed the answer to the questions from the Bible. Having said the Our Father at Matt. 6:9-15 many times as a Catholic, he was shocked to see what Jesus said just before giving the prayer in verse 7 that when we pray we should not say the same things over and over. He said he was most turned off by religion because he felt that the majority of religions are just big money makers and that their leaders are using it to get rich. I explained to him that the same was true when Jesus was on earth and that's one of the reasons why many of the religious leaders hated him because he exposed them. I shared with him Matt. 10:8 where Jesus said "you received free, give free" and explained to him that Jehovah's Witnesses copy the example of Jesus in this regard. I offered him a free home bible study and he readily accepted. We have our first study on Saturday morning!