RachelsAdventure.com

How in the world has this happened? 

Today (the 10th), I turn 28.

I feel like I just graduated from high school and now it’s been 10 years (eek).  Birthdays always make a bit introspective.  My first 28 years have been pretty darn exciting, I wonder what could the next 28 entail…?  If I have learned anything the first 28 years it’s that I can make all the plans I want but when I trust God…that’s when life gets interesting.

Woo hoo.

I just finished a few days at camp in Puebla with my kids and kids from schools in Oaxaca and Puebla.  As we were leaving camp (it was a 5 hour bus ride home) I realized that there are 5 Ways to Tell That I Have Been to Camp:

1)      Friendship Bracelets – I cannot count the number of bracelets that I have received over the years.  They are a popular camp craft so when you work at camp…you get bracelets.  I always try to see how long I can wear them after camp (till they fall off). 

2)      Bruises – I think I bruise easily…and I’m slightly clumsy…so camp definitely results in some bruises.  This week at camp was no exception (in fact, I think my boys have been waiting for the chance to pounce on their teacher).

3)      A need for sleep – I never get enough sleep at camp.  Ever. 

4)      Renewed excitement and love for God – there’s something about a few days at camp with a bunch of kids laughing, singing, and playing a lot that makes me excited to spend time with God.

5)      A big, huge smile.  I truly love camp (hope to work at a few this summer) and every time I go it makes me love it more. 

Today was a really great day (and yes, that is a picture of sheep...not deer as you would guess by the title of the post.  I just thought they were so cute and we could get so close to them at the park!).

I went with the youth group to a park that would be about 15 minutes from my house by car...but by bus it takes nearly an hour

I always have mixed feelings when I hang out with the kids...I love youth but I hate not being able to talk to them.  I can ask simple questions and laugh along

We had a new girl with us today and I wanted to tell you all about her. 

A couple of months ago a woman stopped me on the street and asked me if I worked at the school and if I taught in the English Club.  English Club meets Thursday evening after school...it's an outreach ministry of the church and it's very popular.  I teach an advanced English class first hour and the High School English class second hour. 

The woman asked for information about English club and told me that she would like to send her daughter.  I told her the time and said that I would see her on Thursday. 

This would have been a really cool story if I told her the correct information, alas, I did not. 

English Club times are much like service times when I worked at Abundant Life...I was there the whole time anyway so I could never really remember what time each service started.  Sadly, I told this woman on the street the COMPLETELY wrong time, like so wrong she showed up for English Club after it was over.  Oops.

I was really excited that the woman and her daughter showed up but SO embarrassed that I had given her such bad information.  I apologized as best I could and then found a fluent Spanish speaker and asked him to continue to apologize for me. The woman was very forgiving and her daughter (let's call her *Rosa) showed up (at the correct time) to English Club the following week and has been attending ever since....she is even in my High School class now.

Now, remember that I said the English Club is an outreach of the church, right?  They don't always make a big deal about the connection between the church and the club but someone invited Rosa to the park with us this weekend...and she came!!!

So, while we were riding over to the park, I was thinking about how this all started with me totally dropping the ball but the cool thing is, God is amazingly faithful...He was able to take my mistake and still use it for good. 

Thank you, God.

To top it all off, the weather was fantastic and the park was beautiful.  Here's some video from today (it's from my phone so it's pretty poor quality) but you can see that everyone was having fun.

*I changed her name for this post.

I’d like to introduce you to the newest “student” in my class…this is Coco Blaster the wonder hamster.  I have been looking at hamsters all year but had decided against is because of the start-up costs involved (around $200 with the cage, hamster, food, bedding, toys, etc…).  The other day one of the school board members sent an email about this hamster that needed a home and I jumped at the chance…now we have an awesome hamster with a very cool cage. 

Coco is a really cool hamster...we take her out almost every recess and she runs around in the grass (she isn't very fast and the area is fenced in so she can't get very far) and the kids love holding her.

There are always a lot of kids in my classroom because when school is out there are sometimes church activities (the school rents from the church) so I had been preparing myself for the day that I walked into my classroom and found the cage open and Coco gone...I just hadn't been prepared for it to happen so quickly.  The first weekend I left Coco at school someone opened the cage and Coco escaped...I was a slightly irritated.  I mean, I was prepared for it to happen SOMEDAY not the FIRST weekend. 

I looked everywhere for Coco but she was gone.  Dang.

There are pet stores with hamsters everywhere so my plan was to replace Coco before the kids could find out.  No worries, we hadn't really had her long enough to "form a connection" at that point anyway.  haha. 

I never had to buy another hamster because Coco magically appeared in my classroom after our holiday weekend.  Cornelio, the caretaker, told me that Coco had gone to Acapulco for the weekend.  Silly Coco.

Tuesday morning the journal topic for the day was: "What did Coco do this weekend?" and the kids had to write a story about where Coco went and what she did.  So, she's back and we love her and I am sure that she'll disappear again on these days. 

Such is life.

I will be making little Coca Blaster videos for the kids, you can check them out by clicking here...I've also uploaded a quick video of my classroom and some clips of Coco here, check it out.

Sorry I have been a bad blogger. 

When I first moved to Mexico everything was new, all of my senses were heightened... each interaction with a neighbor felt like an amazing accomplishment, each meal was prepared with exciting, exotic ingredients, teaching was a new adventure (teaching is still an adventure!).

It's not all like that for me anymore.  After 6 months in Mexico my "old life" in Portland seems like a distant (fond) memory...it feels normal for me to say that I live in Mexico. 

It was really nice to get to see family and friends for Christmas especially because after a trip back this summer, my trips to Portland will be few and far between for the next couple years (more on that in a later post).  One of the most interesting things for me as I left Portland was this really weird feeling that I was not only leaving home...but also going home. 

Flying into Mexico City actually felt familiar, not foreign. 

All of this to say: I am really settling down here.  I still have hard times and little things will catch me off guard and make me miss my friends and family in the States.  But, that's okay...I love all those people and I can take the time to miss them every once in awhile. 

So, now I get to learn how to blog about the normal, everyday things of life.  I think I can, I think I can...haha.

My first trip out of the country was a medical trip to El Salvador with Medical Teams International (then Northwest Medical Teams).  I joined a team of 3 doctors and 3 nurses.  My job was to play with the kids (right up my alley) while the doctors and nurses gave them medical examinations. 

I loved that trip and when I returned I had a new vision for my future: I was going to be a nurse.  It was so inspirational to watch the doctors and nurses helping people...people who came in to the doctor in tremendous pain left with hope that they could feel better.  I wanted to help give people hope.

Alas, I had one small dilemma...I pass out at the sight of blood.

I learned this while giving blood in high school.  I was very excited to give blood and signed up for the first blood drive they had at school after I turned 18.  I remember sitting down, hating the needle, talking with my friends while trying to ignore the red tube hanging from my arm, and then I remember waking up.  Apparently I had passed out.  I wasn't out very long and I did get more time out of class and an extra cookie out of the deal...but I had also developed this ridiculous fear of blood. 

The high school incident was followed by me nearly passing out while simply reading an account of a woman bleeding out in a medical mystery.

I quickly realized that a "fear of blood" would not be so good for my nursing plans...so I gave up on that plan.

Fast forward 10ish years and here I am living in Mexico and loving it...until recently when I developed this new plight...NOSE BLEEDS.  Nose bleeds aren't a big deal here, between the super high altitude and the dry air it is easy to get a nose bleed.  The kids in my class get them all the time and I have learned to just let them get a tissue and deal with it themselves...no need to include the slightly queasy teacher in the process. 

Until recently I have experienced no problems with the altitude or the pollution but in the last week I have had two nose bleeds and I'm freaking out!!!  It usually goes like this, I realize I have a nose bleed, grab a tissue box, sit down and begin the "positive self talk": 

"it's just blood"

"you are 27, you can handle a little nose bleed"

"seriously DO NOT pass out!!"

Since I have passed out before I know the whole cold-sweats-tunnel vision-headache feeling that comes before I actually fade away and so far I have managed to hang in there...barely.  This is like reason #305 why it's not fun to be single and live alone because I really am not excited about possibly opassing out without someone there to wake me with a cookie and some juice :)

In the meantime, I've been drinking A LOT more water and praying that I can kick this goofy fear of blood.  I'll keep you updated. 

By the way, sorry I haven't blogged in awhile...I've missed you guys.

Merry Christmas and Feliz Navidad.

Blogging in the midst of a whirlwind tour at home has not been very sucessful (as you can tell by the lack of posts, it's like a ghost town here!).  BUT I did want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and catch you up a bit. 

It feels so good to be back in Oregon.  I think I have put enough miles on my mom's car (thanks mom) to almost make up for the 4 months that I didn't drive in Mexico.  haha.  So many people to catch up with (and STILL so many to catch up with).

Now that I'm officially in the last half of my trip I do have brief moments of sadness when I realize that this will all be over soon.  As I have said before, I love being in Mexico and I love the people I work with down there...but I have pretty amazing friends and family up here.  Part of this trip to Oregon will be another (hopefully shorter) time of adjustment (translation: tears.  haha) when I get back to Mexico. 

That quote from Tennyson keeps popping into my head...

"tis better to have loved and lost
than never to have loved at all."

I agree with Tennyson on this.  So, when a little sadness washes over me it just makes me realize how much I truly love the people around me and I thank God that I have so many people that I miss when I am away (and now I have people I miss in Mexico, too!).

Well, I hope that you all have a very Merry Christmas.  I get to spend the whole day with my family and am excited to start reading one of my Christmas gifts...the Lonely Planet guide to Mexico.  Woo hoo.

If you know me/have read my blog for any amount of time you know I LOVE kids (or, as I affectionately and accurately call them: monkeys). 

I just had to share this picture from English Club this week. This is Lupe.  Don't you just want to squeeze her?! :)

The last time I did a count down  on my blog, I was counting down the days till I moved to Mexico and SOMEHOW I am now counting down the days till my Portland Christmas visit.  How did this happen?  Did I really just spend the last 4 months living in Mexico?  I honestly don't know where the time went.

There were times that it seemed to drag on and on (trust me...there were a couple crying-in-my-apartment-wondering-why-I'm-even-here nights that I'm glad are in the past)...but overall I cannot believe that a trip to Portland is so close.

Here's my schedule for the next week:
Monday: School, Spanish tutor, make cookies for teachers and board members
Tuesday: School, grade papers
Wednesday: School, Spanish tutor, packing
Thursday: School, English Club, finish packing
Friday: 1/2 day of School (yay!  Party Day!), 3:45 flight, in Portland by 11:20 (assuming it does NOT snow!)
Saturday: Correction: Starbucks with Mom and Anna (my first non-fat vanilla latte in 4 months!), speaking at Abundant Life Women's Brunch.

Phew!  I'm tired already.

You'd think that being a missionary the whole "church thing" wouldn't be taken care of (I mean, I'm down here on a church planting team!) but it's really not.  I spend most of my Sunday's in a service that I can barely understand (I do lots of smiling and nodding!).  So, now I have global church.  I go to my Las Aguilas church on Sunday, enjoy being a joven and practice my Spanish...then I listen to podcasts during the week from churches across the US (I LOVE podcasts).

Last week I was listening to a message from the Village Church.  The Lead Pastor there is Matt Chandler, I heard him a year ago at a conference and have been listening to his podcast ever since.  I love how he teaches the Word of God with such unabashed passion.  When you listen to him you know that he loves God and God's Word and he wants others to, also!

On Thanksgiving Matt, who is a 35 year old husband and father of three, had a seizure...which lead to the doctor's discovering a tumor on the right frontal lobe of this brain.  Last Friday, the 4th of December, Matt had surgery to remove the tumor and sometime this week they will know whether or not it is cancerous.

Bam!  Just like that his world has flipped upside down.  I'm am sharing this with you for a couple reasons:
1) So that you can pray for Pastor Matt and his family and 2) So that you can watch this video that was posted before his surgery.  I admire this man's faith.  I have been fearful at certain times over the past 6 months...but when I watch his video it challenges me to live a life of faith...to continue to trust God (not just in the good/easy times).
3) Also, just to be transparent, I hope that someday I have a husband who can say this about me  (see #5).  Wow.