{"id":4149,"date":"2024-02-19T23:50:29","date_gmt":"2024-02-20T05:50:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vitwministries.com\/wordpress\/?p=4149"},"modified":"2024-02-19T23:50:29","modified_gmt":"2024-02-20T05:50:29","slug":"we-have-arrived","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vitwministries.com\/wordpress\/2024\/02\/we-have-arrived\/","title":{"rendered":"We Have Arrived !"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Theresa and I arrived safe and sound in Cd. Valles, Mexico on Saturday evening (February 17th<\/sup>, two days ago) after a long and arduous, but nonetheless good trip from Manitoba in our rusting and very ugly 2006 Mazda 3. Even despite it\u2019s nearly 250,000 miles, its rusted-out body and almost total lack of any functioning suspension it continues to purr like a kitten, doesn\u2019t use a drop of oil, and runs like a proverbial top. It may not be pretty, but certainly no one is trying to steal it either\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although we left Manitoba on the 2nd<\/sup> of February we stretched out our trip south over a couple-week period, spending a number of days in Nebraska with Theresa\u2019s mother, an overnight with her aunt and uncle in Kansas, and then another several days with close friends in Sugar Land, just outside of Houston, Texas. This broke up the trip and gave us the chance meet and catch up with family and friends on the way down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once in \u201cThe Valley\u201d at the Texas\/Mexico border we spent a day taking care of preparatory business in order to spend a month in Mexico, and also looked up close friends there. When we met with our friends at the southern Texas border our car was already so full that we could barely shove another toothpick into either the over-packed trunk or the back seat which was stacked from the back of the bucket seats all the way to the roof making me feel like Charles Lindbergh in Spirit of St. Louis. Nonetheless I simply couldn\u2019t turn down Frank\u2019s offer of a large case of Spanish Bibles and three boxes of Spanish children and youth materials. Somehow I needed to perform a miracle and get them in!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I carefully repacked, squished, crunched and shoved until I got everything into the little groaning car and we set off praying very hard for God\u2019s grace as we headed grossly overloaded towards the border. The car bottomed out on every dip in the road and our suspension was practically metal-on-metal, but we had the precious cargo in the vehicle. True, there was zero visibility out the back window as it was chocker block full to the ceiling, but who cared; we were loaded for bear and heading to Cd. Valles!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I was praying very hard for a green light at the aduana (the custom guards) as we drove up to the border crossing area. At that point of no-return one gets either a green light and drives through without a vehicle check or a red, upon which he is pulled over to the inspection areas for a thorough going-through. We got a green!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We got our personal visas and car permit all quickly taken care of without incident and turned the wheels of the car towards Cd. Valles with thankful hearts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I was very cognizant of our car full of four sewing machines for the sewing ministry, a trunk filled with hundreds of pairs of eyeglasses and vision screening material for setting up an optical ministry, besides personal items and supplies, not to mention food and gifts (including 20 table runners that we quickly pieced and quilted before we left home), all of which we would need during our time in Mexico. But, as it was raining hard most of the way from the border to Cd. Valles, even though we crossed several check points along the way no one seemed too inclined to leave their shelters to do any close checking of our vehicle. So we arrived early in the evening without even the slightest incident, and with cool rainy weather to make the drive even more pleasant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Theresa and I both picked up some sort of a nasty bug somewhere between Nebraska and Sugar Land, Texas which made us both feel a tad less than \u201ctip-top\u201d, and which we promptly passed on to our friends as we watched the Super Bowl with them. It\u2019s always nice to be remembered for something! We’re both still a bit under the weather, but are indeed beginning to feel more-or-less alive again. I hope that our friends that we so thoughtfully infected along the way are feeling the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I believe that our time in Mexico will be busy. We head off for the Pame region in the mountains about a 5 or 6 hour drive to the west of the city on Thursday morning at 5:00 a.m. in order to hold an all-day conference with Pastor Marty Dyer from Grove, Oklahoma on Thursday. Then on Friday there is a baptism of about ten Pame tribal believers scheduled to take place in one of the rivers also up in the mountains. From there we will rush back to Cd. Valles again for an all-day conference with Pastor Dyer on Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Sunday we’re off to Huichihuyan (several hours to the south of Cd. Valles) for a conference there. On Monday or Tuesday I hope to be able to sit down with the pastor and his wife from Huichihuyan and arrange with them about the eyeglass ministry. I’m hoping that training and the setting up of that ministry can take place in the southern Huasteca among the many churches that they oversee. I’d appreciate your prayers as I feel very inadequate to put together all that will be required of Theresa and me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides Theresa’s other duties while we’re here, Cristina already has asked her to teach some of the women that she is working with how to bake. So Theresa’s plate will be full as well, and she won’t be twiddling her thumbs while we’re here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our little rental place is nice but does have several glitches – some that we’ll just have to live with, and some that I hope we can resolve one of these days before too long. The biggest issue at the moment is that we don’t have any water in the house. Thankfully there is a functioning tap outside and I can carry water in a bucket for our needs. Hopefully someone will be able to figure out why the water doesn’t go up to the “tinaco” (the tank) on the roof and therefore why there is none inside the house. The other things are just irritating and will have to be lived with: although we have two bathrooms both toilets leak like a sieve whenever they are flushed, there is (of course) no hot water and the night temperatures are still pretty chilly making any morning dip-showers pretty \u201cinvigorating\u201d, and the kitchen is functional, but about the size of a postage stamp, and there is zero storage anywhere for kitchen items \u2013 but we have an inside bathroom, and we have a kitchen \u2013 more than what many have!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are fine, and we are blessed. I\u2019ve already contacted many of our friends in the area and we look forward to visiting with them. It will be a busy month and I know that the time will inevitably fly by very quickly, and before we know it it will be time for us to return home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We both appreciate your prayers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your fellow laborers,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steven and Theresa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Theresa and I arrived safe and sound in Cd. Valles, Mexico on Saturday evening (February 17th, two days ago) after a long and arduous, but nonetheless good trip from Manitoba in our rusting and very ugly 2006 Mazda 3. Even despite it\u2019s nearly 250,000 miles, its rusted-out body and almost total lack of any functioning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vitwministries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4149"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vitwministries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vitwministries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vitwministries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vitwministries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4149"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.vitwministries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4165,"href":"https:\/\/www.vitwministries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4149\/revisions\/4165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vitwministries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vitwministries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vitwministries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}