Merry Christmas!  We just got back from spending a week with Michelle’s family at the beach (nice).  Good times were had by all and it was nice to see some family again.  Of course, it was also nice to be in even HOTTER weather than normal when it is freezing cold and snowing back in Calgary.  Sorry to all having to deal with it; we were thinking of your suffering as we sipped piñadas and snorkeled.  Seriously.  I would trade my suntan for your frost bite if I could, but I can’t.  And I should probably stop before someone flies down here to take me up on the offer!

Some quick bits before we get to the story I wanted to share.  First the drive to Huatulco from Tlaxiaco is a little long and definitely hard on the stomach.  Here’s the actual email I sent to my buddy Dave who’s family tends to get carsick:

“Just to let you know, we made it down here safely.  Well, with just a shade under 10 pukes from the kids.  That road would have had your van covered in throw up with all your car sick prone kids.  I was worried that I would blow a shock or something from all the back and forth turns.  Took about 3-4 hours to get through 150ish km’s.”

Ya, Chelsey, Jared and Katria got a little sick.  And the drive was long and hard on the van.

Nothing much to talk about during the week.  Sun, sunburns, sand, sandburns…  WAY too much eating.  WAY too many people wearing two-piece swimsuits who should’ve thought thrice about it.

OK.  The trip home.  We decided to take a different route back based on the map and a chat with a local.  He said we should actually take this route back to Oaxaca as the road is better and the time is about the same.  ’Nuff said.  We really wanted to avoid the sequel to Puke Fest.  And we did!  Only one kid lost it this time (Katria) although it was smelly enough and enough volume to match all from the first trip.  Um, eww!

But, here’s today’s story.  We had just over a half tank of gas to start the day.  But we decided not to fill up right at the start of the day as we knew there are always plenty of Pemex’s along the road.  (Pemex is the Mexican national gas station.  Gas stations are always this company and they are everywhere on the highways)

So we get going and ya, the road is really nice.  About an hour and a half into the drive we pass a Pemex but I decide not to stop because:

1. We have over a half tank and we always wait until about a half

2. Katria just fell asleep and we would rather not wake her

So we keep driving knowing that we will see a Pemex at the right time.

We keep driving, no Pemex.

An hour later: no Pemex.

Down to a quarter tank of gas and we’re into the mountains.  No Pemex.

Katria throws up (talked about earlier) and the stress level climbs.  We pull over to clean her up and you can feel that both Michelle and I are feeling the pressure.  I get a massive headache out of nowhere.  I realize (and I suspect Michelle does too): it’s gonna be like that is it?  A little spiritual warfare today, eh?  Well, it sure is nice to be on the winning side.  So devil, be prepared to lose this one because we see what we’re you’re trying.  (Man, that puke stunk and it looked horrible)

We keep on driving.  Gas is getting lower.  No sign of Pemex.  We lead the kids in prayer and keep driving.

Down to an eigth of a tank.  The mountain roads are just that.  Climbing and curvy.  But thankfully there are downhills to coast down.  No Pemex.

Getting dangerously close to empty now.  The prayers are getting a little more fervant but the faith is strong.  We just know we’ll be ok.  All three kids are being angels right now: coincidence?  Not a chance.  The Holy Spirit has made Himself comfortable in our van and we’re loving His presence.

We finally pull into a little town that looks like it should have a Pemex.  We pull over to ask where it is, “oh, about 5 minutes up the road in the next town.”  Sounds good.  We keep driving.

5 minutes down the road we get into the next town.  No Pemex.  We pull over again and ask where the next gas station is.  (I think I actually walked into someone’s kitchen while they were eating, oops).  They say it’s about 20 minutes down the road.  I need a Coke.  So I ask if they have one.  Yes!  The lady hands me the Coke and I hand her a 10 peso coin while asking how much the Coke is.  She says 10 pesos and smiles a little slyly.  Ya, sure it is (Cokes usually cost 7).  But I paid it anyways.  It was cold and delicious.

Not much gas now and we’re still driving through the mountains.  We drive about 20 minutes and no sign of a town OR a Pemex.  So I pull over and ask a cab driver parked on the side of the road.  About 20 km’s down the road in a certain town I can’t remember the name of now.  Um, ok.

So we keep praying and keep driving.  After about 20 km’s there is no sign of a town, Pemex or even a safe place to pull over!  So we keep going.  The praying gets a little louder but we keep moving.  The gas light comes on.  I need to check my manual for the van but I seem to remember that the light means you have about 5 litres of fuel left.  Therefore, GET TO A GAS STATION AND STOP DRIVING THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS, DUMMY.  But they can’t put that in the owners guide, it’s too clear and precise!

We keep on driving.  We actually ended up climbing another couple of passes but were following a really slow moving semi-truck.  Which is a good thing because we couldn’t gun the engine up the mountain.  Fuel economy.  Which probably doesn’t matter because at this point we are out of fumes and fully running on the Holy Spirit.

As we are coming down the mountain a second time we look over and see the 2nd most wonderful sign we could see:

Gas: 15 km’s.

Oh my.  We just knew that the van had 15 more clicks in it.  Why not?  It had already gone WAY further than it should of.  But just seeing the sign was a confirmation of the Lord providing a miracle.  So we turn on the praise music and starting singing along.  Today’s choice was a classic: “Skallelueia” from the Insyderz.  The poor kids, having to deal with their parents choice of music.  They’ll get back at us though.  It’s only a matter of time…

We sing for the next 8 km’s (I’m keeping count on the odometer to know how close we are) and we see another sign.  Gas: 1km.  Huh?  Was that last sign incorrect, or did we just travel and extra 10 or so km’s without the odometer moving?  Could have been either really.  I have heard stories of certain believers needing to be somewhere really fast and just finding themselves there.  Cool stuff happens when God gets involved.

But then we see the most miraculous sign we could see.  PEMEX!  I tell the kids to not be surprised if the van lurches and stalls right as we pull in because God just did a miracle.  They’re excited, we’re excited: God did a miracle for us!  The van actually doesn’t stall in the station but I didn’t care.  The attendent fills up the tank: over 77 litres put in.  That tank couldn’t get any dryer; in fact I thought it was about 10 litres less than that in total capacity!  But who cares.

As we’re getting back in the van (after eating ice cream and relaxing), Chelsey says to me:

“Dad, I really liked that song you were singing.”

“Which one?” I reply.

“The one which says ‘Our God is an awesome guy’”

“Huh?  Do you mean ‘Our God is an awesome God?”

“Oh!  Was that what it said?  I thought it said that God is an awesome guy”

“You know what Chelsey?” I answer after thinking for a quick second.  ”I like your words better.”

He is an awesome guy.

/RD

Cut to Chelsey’s dance class…

I found out a couple weeks ago that they were to have a performance of some kind on Dec 13.  One day at practice, the teacher showed the moms a photo of what they needed to make and explained it.  I was lost.  The next practice, Deb (same one as before) came with me to speak with the teacher.  We came out with the understanding that she’d let us know when she finalized her plans.

Monday I realized that I’d have to find or make a necklace made out of something I’ve never heard of.  Not too difficult…

Next class, Wednesday, I brought along Heather (another friend from the base here as Deb wasn’t available).  I just don’t know enough words to do it alone, and I can’t easily follow the teacher’s accent either!  So Heather discovers that I’ve got to buy the whole outfit and accessories for “la flor de piña”  which I call the Pineapple Dance.  Problem is that neither of us know what any of the items look like or where to buy them.  The teacher tells Heather which shops we can find a few of the accessories in, but apparently you can only get the shirt and skirt in Oaxaca.  It was Wednesday.  Oaxaca is 2 1/2 hrs away.  I have no clue what to look for.

One of the dads was headed for Oaxaca and returning Thursday.  Cool.  He said that he’d get the outfit for Chelsey when he bought the one for his daughter and I could pay him then.  Awesome.  Heather took me out and we bought the pineapple sandals, the pineapple hair ribbons, the pineapple…but no one seemed to have the pineapple bracelets, oh, and they’d make me a pineapple necklace for a few more pesos (totally worth it since I had neither the time nor the know how).

We come to class Thursday and find out that the outfit cost more than expected, so they didn’t have enough money to buy Chelsey’s.  There was a panic of sorts, and one of the moms said I had to go with her, now.  I followed her through the whole downtown.  I had no idea where we were going and why, but I figured it’d be ok.  I realized later that they were trying to catch someone before they left the bus station for Oaxaca.  They wanted me to give them money for the outfit.  We missed the bus by 2 minutes and had to walk back.  I heard more frantic phone calls, I assumed they were looking for someone else heading to Oaxaca.

Class ended late that day, and the teacher and the moms said I had to follow them to buy the bracelets.  Chelsey and I went along, walked back the same way I’d gone minutes before, and the store they were looking for was either not open or not there.  I didn’t catch the reason.  So we headed to a bank.  At the last minute, I realized that I was along on this venture to wire my money to someone who was already in Oaxaca, but didn’t have enough money to front for the outfit.  We then paraded to the same store I was at the day before.  They asked for the bracelets (I’d already told the teacher that the store was out of them) and were told that they were out.  Go figure.

Oh, and the pineapple was huge.  These little girls have to carry them on their shoulders for the whole dance, and my arm hurt carrying it.  I searched every shop though, and they were all huge.

So Friday we had another class.  No outfit yet.  I hope that I get it tomorrow as that’s when she performs!  I was told that this day would be the day to get a small pineapple from a weekend shop.  The pineapples were just as huge.  I think I’ve got everything else, but I don’t know what to do with it all.  I’m hoping someone will help me if I show up early tomorrow afternoon looking really pathetic.  I do a really good pathetic.

I spent a half and hour or so Friday evening hollowing out a pineapple.  There’s no way Chelsey would be able to carry it whole for the complete dance.  I then wired the top back on Saturday morning.  Hopefully I’m not doing some cursed thing to the traditional pineapple dance.  I’m just an ignorant gringo.  Creative though.

Oh, I forgot…the outfit includes earrings too.  Easy enough, right?  No.  Every single little girl here has pierced ears from babyhood.  Every single one.  When I mentioned to the teacher that Chelsey doesn’t have pierced ears, her expression went from “you’re kidding, right” to “oh my goodness, it’s true!” to “it’s part of the uniform though!  What’ll I do, she won’t match?!” to “um, I guess that’s ok then”.  Now back home it wouldn’t be too much trouble to get a cheap pair of clip-ons, take them apart, and glue them onto the pierced earing hoops.  I’d probably even be able to find a ready-made pair of similar ones.  Again, not so as every single girl in Tlaxiaco has pierced ears.

I spent a good portion of the day rigging up the earrings to stay on her ears.  Kinda resembles the ear piece you’d see on a Britney Spears style ear-hung mike.  I wish Chelsey didn’t want to match completely!  Oh well.

There was a final practice in the morning.  I was hoping that the outfit I paid for showed up in time, and it did!  Kind of.  The shirt was found, but there were no skirts.  So Chelsey ended up borrowing the teacher’s skirt (would have been nice to know there was an extra floating around for the gringo girl who will NEVER do the pineapple dance again).

I posted a video of part of the dance for all to see the finished product.  Just a disclaimer:  this video is huge.  I wouldn’t recommend downloading it if you’re on a slow connection.  NOTE FOR GFM PEOPLE: do not download this on the base as you’ll kill the satellite, you can come to our place to view it!

Here’s the video…

(In case you were trying to figure it out, Chelsey is the white girl amongst all the Mexican girls)

~MD

So it seems that although Mexico is a warm-climate culture (slower pace, relationship based), some things seem to go a little too quickly.  One thing that is not laid back is driving.  The Mexicans are actually amazing defensive drivers, although it often looks like they’re a little insane and take too many chances.  You really have to pay attention as it’s very fast paced.  Another thing which I’ve recently put together is last minute functions.

Last Friday the kids school had a Christmas party.  Sounds innocent enough, right?  Not really.  I just found out about it on Monday.  That’s the good part.  I was informed that there was a meeting on Wednesday for something related to the party, but couldn’t understand more than that.  I convinced my fluent friend Deb to accompany me to the meeting.  During this meeting, I discovered that Jared’s class was responsible for cooking “pozole” for 180 people.  It wouldn’t be a big deal with something like spaghetti, but I had no idea what this dish was.  I caught on to a bit like the ingredient list, but then people started volunteering what they would bring.  Enter the next issue…when one doesn’t know what the dish is, one cannot know how to prepare the ingredients one is responsible for.

Deb was kind enough to volunteer me for bringing chicken.  Thanks Deb!  I sighed relief and thought, “Awesome.  Bring some chicken, and I’m done.  That wasn’t bad!”  Unfortunately, after the ingredients were divied out, they decided to have half the parents cook for the whole afternoon the next day (Thursday), and the other half do set-up/clean-up.  Deb whispered to me that the clean up crew would probably have a bigger time committment, so I joined the cooking group.  It was decided that we would meet at 1pm then go to a house to cook.

Chelsey and Jared are only in school for half days, so I pick them up at 10:30.  Keep in mind it takes me 20 minutes to get there.  Thursday morning Ryan took the kids to school (thanks Ry!) at 8.  I picked them up and brought them home.  I came back to the school at 1.  Around 1:30 some of us moms drove away to pick up the firewood.  Imagine my frustration when they drive all the way back to my neighbours house!  What a waste…oh well.  We then had to go to one more house to pick up the last of the wood.  This house was not acccessible by vehicle, so we had to walk the last 5 minutes, pick up the logs which hadn’t been split small yet, and carry them back to the truck.  Fun.  We got back in the truck and drove.  I was expecting to go to the cook house, but realized we were heading back to the school.  It was now 2:00 and time to pick their kids up from school.  I don’t see why they didn’t say to meet after school…

We eventually made it to the house to cook.  I stood around for a while as I still didn’t know what we were making, not to mention how to prepare and cook it.  The ladies built fires and got water into gigantic pots.  I watched.  (Let me insert here that I can barely understand most of the moms at the school.  There’s a large Mixteco  (indigenous) population in our area, and as Spanish isn’t their home language, they have different accents.  They’re fluent and all as they learned Spanish in gradeschool, but I just can’t follow!  We had a real hard time communicating and they mainly giggled, often, saying “she doesn’t understand!”.)  Anyway, I was finally asked to come help prepare the chicken that a few of us brought.  Mine was bagged chicken breast, so didn’t need anything done to it.  The other stuff was…lets say fresh.

The ladies and I squeezed limes into a bucket of water (it’s a disinfectant) and they washed the chicken.  Then they started pulling things out of it that I’d never seen before.  Gross looking stuff)  I didn’t feel right about grabbing one to help when I didn’t know what they were removing, so, I watched.  I saw some other moms pour giant corn Kernels into the pots of water, and others rinsing some chilis of some sort.  That’s all I saw.  After standing around for quite a while, I was told I could go.  Hmmm, I came in a lady’s truck.  Sure hope I can find my way home!  Well, I did, but it took me more than a half an hour to get there.  As I was walking away with a couple other moms, they asked if I’d be coming back at 7:30 the next morning.  Pardon?!  I thought I was done!  I said I couldn’t…

Well, I tried the pozole the next day.  Turns out it’s soup.  Who knew!  I was force fed WAY too much food, but the kids had a fun time at their party.  It culminated in a school-wide (gr. 1-6) water fight.  It started with water balloons, and ended with 5 gallon pails.

So, I helped make a dish that I still can’t really explain, and kinda wasted a day standing around.  Deb assures me that I did my part just fine.  Apparently you’ve got to participate in what’s expected (aka cooking), and then you’re off the hook.  They caught on really quick that I’m the gringo who doesn’t understand what they’re saying, doesn’t know what pozole is, and buys chicken in a bag.  I fulfilled my obligation.

End of part 1.  Come back tomorrow for part 2!

Wow!  Can you believe it is already December?  We have now been down here in Tlaxiaco, Mexico for three months.  Time is flying by.  Which is really odd for Mexico.  Everything here moves at a much slower pace (except driving, which is a very interesting contradiction to the usual warm climate culture) but yet time moves incredibly fast.  Soon the first semester of school will be done and we will be on Christmas break.  We need it.  And we hope that all of you get some time to relax and enjoy the time too.

I’m trying to figure out what to put here.  There’s lots going on so it’s difficult to narrow it down into comprehensible words and sentences.  It also hasn’t helped to listen to Katria screaming, pardon me, SCREAMING from teething pain.  Kind of scrambled right now!  But overall things are good.   Chelsey and Jared have been phenomenal in dealing with their little sister and her vocalization skills which is pretty cool to watch.  So that’s a neat praise report.  And just to ensure everyone that she is still herself, here’s a little video from our kids Christmas party on the base:  Click Here

Oh ya, speaking of praise reports.  We promised you a month ago in our November “Not another missionary support letter” missionary support letter (got that?) that we would give you praise reports on two items.  The house and our finances.  Well we’ve got some good news and some bad news.

The bad news is that we won’t be coming home until May 2009 which we originally had planned.  So all of you who wanted to shower us with 52″ plasma TV’s and fresh baked lasagna’s will have to wait a few more months.  Sorry to do that to you, but it is the right thing.

So on to the good news (were you worried about the bad news?):

The house rented out for December 1st which is really cool.  We feel it is a perfect situation and that God had something incredible in mind for all of this.  Not quite sure what yet, but please pray that He would continue to glorify Himself with our (ok, His) house.

Also, there have been so many friends who stepped forward to provide extra financial support to us in November.  We thank you all for taking the time to ask the Lord if He wants you to help and how.  In all, over $8000 was given to our trip.  PRAISE THE LORD!  The money will be used to pay our monthly room/board/tuition as well as other expenses.  We are also pumped about the fact that we are getting closer to the goal of enough funds to fly Michelle and Katria home at the end of our nine months.  Please know that we are so grateful for each and every gift that was provided.  Also please continue to pray that the Lord will provide every need.

Sanity check, why are we down here again?

Did you know that Jesus will not return until every tribe and tongue has received Him?  Revelation 7 helps us visualize what it will be like at the end of time and it includes a description of the worship around His throne.  Worship consisting of people from all nations (not countries though, people groups) in every language.

Are we there yet?  Well, about one third of the world’s ethnic groups have not heard the name of Christ yet.  So we’re a little ways off.  The good news is that if every church in North America each sent one missionary to a different unreached group that we could have this done in our generation!  It’s that close!  And that’s completely ignoring the impact of the Chinese and other national churches who are multiplying believers rapidly and have a massive heart already for the unreached peoples of the world.

Global Frontier Missions (www.globalfrontiermissions.com) exists to reach the unreached peoples of the world.  They started in the Tlaxiaco region of Oaxaca, Mexico as there are numerous unreached groups of Mixteco indians here.  Each with a different, distinct dialect.  Their goal is to move into the 10/40 window where the vast majority of unreached groups now exist.  Thailand and India are planned future locations as well as somewhere within the Muslim nations.

If you want to get a vision of what the end goal of missions in the Christian church are really about, then I suggest you check out one of the short term trips, or summer internships offered by GFM.  Or, investigate coming down for Missions Training School (MTS) in September 2009.  That is what we are doing right now and it has changed (at times painfully) our world view.

Back to our regularly scheduled program

OK.  So we ask that everyone continue to pray for us.  The older two kids are doing great in school but still need lots of prayer for health and language learning.  Katria is approaching two and appears to be the kind of kid who will have lots of ups and downs.  The ups are awesome, the downs are trying times for all of us.  So Michelle and I need prayer for patience and wisdom to discipline and teach her in the manner she needs.  Finally, Michelle and I continue to work on our Spanish learning.  It’s tough to accomplish when there are so many other responsibilities to attend to.  But it is coming along.

Quick story to finish off this update.  I was sitting in church today trying to understand the pastor, who thankfully is a pretty clear speaker.  The nice thing about listening to a sermon in Spanish is that the main themes are repeated.  So if you miss it the first time you will get it the fifth time!  I didn’t get much of the sermon but what I did get was this:

We all need to pray more (Spanish word is orar and I was able to figure that out)

And there are lots of reasons to pray (sorry, couldn’t catch them but I suspect we can figure them out ourselves!)

And we should be on our knees (Spanish is rodilla.  I couldn’t remember at first if it was knees or elbows.  But then I put it altogether and decided that not many people pray on their elbows so it must be knees!)

See, I am learning!

We would love to hear from anyone, especially to pray for you.  We’re not saying we’re amazing prayers who can move the heavens and have your request granted.  But one more voice will never hurt, right?  So please send us your prayer requests ( allofus@diks.ca ) so we can partner with you.  Or if you just want to say hi and ask us how our day is going, please do!  We love to talk with all of our friends back home.

/RD

financial gifts can be sent to:

Canada: Airdrie Alliance Church, 1604 Summerfield Blvd,  Airdrie, AB T4B 1C7

- make cheques payable to AAC with a note designating it for the Diks Family to receive a tax deductible receipt

USA: visit http://www.justgive.org/nonprofits/donate.jsp?ein=31-1738321 to use your credit card at JustGive.org which will forward the amount to GFM for us.  Just include our names in the designation field.  You will receive a tax receipt for this gift from JustGive.