Mexico stories + The Goodness of God

Another little gem from Daily Bread - Remember God is Always Good. He doesn't promise us that bad things will never happen to us, but He does promise to be "our refuge & strength" (Ps. 46:1). He doesn't promise we will never walk through heart wrenching circumstances, but He promises we will never be alone. We can't always be on the mountaintop but need to remember that it is in the valleys where we grow and learn to trust him.

Our Mexico trip was wonderful. I had not been back since the flood and dreaded facing seeing our place as I knew it would not be the same. It was something I needed to do. God is so good to refresh the earth just as he refreshes our souls. There is a saying about Mexico, "one can stick a popcicle stick in the ground and it will grow". Nature and one year's time have somewhat restored John's beautiful park like garden. The ground is covered with a new carpet of natural Bermuda grass and some things that were seemingly washed away must have had a small amount of roots left in the ground as nature has brought new plants to life. I'll post a photo of my cactus garden (what was not washed away). The incredibly tall ones we set out as small plants, about 20" or so high. John would tell me, one day those cactus are going to blow over. They visibly sway in the wind when it blows. Those wonderful things held their ground when we lost big trees including John's beloved Royal Palm which stood about 35' high and had a huge trunk. The Royal Palm isn't as common as some of the other palms that grow in the Alamos area.

John was transplanting two Bottle Palms (which are commonly called "Pony-tails"). They were in the same pot and it had broken either by the storm or the plants expanding. The storm had washed the pots into the neighbor's yard and covered them with silt. We had enjoyed having them in a big pot on the portal. Since we are not there to tend them we just decided to transplant them into the cactus garden area. The other small agave on the left in the photo was given to me by a neighbor when it was small. The storm had washed it away but apparently had left a root so that it grew again. The small building you see in the photo is in the neighbor's yard, before the storm there was a brick wall separating us so that our garden was private.

We arrived in Alamos just in time to go with Hermano Nestor and Lili to deliver the monthly food boxes to our families. Remember, I wrote about Tia Rafaela and posted her photo. I loved getting to hug her. The first thing she said to me was, "pensar tu perdido", meaning she thought I was lost. That was her dry sense of humor shining through as when ever the boxes were delivered if I didn't go my "ladies" all were asking for me. It's wonderful to be so loved. Here is a photo of her, John and her grandson, Marcos Antonio. We call him Marcos, the miracle child. His mother died of AIDS shortly after he was born. When we first knew this family Marcos was about 18 months old and very ill (diagnosis unknown). We feared the worse, that it was AIDS. Several churches began to pray for him and after a while he began to mend. You can see he is a sturdy boy today, age 9.

This is Tia's flower garden. No matter how poor a woman is, she loves flowers and has a small patch of greenery growing in the yard. Tia's speciality is roses and hers will be beautiful a bit later in the spring and summer.