Old Fashioned Day 9/26/2010

It is an annual event at the Stanley Union Church, and such a beloved time for all of the community. The church grounds were manicured and cleaned up as the Lord's grace and sun shone down on the land, the people rejoiced in His goodness.

After worship, the congregation gathered for a bountiful potluck and fellowship as well as a time of sharing in the annual pie sale and future treasures sale. Available were homemade goodies from the member's kitchens as well as home grown produce, hand made quilts, and other treasures.

The worship was suplimented with sign language to "How Great Thou Art"

Members dress for the occassion,

vintage homesteaders attire

Church grounds manicured and stately in the fall sunlight.

Cleanup along the Highway consisted of tractors, mowers, weed eating and tree trimming.

The "new" church building is nearing completion. Perhaps

Old Fashioned Day 2011 will be held at this new location!

Gonzales Family, Mexico

I wanted to include this story on my prior blog however, as you know computers and their programs have a mind of their own and the photos that I wanted to post with the story would not cooperate. So I outsmarted it and just decided to post another blog.

In a prior blog I had written about an old fellow, Nacho Gonzales who disliked Americanos, especially the ones attached to the house across the street where we were house-sitting when we first went to Mexico. We decided to kill him with kindness and eventually we won him over. Here is a photo of Nacho and John that I made when we visited the family on our trip to Alamos. Do you see he possibly has some Asian ancestors in his lineage? I was amazed as he has aged how Asian looking he appears. (There were many Chinese immigrants to Mexico in the early part of the 1900's.) Nacho was pleased to see us.


This photo is Nacho's precious wife, Maria Elena and their severely handicapped daughter, Maria Isabel who is 52 years old. When we met them Maria Isabel was sitting on the floor on a mechanic's creeper (like the mechanics used to scooter under a car). She was born with spastic issues and is unable to speak and has very little use of her hands and legs. Nothing wrong with her mind. She loves to play dominoes and enjoyed us playing with her. She has a wonderful sense of humor. We would make wrong moves just to hear her fuss at us with her uuuh, uh sounds. She knew exactly what was to be played and where. Due to her spastic issues she has difficulty swallowing and suffers various illnesses. In the past we began to bring cases of Ensure down for her when we would make a trip to the states. Strawberry is her favorite! In Mexico Ensure isn't sold in the grocery stores, it is sold in pharmacies and costs approx. $3.95 per can. As there are many grandchildren in and out of the casa we would only take a 6 pack per week over to her so the others would not drink it. This trip we took a case of Ensure for her. We left it at the Americanos across the street and they promised to dole it out each week to her. This family suffered heavy losses in the flood. It is sad as they can't afford to replace their furniture. They have a few pieces that were given to them. Nacho was a plumber in his working life and made a fairly decent living for the family. It was a pleasure to hug this family again. We are considered family and although we lived across town from them we were always included in their birthday, wedding and graduation celebrations. Love those precious people.

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.