We took off to Veracruz on Sunday morning, stopping there on our way to a youth camp in Villahermosa. Veracruz is a beach town on the east coast that’s really popular with Mexicans, especially during Semana Santa (the week before Easter). It takes about 5 hours from Mexico City, and you get to pass through all sorts of cool mountains.
We stayed at a hotel with a great view of the Gulf of Mexico, but we were right on a main road, so the view was surpassed by the noise. Nathan loved the pool, though, with his cool new bathing suit.
We got a chance to go downtown, see the zocalo, or main downtown square. This is my favorite part of visiting most places in Mexico. The buildings are always so cool looking, and it’s a great place to get to see most of the culture of a given place. I even had the lucky chance to get pooped on by a pigeon. We also visited the Malecon, or the boardwalk area where there are lots of vendors. We topped off the evening with dinner at a restaurant on the beach.
Okay, so we are almost packed for our trip to Veracruz. We will be leaving early tomorrow morning to try to get out of the city before most people wake up. We’ll see how well we do with that. We’ll be out of town for about a week, so there will be little updating on the site. I don’t know how much internet access there will be where we are going (nor how much I really want).
Tuesday, I’ll be giving a conference and promoting the seminary to about 350 young people at a congress for the south of the country. Huberto and Oscar will be there, too, giving their own workshops. Please pray for us and them as we share about how youth ministry revolves around relationships.
I got a phone call this morning from Salomon, the president of the Baptist Student Union here in Mexico. He’s the guy I’ve been working with on the workshops. He told me that Huberto and Oscar could get a 50% discount on a bus ticket with their student IDs. Then, he told me that he had enough money from somewhere to pay for one of their trips. That left us with only a $50 need, which is a lot more manageable than a $200 need. That’s cool how God provides! Anyway, just thought I’d let you know about that.
Today, our home office notified us that we have $946 in our account for the trip to Austria this summer. That was a HUGE surprise. Thanks to whomever it is that has donated. Before today, we had only heard from one person who wanted to help us attend this important strategy meeting.
Speaking of finances, I’m praying for God to provide this weekend for Oscar and Huberto to be able to attend the leadership workshop in Villahermosa this coming week. They are supposed to be presenting, and the bus fare there and back is going to be around $200 total for both of them. If you want to help with this need, leave a comment, and I’ll get back to you about it. Thanks.
Nathan is going to demonstrate how to put your foot in your mouth:
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3: Success!!!
