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Shari went to Canada (now she’s back)

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Hockey game in Canada

Yes, you read right.  Shari went to Canada in December!  Here is the mostly untold story…

In the middle of December, Shari flew to Calgary, mainly for the purpose of visiting her sister Amy and her sister’s boyfriend, Nate.

As nice as that is, you may wonder – why now?  Well, what we have here is a slightly unusual situation.  Here’s the short story…

Shari’s sister Amy lives in Sudan, Africa.  She’s a child nurse.  She made an unexpected trip to Canada and the USA in December with Nate.  Nate is from the US, and he also lives in Sudan where he is involved in relief work.  None of Amy’s family had ever met Nate.

For those of us living in Mexico, chances are we would never meet Nate, unless we made a point of it.  We asked if they wanted to come visit us in Mexico, but at the time it didn’t look possible (in the end, they did go to Mexico, but it wasn’t near us and we didn’t have the time once we found out to make any plans to meet them).

We wanted to all go, but we were in the middle of school and other activities, and the cost of flying four people to Canada is just atrocious.

So, in the end some kind people paid for Shari’s flight (thanks!), and she was able to make a brief trip (a little over 4 days in Canada).

Because she had such limited time, Shari wanted to spend her time with family.  So we didn’t advertise the fact that she was coming (and of course it was a last minute thing!).  We did however pay a little extra to get a later flight on Sunday so that she could make a surprise appearance at our church in Calgary.  The looks on people’s faces were worth the money!  🙂

So Shari was able to see Amy and Nate, and her parents, and brother and his family (a nephew and niece!  We’re jealous but we have pictures and video of the event).

Shari even got to do some wild things like … seeing snow … going to a hockey game … drinking tap water.

Actually, I asked Shari to share with us some of the things she noticed about Canada while she was there.  I’ll put all that in another post – stay tuned.  And, of course, we’ll have some photos of the trip in our photo gallery soon.

Anyway, we were sorry we couldn’t all go, but were able to talk to everyone via webcam.  And we had a fun time here too, with a birthday party to go to, Christmas to prepare for, school, and other fun things.  And we’re glad to have Shari back home!

Hannah’s class (video)

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Here’s your chance to see some of Hannah’s class (at Colegio del Bosque) in action.  Today they were starring in the weekly flag ceremony, and Hannah even had some lines.  🙂

This is actually after the "flag" part of the ceremony.  Every week the students explain the upcoming "special days".  Today, the students did that, and sang a special song (which was an unusual addition).  Hannah is the fourth one to speak here.  The lady with the mic is her teacher, Miss July (pronounced, in English, Julie).  During the song, Hannah is on your far left.

My famous blog.

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Yes, I have finally achieved fame.  I can retire, content.  I have a famous website.

EMQ October 2007

No, not this website.  Missionary-Blogs.com was mentioned in the October 2007 issue of Evangelical Missions Quarterly (EMQ).  The article was An Introduction to Blogging on the Internet, by A. Scott Moreau (editor of EMQ) and Mike O’Rear (President of Global Mapping International).

Actually, it was only a passing reference under the heading of Finding a Blog, but I’ll take what I can get.  🙂

Missionary-Blogs.com is getting close to having 500 active missionary blogs.  As far as I know, there’s nothing else quite like it on the internet.  However, they actually mentioned the site’s blog, and didn’t say anything about the lists of blogs.  I guess I need to make the lists a little more obvious!

But actually, that wasn’t the coolest thing about this article.  At the very end, they mentioned a very few missions-related blogs (9, to be exact).  In that list, they mentioned just three personal missionary blogs (plus one more that was mentioned in the text of the article).  And the grand finale was – the blog of Shari’s sister, Amy – Under the African Rain!  How cool!  Here’s what they had to say about it:

This is the story of a young woman beginning her international missions career with SIM.  As men who have been working in and around missions for decades, we enjoy the fresh perspective.

So, I have a very famous sister-in-law.  And, after all, her blog is excellent!  Congrats, Amy!

At the Zoo with the Poulettes

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Trying on sombreros at La Ciudadela
At La Ciudadela

So here’s the story.  Waaaay back in 2006, before we moved to Mexico, we saw a video of the Mexico City zoo (Chapultepec Zoo) on the blog of a family (the Poulette family) who lived in Mexico City.  I attempted my own video when we went to the Calgary Zoo.  Ever since we saw the Poulette’s video, we started talking about the zoo in Mexico City, and how we should go there someday.

This year the kids got some gift money from their Uncle Jeff, Aunt Tracy, and cousins Jevon and Ashlyn.  So we decided to use it for a trip there (the zoo is actually free, but there’s gas, parking, and paying for some exhibits) (thanks guys!).  So, we started making plans.

I thought it would be appropriate if we could actually go with the Poulette family.  They’re about our age, and have a boy named Nathan about a year younger than Nathanael.  We had never met them, only read their blog, but there’s always a first time!

So, Dennis Poulette and I arranged it via email.

We went to Mexico City on Friday, and hung around downtown.  We went to a market (La Ciudadela) for some Christmas shopping, visited a park, and ate at Pizza Hut.  🙂

Hannah and Nathanael with Nathan
Nathan, Nathanael and Hannah

The next day we headed over to the Chapultepec Zoo, which is also downtown.  We met up with Dennis, Janell and Nathan, and had a great time.

The zoo is definitly world-class, boasting over 2000 animals and beautiful exhibits.  It’s famous for its pandas, but there’s lots more to see.

I put some photos in our Photo Gallery, so check them out (right now they’re in our Recent shots… album).  I have some video too, but haven’t gotten it online.

Anyway, thanks to the Poulette family for hanging out with us!  It was great to get to know them in the "real world", though, as you can imagine, it’s hard to talk too much when you’re chasing kids the whole time.  But maybe we can do it again sometime!

Dennis and Janell work with Youth Ministry International in Mexico City.  They have a passion to train trainers – who can train youth workers in Mexico!  Check out their blog – The Poulette Family, and their video blog, Mexico Movies.  Here’s their post about the event.

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