Gas Strikes!

My heart is just breaking I am not sure if I can handle any more so forgive me if I am dumping but I need to get it out NOW!
Please forgive me if I offend someone it is not meant to, just to inform you!
Many have commented about the gas price it is not about that it is about the fact that it takes 6 hours of work for one gallon! For the fact that the field workers strike resulted in very little! And that many feel they should be paid a fair wage for back breaking work. I was recently in the states for 6 weeks and during that time of grocery shopping I did not see that many things were priced differently than groceries  here in Mexico. However the hourly minimum rate in the states and other countries is our daily rate for 10 hour days and actually the peso is less now. I am finding it hard to understand why people who do not even own cars are out protesting and losing money for work when those of us with cars are inside the house saving the gas for when this is all over!
Why are so few people out on the streets protesting and the roads are blocked with things not protestors!
Paulino needed to go to emergency this morning and I needed to take my mom in law to the doctor in Ensenada but since our truck looks similar to a federal police truck I did not want to tempt those who are mad at the government!
It is getting easeir for me to understand why people do things like take to the streets to get better wages, Cesar Chavez was made famous for it! However there is not much publication or press internationally around here! There is not many people saying we stand with Mexico!
We are here to change hearts and pray that as they follow Jesus and He provides their every need! They will leave poverty and have plenty to share with others while sharing Jesus with them.
Yesterday we had no rice for ourselves and I received a phone call from a friend saying are you going to be home later I am passing by your part of town! She brought tons of stuff! She seems to show up unexpected and unknowing of our needs! Paulino spent the rest of the day making up bags of food for the seniors who really need food in this cold time!
So no life is not about gas and the fact that it costs some 15 minutes of work a gallon and some 6 hours of work a gallon! IT IS ABOUT BREAKING THE CYCLE OF POVERTY!
IT IS ABOUT LOVING THEM WITH THE LOVE OF JESUS AND DOING WHAT WE CAN TO CHANGE ONE LIFE AT A TIME!

Water rising to welcome in the King!

This was how it looked the first day looking at our house from across the street! It is going to rain all week! 

One of many Paulino had to pull out of the mud! 

We care for the baby that lives in the lil brown house on the left and the pink building is our church! 

These photos are from the first day of rain! We are on our second day and it is supposed to rain for a week! Camalu has opened shelters for those that want to get out! We have a power wheelchair and breathing machines! Not so easy for Jose to live in a shelter! However we are thankful that our community has that option, if you remember in January the flood was a huge surprise and most of our town was taken out by marines! 

December 24 is Christmas here in Mexico! A huge dinner usually cooked all day over firewood, family and friends gathering at midnight to set off fireworks and enjoy the birth of Jesus! However this year was welcomed in by a flood and our neighbors are afraid! 

We are here to offer the peace of Jesus Christ the real reason for this day of celebration! We also try to help with rice, beans, clothes and blankets! Paulino loves pulling people out of the mud however he needs to go and finishing moving the women's shelter to its new home! So the fun may be mine. Yesterday I had to walk to the salon social and I seen that truly our part of town is the worst when it rains. We live in a very poor part of town and the people here own their land for the most part and do not want to leave because others may come and take their belongings! 

PLEASE PRAY FOR US AND OUR COMMUNITY! 

More of Jose Story

This morning I woke up and my devotion was on Deuteronomy 31 6! How perfect since we are always living in fear of bad health, not being able to provide for Jose and worst of all that his sister will not remember him! Although Jose loves us there is no one he loves more than Gianna! She is not yet two and she already understands that she has to reach up to him and she also knows how to help him when he can not sit himself up! 

There is a fine line separating Jose from professionals who know about Duchenne and the medicines he needs to give him a better life quality! This line also separates him from knowing his aunts and grandparents in te USA. From playing with his crazy cousins who would love him!  We took him here to this line so he could see the ocean and tried to get his dad to swim across but no go. We just wanted to see what would the immigration man do sitting in his car on the other side. This line separates people who were brought over and raised as americans all their lives and even have kids and families just an hour away. But most of all it separates my son from a better life. I would love to adopt Jose and get him to Children's hospital! However that cost starts at over $5000! And that does not mean the USA would say yes! 

Our town flooded in January and God has been doing some amazing things through that however it has also left a land very bumpy and hard for Jose to get around. His body strength pretty much does not exist so please pray we can get our land level soon and that the winds will calm and he can go outside more. He loves to play football and chase with his friends but when he had his heart attack the doctor said no activities! 

Jose new pet! No just kidding it is dead now! On our first night in TJ I was feeding Gianna around 230 am and I felt something crawling on me when I grabbed it, it grabbed me back! As I realized it was not a spider I threw it across the room hitting the wall and waking us all up. We played hide and seek and God finally put him on the floor in front of us! This is a small reminder that Luke 10 19 is true! It is also a reminder that the enemy is always looking to get us! Gianna and I finally fell asleep at 5am and had to wake up at 6am to get Jose to CRIT! The boys had no trouble falling asleep again! 

Our day was filled with specialists visits. Each asking why Jose wears a face mask and why he does not do more things like school or go to therapies near home! There was a social and financial meeting a psych and a pediatric panel of doctors. 

Although we left feeling a little discouraged we were also encouraged that two of the doctors seemed to know Duchenne! One saying he needs a new wheelchair now! The other saying he needs Heart and lung specialists! Yes and when we told them what kind of insurance we had they all frowned! Yes but God will provide we tell them and they looked at us the same the lady in the financial meeting looked at us when she says your income is less than your outcome! YES we responded but how! GOD! 

We told her our lodging was paid for by a birthday gift for Jose and it even came with amazing food! And our gas and other expenses a friend deposited cash into our bank! 

They want us to go up a few times a month but we also explained to them that Jose body can not take up to 14 hours in a car round trip and it is expensive. We will get the exams they want from the specialists and see what therapies he can do. However we also explained to them as much as we would love to live in TJ so he could be there weekly, he can not live without his family. His gramma and aunt were his mom for 11 years and his cousins his siblings. They seem to understand. It is hard to say to each doctor in front of your son that his life is too short and that the choices you make need to be in reason for him to enjoy his last days. One doctor got the learning disability problem but the others did not. 

Somedays God wakes me with a heavy heart for what my son has to hear during this time but then I am reminded that He will call Jose home one day healed and pain free. 

A bad day or a good day! You decide!

Wednesday was a really bad day or was it a good day.
I hardly ever leave Gianna but I needed to go and help a friend pack, I left during her nap time, so off I went. A few hours later I got some frantic calls from Paulino saying Jose heart was very high! I thought he was talking about blood pressure since we are still learning to take it! Well the last call was my son is dying! I said I will be right there and hung up, driving a Toyota Camry I was able to pass some cars on the road but others at the speed bumps I took the dirt road option! If you have seen the Baja 500 or Baja 1000 you can imagine what this looked like at speeds up to 120! Yes miles per hour!
I got home to find out he was already at the emergency room back in VG where I had just come from. Well Baja 1000 all over again! I got to the door of the emergency room just in time to grab Gianna out of his arms as they wheeled Jose back. I then called a dear friend who came and got Gianna just as they were sending him in ambulance to a better hospital! His heart rate was 247!
Once at the new hospital the internal specialist was called in and told us we had to go out. I explained to her my husband is Jose voice and hands and he could not leave. She explained to me she was the doctor! Well I can see that by your white coat lol! So I explained to her I would go and explain to the director so she would not be in trouble. It is a teaching hospital kind of! I went to the director who is a great man and he then came out and called me in because Jose told him no oxygen!!
He then gave us the talk in English so Jose would not understand that oxygen will not kill him, Duchenne's is doing that!
They were able to get Jose heart rate down to 130 on meds so with that they sent us home and say there is really nothing we can do for you! And then again the talk about Duchenne!
So my poor friends brought Gianna back to us. You can imagine how that was if she is never left with anyone! Bless them they did amazing and we are still friends!
Once we got home, I dropped the ipad and shattered the screen. Figured out I had ripped one of the CV boots on the car and all in all I am sure it was a good day.
If it would have been a bad day I would not be here this Wednesday folding my son's underwear and hearing him argue with me that he does not have too many underwear! He says it is because he has lots of friends and if they ever need to borrow a some he will lend them to them.

This photo is kind of what it looked like when I got to the hospital!

NEW LIFE

2016 is bringing many new things! New blessings, new friends, new open doors from God to minister in ways we could never imagine! 

Yes we are still ministering at the trash dumps and to the children of addicts and love what we do. 

It seems since the flood God has opened hearts all around us. We have been blessed with clothes and food to help to people in other parts of Camalu. 

Our first sewing class we were blessed  with two teaches and 5 students! Smiles are not culturally normaly in photos! We all loved the class even the teachers. Out of 7 machines one is working but we are looking for to Becki coming and repairing the others so the women can practice during the week.  The women will be able to sale their creations and one day even work from home. They will not need to go to the fields for 12 hours a day and leave their kids at home! 

This family came from the other part of town and brought nieghbors. The father knew Paulino years ago and heard what God had been doing in our lives. The wife came to our Christmas program with her kids and returned with the pregnant women we were able to bless with baby items. 

Please continue to pray for us and all of those God puts in our paths. The rain is coming and we are working on a plan to help others in case of flood and also to help with roof and floors to withstand the rain. 

Praising God in the storm and in the mud!

As the rainbow appears that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of His brightness all around (Ezekiel 1:28)

The road behind our house

Paulino pulling a truck full of hay out of the mud. You can see how dry it is in front of our house! A God thing! 

The road behind our house! 

Praise God this brick wall broke or who knows how flooded our land would have been. 

The sun is up lets go wash clothes! 

Our road to get to the highway! Praising God for 4x4! 

Sharing soap and clorox with the families that have mud in their houses!

We were blessed with two truck loads of wood for those who cook outside! Some will use to fix their houses! 

This guy was pulling the wood home on the bags they use for rice and beans. 

One of the seniors we found stuck in his house because he did not have boots! The water is very deep in his house you could not even tell what shoes he was wearing! 

Well I guess this will be our family photo kind of how we look in the new year! Paulino's back is still broken from carrying Jose upstairs when the flood came and then back down when the water left! 

All the women had left with their kids to the shelter while the men stayed behind to protect their houses! 

Too shallow for a boat to deep for a car! Yep guess we are staying in our houses! The marines came the next day to evacuate those who wanted to leave!

The sun rising over our new rivers it continued to rain for one week. 

During most days it was beautiful so we were able to do clothes distribution and the kids could come and play somewhere that is dry and who knows what is in the water and mud! 

This after Paulino pulled this man out.

Paulino pulling a truck full of hay out of a very big hole. 

The water in this mans house is more than 3 feet deep! There are 6 of them living in one room. Paulino is giving him soap and clorox that people have donated to help the cleaning begin! 

The first day of rain was fun for the kids but then they all went somewhere else to live because of the mud in their homes! 

The road in front of our house is nice compared to some and Jose got to go outside and sit in the patio but you can imagine it will be a few weeks before he can get out to see his gramma or friends! Electric chairs do not do well in the mud! 

We wamna do what you do!

The children of Las Palmas enjoying a birthday party for Jesus on December 26. 

Every gift we had left over from our party on Friday we took to them and as you can see the kids were blessed