this is the view from rocio's house. we had a heat wave this weekend...it's been cold in the mornings and at night but saturday and sunday were HOT. apparently this is not the case in new york...

friday i had to go to the hospital with martin. becky usually goes with him, but she went to the states for a mexican medical open house. chuy did school alone, which was good for him to experience, and he also did a great job! we talked about it after and he was exhausted but had them do a great craft and the kids said it went well.
we left mimi at the hospital and she's still there - she has a ton of water on her brain and has since she was born. the xrays are just unbelivable - none of the doctors understand how she's alive, let alone eating and responsive. her head is about the size of soccer ball, and a solid 4/5 is water, with her tiny little brain at the bottom. anyways, she's been having some neurological problems with mini seizures, a really tense body, and grinding her teeth, so hopefully they will figure out what's wrong and get her the right medecines.
we picked up medecine for some other kids and one of our poor constipated babies got looked at too :/
i saw teddy's dad at the hospital, someone from laerma's church who spoke english, and another guy from a neighboring rehab. it was really cool to recognize faces!
it was great to spend some time with martin. he's also a pastor and has worked at gabriel house for 3 years. he taught the school before we got the conafe program, does a lot of therapy with the kids, and is the all around handy man with just about everything. he's got such a great heart and is an evangelist, let me tell you. he's really passionate about gabriel house and the kids, and it was really good for me to hear his stories and testimonies about his time at gabriel house. we spent almost 7 hours at the hospital for 3 appointments, which apparently is quite normal. the good thing is we got all the medecine and appointments we needed.

friday night paco and i worked on my message for the young adult class on saturday morning...i asked him to translate for me because i knew i wouldn't be understood as well as i needed to be. what our friday night study session turned out to be was him reading a sentence in english, not understanding it, me saying it in spanish, and him translating my spanish to correct spanish. it was hilarious, but took like 2 and a half hours for a 20 minute message. eek.

it went well on saturday morning, and it was really fun to be able to teach. the week that marta asked me to teach i was reading james chapter 2, about faith without works, and kind of rediscovering that passage again. i was underlining and writing down verses that i liked, and i realized i underlined or wrote down almost the whole chapter! i knew that was what i would teach about...faith without works. i found a great story online about swimming and not knowing how and learning all about it but still not jumping in...or something like that. i have the text of the lesson if you want to read it - just email me and let me know!

rocio and i spent the afternoon hanging out and getting some more supplies. i haven't hung out with her in awhile so it was good to spent more than a couple minutes with her. she's so funny. such a 17 year old. i asked her how she was doing and she did that, 'oh, i'm fine," with a big sigh and eyes that begged to be asked for more. she told me she found out this week that she has asthma, and everyone on her dad's side has it, and she can't box, run, or sing anymore. i feel bad for her, obviously, but i don't understand how she was able to do all this stuff before, but all of sudden, with this diagnosis, she isn't able to do it now! we spent awhile trying to figure that out, and she couldn't tell me. not sure if it was because of the language or she really doesn't know...but now she has an inhaler. apparently no one here has asthma, so i tried to explain to her that tons of people in the states have it and it doesn't affect most people too severly. that was news to her, so hopefully she can feel a little better about herself now...

church today - rosa preached about the armor of God in isaiah 44. it was great - she's a strong preacher. she doesn't mess around and she makes sure that everyone understands what she's saying. it's a very good thing, though, because that should happen when a preacher is preaching :)

teddy, alex, and tonio got to go to church today with becky, kim, and chloe. they had a great time...it's the same church their sister goes to so they got to see her, too. teddy got scared and started crying during the drama, tonio fell asleep during the sermon, and alex almost jumped out of his chair while people were clapping during the altar call. other than that they had a great time and were so excited to tell me about it when i got back this afternoon. we have a hotel shuttle size bus that was donated that doesn't have insurance right now...we're in the process of getting that and hopefully when we do we can take lots of kids to church every week!