Reino Animal: AKA Animal Kingdom!

Last week, we went to "Reino Animal," which means "Animal Kingdom." It is a park with a petting zoo, drive thru safari and lots of other cool animal exhibits. We went with a fellow missionary named Diane, and we all had a great time!
Here are Diane, April and Malachi checking out the dairy cows.

Malachi really responds well to animals and he really enjoyed petting all the various animals at the park.

I thought for sure Malachi would be a little afraid of the goats because they were a little pushy and rambunctious, but he liked them too!
Here's Malachi looking out expectantly as we went on the safari...

It was really beautiful there and we saw lots of cool animals, a bird show, and a dog show! So all in all, a great outing and praise the Lord!

The Meenans...

This is Bill and Ruth Meenan with Malachi. As I mentioned in an earlier post, a little while ago we went to our annual general meeting and Bill and Ruth were some of the U.S. volunteers that came for the week to do vacation bible school with all the missionary kids while their parents were in meetings. Bill and Ruth worked in the nursery and they took care of our baby all week long! They are a wonderful couple and so very patient. Not only did they take excellent care of Malachi, but one night in an attempt to thank them for all their hard work, we took them out to dinner and they had to endure Malachi projectile vomiting all over his parents! That's always appetizing! Anyway, Bill and Ruth thank you so much and God bless you both!

Super Baby Returns!

Now that Malachi is actually a year old his Superman outfit actually fits him! So you know I couldn't pass up an opportunity to have a Superbaby photo shoot!

See, this is marital compromise in action: I want Malachi to like superheroes, and my wife wants him to like horses. But why can't he like both?

Baptism Bonanza!!!

Well, praise the Lord, people keep on following the Lord in obedience and getting baptized! A few weeks ago, we had four baptisms, with three of them being from Guadalupe's family! "Who is Guadalupe?" you ask. Well, she is the lovely lady in this picture and she was the first of her family members to receive the Lord and be baptized.
Here is one of Guadalupe's granddaughters, Nadia, about to take the plunge.

You've got to give these folks credit. Most baptistries in the U.S. are indoors and heated. And while we put all the hot water we had into this wading pool, it was still pretty cold! Good thing the Holy Spirit's there to warm people up!
Here's another of Guadalupe's granddaughters, Paula, about to be baptized. Her boyfriend, Eric, could not be there this day, but he also has received Christ!
This is Nadia's baby brother, Abraham, being held by Abby Crino. He, obviously, did not get baptized, but he is so cute I thought he should get a picture in this post.
The last person to be baptized on that day was Carla. She and her boyfriend, Julio, had accepted the Lord a little while back and she thought it was time to take the next step.
You just know she's thinking, "You're not really going to dunk me in here, are you?!"

And here are all the lovely ladies post baptism...
And here are all the ladies from our house church all together!
Here, from left to right are: Antonio, Michael, Julio, Carla, and Brenda. Michael was actually the one that began to share with Julio when Julio drove Michael to school in his taxi! See, you just never know how and when the Lord can use you!
And here is Lupe with most of her family! Not everyone could make it for various reasons.

Happy First Birthday Malachi!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, so technically, this post should've been last month being that Malachi's birthday is July 14th, but, hey, better late than never, right?! Anyway, this post is dedicated to Malachi's first birthday, and these first shots are of his opening his gifts when he first woke up that morning.
Here's his new baby cel phone. Sometimes he likes it and other times when you give it to him to play with he throws it aside with disdain! But when he tries to talk into it, it is pretty darn cute!
For those of you who have never met Malachi, (which, admittedly, is pretty much everyone being that we live in another country) he loves cups. He loves to drink from cups, play with cups, throw cups, etc. So, we bought him some stackable plastic cups for his birthday and he loves them!
After the opening of the presents we took Malachi to "El Papalote," which is a really awesome children's musuem here in Mexico City. Outside, they had some really cool fountains which Mr. baby seemed to thoroughly enjoy!

What was really cool about the children's museum is that they had a bunch of completely padded areas with age appropriate toys so Malachi could crawl and walk around completely freely and have all the fun he could stand!


The baby play areas even had tunnels and what not, so you know he had fun!
They also had all kinds of tricycles, strollers and other fun stuff you could use to push your child around in!

They had an old fire truck, ambulance and mail truck as well that kids could explore.

After the children's museum, we returned home and Malachi had the delicious cake that his mommy made for him!


Then, the following Saturday at our house church meeting, everyone had a party for Malachi!

Work Report...And a Change in Work!

Ok, so as usual, I haven't posted anything on here in a while, but in case you hadn't noticed, there has been a change in the posting patterns of late: I usually just post a bunch of stuff over a couple of days once a month. So, while the regularity has diminished, the quality of the content hopefully has not. Anywho, on to business:

We went to our annual general meeting recently (that's when all the missionaries in a given area get together for a week of meetings, spiritual encouragement, etc.) in Leon, Mexico. (Which is a nice place by the way, and is the leather capital of Mexico). While we were there, Todd Beel, the supervisor for all missionaries in the entire country of Mexico, asked April and I if we would consider taking a new position. Basically, here's the situation, there's tons of jobs on the books requesting missionaries to take positions as church planters throughout Mexico. However, for various reasons, people are not responding to these requests. So, it will be our job to travel to the various mega cities (cities with populations of over 1 million people, and there are a bunch in Mexico) and work with the missionaries there and generate videos and online media that will promote the jobs available and demonstrate the need for more laborers in this harvest field. Indeed, it was this very scripture, Matthew 9:35-38, that made us decide to take this new position:

35Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. 36When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."

So, there you have it. We will still live in the same place and do evangelism and other related activities, but the focus of our work will be radically different. So, please be in prayer for us, but more importantly, please be in prayer that God will send more workers into the harvest field of Mexico! Also, if you'd like to see the beginnings of my online promotional endeavors, click on the following links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O9u0VIbzdw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01rw0HJu_5I&feature=related

Now, I realize that some of the text in these videos is hard to read, but keep in mind, I had no idea what these would look like when I uploaded them to Youtube, so hopefully, future videos will be better! Well, stay tuned for pictures and more... till next time!

Malachi in June and July

Well, as everyone knows, no month of blogging would be complete without some pictures and updates about our little cutie pie, Malachi! So, as I always recommend, enjoy these pictures and bask in the cute glow of our little baby!

Whenever we do something Malachi doesn't like, he calls us losers! We want to get him in trouble, but he's so funny we have a hard time keeping a straight face. (He doesn't really call anyone a loser, it's a joke!)

This is one of Malachi's favorite expressions. Whenever he's particularly happy or just wants to get a reaction out of you he wrinkles his nose and blows air out of it and it is absolutely hilarious!

Malachi is a big fan of our dog, Chispa, and so one day we decided to let them play together in his crib. They both thoroughly enjoyed it!