Christmas Party

Today we had our Christmas party in Lomas Bonitas. The children were so excited. They were jumping around hugging each other and us, screaming, and falling on the ground. Wednesday they made picture frames and I took pictures of each one individually. The first thing we did today was to glue the pictures to the decorated frames. They turned out very nice. The children had requested pizza so we arranged for a pizza place to open early so that we could fulfill their request. One of the pizzas that we ordered was a Mexican pizza that has sauce, cheese, beans, chorizo, and jalapeños. They also wanted chicken mole. So we served that with rice and corn tortillas. And no paryt is a Mexican party without a piñata, so we had that and candy bags made up to give apart from the candy in the piñata because that's how they roll here in Mexico. When Franciscisca (not in this photo) broke the piñata the kids dove for the candy while she was still swinging and one reveived a blow to the head and another one a blow to the hand. All in all we had a great time.

New president

Today a new president was installed in Mexico. For the past six years Vicente Fox has been the president and today Felipe Calderón was installed as president for the next six years. When a new president takes office every six years on December 1st, it is a national holiday. There have been major arguments and physical fights over the installment of this president. Official tallies indicated Felipe Calderón as the victor after the July 2 election, but due to ballots being found in two garbage dumps his opponent Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador rejected Calderón as the winner. To make a several months long story short, in September Mexico's special electoral court unanimously declared Felipe Calderón president-elect of Mexico. Obrador then said he would create an "alternate government," and called Calderón an "illegitimate president." And this is what all of the fighting has been about. But despite all of the protests Felipe Calderón took his oath of office with the support of the outgoing president Fox.

The children that we are teaching are from the ages of 5 - 12 years old. It's like our own "Little House on the Prairie" school. We learn one alphabet letter per week, a color per month, and a shape per month. We always review numbers up to 20, the months of the year, days of the week, and the seasons. Next week we will start on the letter 'Ch', pronounced che, which comes between 'C' & 'D'.

We hope to not only teach the children academics, but also good manners, good hygiene, and good social skills. We desire to be there for them while their parents are away working long hours in the fields. They only earn about $12 per day per person so many times they will take their children with them because they can also work and earn money for the family. Fortunately, the school attendance is pretty constant. I pray that the parents will see the benefits of allowing their children to get an education. I know it's hard for them to think of the future and not just the here and now. Many of them can only see that their children can bring more income into the household today and they don't think of the fact that an education will enable them to earn more money when they are of age.

I Thank God for this opportunity to serve Him and Mexico in this way.

Please pray for wisdom for Ana and I. Also for patience for me as I still have a hard time with the way many things are here in Mexico.

Kimyco

Hello all.
Here's what I've been up to lately. I had to give up my classroom in the village of El Zorrillo (the skunk) to make room for the new pastors that arrived to pastor the church there. I was very sad to say goodbye to my kids and they were not happy about leaving either.

Now myself and my friend Ana are giving classes three days per week to children in Lomas Bonitas who do not have the necessary papers to register in the public school system. These children are from Oaxaca or their parents are. Spanish is the second language for most of them. Throughout our day in the village we will hear much Mixteco spoken among the children. There are about three children that only understand a little Spanish so we use other students in the class to translate for us. We have started with the basics since these children have never been to school. We are teaching them the alphabet, numbers, colors, shapes, etc...

http://www.eocyugo.blogspot.com