Drug Wars

I have blogged several times (here, here, and here) about the vicious drug war going on between various drug gangs and also with the military and police. Often times they are one and the same. Anyway, Time Magazine recently published an article entitled "The War Next Door," that focused on Monterrey. You may find it interesting. Click here to read the article. I described the murder of Marcelo Garza (which TIME's mentions) here. You can also see a picture gallery by clicking here. Here is one of the pictures.

In all fairness, it's not quite as bad as the article makes it sound (at least in our section of town, which is too poor to be home turf for rich gang members or corrupt police!).

Guess who's walking!

In honor of the new feature that blogspot has available, I thought I'd try to post the first video clip.

15 minutes of rain

After all that, 15 minutes of rain is all that mighty Hurrican Dean dumped on our part of Monterrey. On Tuesday night it rained about 10 minutes (very hard), and on Wednesday afternoon it rained about 5 minutes (not very hard). While some other areas of Monterrey got a bit more rain, it was nothing like what we were expecting. We are grateful for the Lord's protection. Please pray for other areas of Mexico that were hit quite hard.

Hurricane Dean

Hurricane Dean is headed this way. Thankfully it seems to have taken a more southernly route than originally predicted, so it should miss us. For a full picture update on Dean and where we are, please check out the our co-worker's, AJ Gibson's, blog.

Beginning of School Year and "Stuff"

We are already into our second week of school. We had a good spiritual emphasis week. With a strong emphasis on our service to God, we see our students ready and willing to be involved in God's work. So far we have been pleased with our enrollment. With 23 in Preparatoria and 28 in the University, we have reached our goal of 50 new students. We will also be seeing a few more students arrive in the next several days. While we would like all of our students to arrive on time, things don't always work that way!

About our "stuff," a few days ago, someone came into our front driveway area and stole our childrens' bikes. Ana and Aaron were quite devastated. They couldn't understand why it had happened. This incident served as a wonderful opportunity to help our children understand that "it's just stuff." We can still be happy and thankful even though we don't have our bikes.

I guess the Lord wanted to make sure that we were practicing what we preach because yesterday I came out of the University, got in the van, only to discover that someone had stolen our cd player out of the van. What was really amazing was that it was on the street right next to the University, between 8am and 1pm, where University students and teachers walk all the time! This is at least the fourth car that has been broken into in the last several months. Someone, apparently pretty well known in our environment, seems to be picking on church people. They also took the gate opener, which means they can open the front gate of our house. We hope to be able to re-program the opener shortly.

We are grateful for all the "stuff" that God has blessed us with. And while we are disappointed when people take it, "it's just stuff," and we have many larger blessings that we are thankful for.

In-service and new school year

Since Wednesday, we have had Dr. Nick Uwarow here carrying out in-service with our faculty. Dr. Uwarow, who grew up in Venezuela, now teaches at BJU. We have been instructed and challenged by his wisdom and experience. One of the things that we have all noticed is his love for the Lord and for ministry. Not only does he teach at a Christian University, but he reaches out beyond his "official" ministry. He takes mission teams to Ukraine. He travels to schools to advise and teach. He ministers in the Spanish ministry at Hampton Park. He reaches out to students, who know that he cares for them and go to him for counseling. Not only does he know what he is talking about educationally, but he is a wonderful model for our faculty here at UCLA.

Classes begin for us on Monday. We are all busily scurrying around trying to get ready for the new school year. We have been very encouraged with the pre-enrollment this year. Many students do not pre-enroll, but this year we have seen more students pre-enroll than any year until now. We pray that it indicates a strong enrollment. We will find out in the next few days!

Thank you for your prayers. Please continue to pray that we will have a good enrollment, in quantity and quality. Also pray for our first week of class, which is our spiritual emphasis week. Our emphasis throughout the year will be on service. After focusing on God's character and work (last semester's emphasis), we should be motivated to serve Him in every area of our lives.