"in dry places like a river"

The presence of God is like a river in a dry place. So He has been in Ixtlan, and will be in the lives of the people there and in our lives as we journey forward. Thank you to each of you for following along with us during these years. We've reached the end of this stage in our lives and also the end of this blog. Life lessons learned on Main Street in Princeville will be chronicled at http://showersuponthegrass.blogspot.com. 

"He opened the rock, and the waters gushed out; they ran in the dry places like a river. For he remembered his holy promise, and Abraham his servant. And he brought forth his people with joy, and his chosen with gladness." Psalm 105:41-43

rehearsing all

I'm reading a book on re-entry right now. "Re-entry" is the term used to describe the process a missionary goes through when he/she returns to his/her hometown, either for a short period of time or for good. It looks different for every person and is dependent on a lot of factors, including how long the person was gone, where they lived, what they did, what has changed, how they've changed, their individual personality, etc. It's been helpful to read the book because I am finding myself experiencing some of the challenges of re-entry, although I would not have been able to define them as that without a little help.

Anyway, the book emphasizes that "missionaries" (I'll use that term, but don't necessarily like it used to describe myself), upon returning home, should "rehearse all" as Paul and Barnabas did as described in Acts 14:27: "And when they were come, and had gathered the church together, they rehearsed all that God had done with them, and how he had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles"

I don't know what your idea of a traditional missionary is, or if such a thing even exists, but certainly the past few years have not been what I thought mission work would be - for better or for worse. As I started "rehearsing all" in my own head, it was tempting to get lost in what we haven't done. There are a great deal of missionary-type-things that we didn't do. But God encouraged me to create two lists - the "We didn't..." list AND the "We did..." list. And creating both of them helped me put a lot of things into perspective.

We didn't...

• translate a Bible
• lead a village to Christ (or any one person to Christ, for that matter)
• live in underprivileged circumstances. 
• solve the problems in Ixtlan or really even know what to do about them ourselves.
• have to spend terribly long periods of time away from the U.S., our families, or the modern world. 
• have to do without water, electricity, internet, etc. very often - almost never. 
• feel successful, purposeful, capable, or qualified to be doing whatever it was that we were supposed to be doing. 

We did...

• have the privilege of seeing what structure, school, and thousands of prayers can do for a boy who was most familiar with street life
• get to be a part of the development and growth of fellowship and trust among brothers and sisters in Christ in the Ixtlan church. 
• get to watch God work mightily in the heart and life of a young man (and now a good friend), changing him completely from the inside out. 
• make friends with those in church and outside of the church and interact with the community, the neighborhood, and the school, calling Mexico "home" for nearly three years.
• hold our family together, raising our children and teaching Ivory a little Spanish. 
• build a house together; something that we've done in a couple different places now and that we feel so blessed to be able to do. 
• experience, at times, deep hurt and conflict with those around us and learn from those experiences.
• have the amazing opportunity to get to know our friends and family from the U.S. better thanks to your willingness to visit us and stay in touch with us through the blog and email.  
• help establish a sustainable plan for a Sunday School that provides a system by which a superintendent and teachers are chosen and serve. 
• keep a blog to help ourselves and others learn and grow closer to the Lord. 
• learn about ministering in a different culture and come to better understand the deep-rooted thoughts, feelings, views, personalities, etc. that contribute to success and failure in cross-cultural ministry. 

God has been so faithful.

our last sunday

Words seem inadequate to describe our last Sunday in Ixtlan and our good-byes to our church family there. It was emotional and beautiful, and really, the closure that I needed. Our family was so blessed by our friends here. Because I have very few sufficient words, and because my emotional energy still has not been replenished nearly two weeks later, I'll just leave you with the pictures (many of which I have already posted on Facebook, so you may have already seen them there). 

safely home

Yes we are... safely home. Arriving at 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday. But for me (Grant), writing a blog post is almost as exhausting as a 45 hour road trip, so it's taken me this long to get something written.

Well, Hannah in her last post gave you a general summary of what we did, so I'll just go back and fill in some of the details. Not all... but some of the details.

We departed Ixtlan at 10:00 Monday morning with all eight of us to take Hannah, Leah, and the kids to the airport. We had taken the back two seats out of the van, filled the back two high with wooden crates, laid a piece of 1/4" plywood on top of those, and then threw in (or rather shoved, pulled, ripped, and tugged in) our queen size mattress.

The "south of the border" moving team

The "south of the border" moving trailer

Gabriel (with a great display of self-sacrifice) drove to the airport to allow us three the joy of testing out the mattress setup.

Once the girls and kids got out at the airport, we spread out, stretched out our legs, and headed for the border.

somebody's excited to be heading for home

Here's a view from the bed in back. The goal was to have a place to sleep. Have you tried sleeping while pinned to the ceiling of a 12-passenger van pulling a loaded down farm trailer on Mexican roads? We basically just had contests to see how long we could stay back there without throwing up.

About 10:30 Monday night, Tristan was trucking through the desert between Zacatecas and Saltillo, when we passed a Federal police car sitting in the median. As we passed, they flipped their lights on for a second. They didn't chase us or seem like they had an expectation for us to stop, so we continued. About five minutes later though, the darkness behind us lit up with red and blue. After enjoying the light show for a few minutes, we decided to pull over and see what they wanted.

Them: "Did you know you don't have any lights in the back?"
Us: "What?!? oh look! the light connection came undone. Wow, thanks for letting us know!"
Them: "No problem...  by the way, you're getting a ticket"
Us: "Uh...."
Them: "And we're taking your driver's licence. You have to come to Zacatecas in a few days and pay your ticket and then we'll give you your driver's licence back."
Us: "Um... no. That's not going to work. We're coming from Michoacan and we're heading to Illinois!"
Them: "Well..."
Us: "Well..."
Them: "Well..."

I'll leave the rest of the details out... but basically we could look at it a few different ways.

1. We could consider it that we paid 500 pesos for electrical connection diagnostics.
2. We could consider it that two cops were low on their donut supply, and we did our good deed for the day
3. We could consider it an appreciation gift to two servant-hearted police officers who wanted to make sure nobody rear-ended us.
4. Call it what you want, we left and continued north.

Unfortunately, I don't have a photo, since nobody felt that it would improve the situation to take pictures. We did end up running into rain around Monterrey, so for the last two hour sprint to the border, we had to tarp the trailer. The tarp did keep the furniture dry, but got destroyed in the process.

We arrived to the border at 4:15 in the morning. Brent and Janelle were at a hotel across the river and arrived for the trailer transfer at 6:00. Here's some pictures of the transfer:

After finishing the transfer, Gabriel headed back to Ixtlan with the Mexican van and trailer, and the five remaining people jumped in the American van and headed north. Border crossing was as smooth as it can go, and after showering at Brent and Janelle's hotel and getting a hot breakfast at Denny's, we started trucking up I-35.

I told the moving crew weeks ago that after all of our belongings were through Mexico, transferred into a covered trailer, and across the border, I was going to just crawl into the back of the van and sleep. I try not to break my promises, so if you have any questions about the trip from Laredo, TX to 20 miles north of West Memphis, AR, you need to ask somebody else. I remember stopping for a hamburger at an In-and-Out burger joint, but that's about it.

They let me finish the trip to Mahomet. We arrived there about 9:30, dropped off B&J, picked up Hannah and the kids, and headed towards Princeville

Words cannot express how much we appreciate what Brent, Janelle, Gabriel, Tristan, Tyler, and Leah did for us to make this trip happen. We also could not have done it without your prayers. Praise God for safety, and an all-around smooth trip.

pray the way home

Because they haven't stopped except for gas and food, the crew on the road has not had a chance to update you on their progress - but I wanted you to know that things have gone incredibly smoothly for them and that can only be because of your prayers! Grant, Tristan, and Tyler, along with Gabriel Cervantes, a brother from Ixtlan, headed north yesterday afternoon after dropping me, Leah, and the kids off at the airport. We had good flights from Guadalajara to Dallas and from Dallas to Champaign, although the kids were more than ready to be done traveling:

Well... although it's awfully tempting to check him - I guess we'll carry him on since he fits. ;) This was his landing spot AFTER crawling approximately 18 miles in laps around our boarding gate (and the neighboring boarding gates) in Dallas at 45 miles per hour. Mommy and Tia were EXHAUSTED. 

... but, we'd rather do that than this:

(photo credit: B&J)

The guys met Brent & Janelle at the border very early this morning to transfer all of our belongings from the Mexico trailer to the U.S. trailer. It was looking a little bleak for them in terms of weather... as Janelle put it, after spending the night Monday night in Laredo:

"Heavy thunderstorms all through the night. Last time I looked it was at 90 percent until Thursday. This is what we woke up to:

...God provides!"

He's answering your prayers in unbelievable ways and we are so humbled by your willingness to petition on our behalf and His willingness to work miracles. After a successful border crossing, Grant, Tristan, Tyler, and Brent & Janelle have spent most of the day driving through Texas. Gabriel is heading back south with the Mexico van and trailer.

The U.S. crew will hopefully be coming through Mahomet to drop off Brent & Janelle and to pick up me and the kids sometime tomorrow mid-morning, and we will all be heading to Princeville. Thank you for your overwhelming support of our transition and for praying everyone home, and to our moving team for their sacrifices on our behalf. Words don't seem adequate, but we'll try to post more of them later!

the best is yet to come

Tristan Herrmann here. I'm the other half of the duo that came down to Ixtlan to help G+H pack along with my roommate Tyler Endress. So I'm an engineer by trade and personality (in some ways more than others). One of those ways is my writing style. My writing has zero flow to it. To forgive me how this blog moves from topic to topic with no semblance of smoothness. Anywho, without further ado, my first ever blog post.

Packing 

Tyler and I came down to Ixtlan for two reasons: to visit G+H and to help them pack. Grant, Hannah, and Leah have done a great job getting all their belongings into crates and boxes. Tyler and I have been the muscle, getting all the stuff from house to trailer/van (and I use the term muscle in the loosest sense).

Before (actually pretty cleared out, this is after about 15 crates have been moved out)

After

Tyler and I have decided that as soon as we get home, we are going to start throwing things away. It's amazing how many thing you accumulate over time. The only time you notice how much stuff you really have, is when it's time to move. My back and knees tell me that we moved a lot of stuff.

Kids

Contrary to Tyler's latest blog, I didn't hide from the grunt work / packing duties to babysit the kids all day. But hanging out with Ivory and Titus in our spare time has been pretty great. I got Ivory playing the harmonica. She's quite the natural. And quite the show off.

End of the Blog Reflections

One of my favorite quotes comes from Jim Elliot. "Wherever you are, be all there. Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God." (I often used this quote to justify not going home while in school, and to justify not traveling away from Pville much). The many thanks and tearful goodbyes this weekend have shown how much G+H have been "all there" while in Ixtlan. And it's been good to be involved this weekend, helping begin the transition of G+H's "wherever you are."

The Impending Drive

But as the great J. A. Whittaker says, "the best is yet to come." Tomorrow begins the 48 hour drive north to Pville (give or take 10 hours). It will be quite adventure I'm sure.

Peace,

TRH