New Blog

Hey, all. I've decided to go to Wordpress to start a new blog. Chalk it up to my need for change, boredom with blogspot's templates, or just the fact that I like to rearrange my furniture about every two months. Whatever the case, I'm moving to a new address. See you over there! Click here or go to www.quillinink.wordpress.com

Growing

Melodee teaching Kaitlyn to "do hair"


Here´s Miss Kaitlyn Rose on a very hot day in her "hottie" outfit
(actually just a handkerchief tied around her)


I wish I felt eloquent. As a stay-at-home mom in Mexico, I feel that I´m losing my ability to write and even SPEAK well. A couple of days ago I was hurrying Melodee out of the car and said, "Come on, hurry up, get OFF the car!" Oh, dear. This does not bode well for an English major. I need to get into some serious literature to bone-up on the "big words" that are seeping slowly from my memory. sigh. Well, at least THAT sounded the teensiest bit eloquent. Ha!

We are all well down here in the land of Coca Cola, coconuts, and cocoa trees. I swear it is down-right scary how Coca Cola can be found in the remotest of villages here in Mexico. I heard recently that Mexico is the #3 consumer of Coke products in the world, but is about to take over first place. Can you believe it? I swear, there´s probably Coke and Sprite in the jungleist jungles of Africa, but the people don´t have water. How much ya wanna bet? Along this stream of thought, we just discovered Dr. Pepper in one of the grocery stores here in town!! I immediately thought of you, Jenny. We of course bought a six-pack and TRIED to ration them, but it was very hard. They only stock about 15 at a time, so we don´t go overboard. It´s nice to have a taste that is so ´homey´considering Dr. Pepper is generally not to be had in this country. I also found Campbell´s Chunky New England Calm Chowder!! Can you believe it?? And at the same time that we discovered Dr. Peppers. It must have been a day when God said, "I´m gonna spoil Abner and Kelly." It was VERY much appreciated.

In other news, we will be heading up to Brownsville on July 1st and spending July 3rd through 11th with my family in Pleasanton. Then back to the Valley till we return to Tabasco at the end of the month. Pray for a safe flight for us, and that the girls handle the trip well. We´ll fly from Villahermosa to Monterrey, then take a bus from there to Matamoros. About a six to eight hour trip, flight and bus combined. Much better than the exhausting 21 or so hour road trip that we´ve done several times. We can´t wait to see our families! And it will be so nice to walk barefooted again; to feel grass between my toes; to not feel the impulse to check the walls, floors, and beds for spiders, ants, scorpions, etc; to eat all the yummy food I´ve been craving for some time. By the way, speaking of cravings, we are expecting our third child in October! Suprise! I thought I should let you all know since some of you will be seeing me next month, and I will look pregnant. Ha! Everything is going very well with the pregnancy, Thank God, and we´re looking at a mid-October delivery. The doctor said we should be able to tell the sex at our visit at the end of this month. Fingers crossed for a boy, but we´re good with another little princess, too. And with that, I´ll close. Kaitlyn is getting crankier by the minute and my concentration is waning. God bless!

Finally!

Oooh, I have gotten so annoyed at seeing my old, worn out blog...every time I swing in to check updates on my friends´pages I´m left with a sinking, guilty feeling that I must, must, must update my site! So here I am, almost seven months since my last post, updating the format, colors, banners, everything!! How refreshing. It´s terrible when you get bored with your own info. I still need to do something with our ministry site, but I´ll take things a step at a time.

So, to what do you owe the pleasure of this update? Well, we have finally been able to get internet at the house (hip, hip, hooray!). So I now have readily accessible-no excuses-internet service at my fingertips. It´s VERY nice...I feel so...civilized. (ha!)

There is much to fill you all in about and many pictures to post, but I´ll have to share all that next time. I was lucky to get these few kid-free moments just to refresh things and get this one up. Anyway, don´t be a stranger as I should be keeping things flowing here on the site.

Update

I am going to refer all of you to our ministry website for the latest news on what's going on down here - from the flooding to what Abner and I are working on.

Go to web.mac.com/abnerandkelly or click on my link to the right of this blog.

There are pictures of the flooding in Villahermosa that Abner took, as well as info.

Jenny, thank you for your concern and prayers. We're all ok. Please check out the site. More later!

We're Here!

Well, we've arrrived in the great state of Tabasco - our new home city of Comalcalco. We've been here exactly three weeks and have already been put to work, which is great! This Monday we will begin practices with the newly formed Praise and Worship team, and hope to be up and running for services in two weeks. We are also in the process of starting a cell group to win other musicians for Christ. Life is busy at home as well. The house is not completed and there are still workers coming in almost daily to do one thing or another. So dirt and mud and all kinds of soiling goes on constantly. I'll write about my domestic adventures some other time (complete with antecdotes from our in-house zoo).

We're adjusting fairly well. It has been raining and humid most of our time here, but thankfully God sent us a reprieve this week with a very cool front! It's been lovely for the past three days - we've even turned off our fans in the house.

Melodee and Kaitlyn are quite at home down here. No illness or strange behavior. (smile)

I'm doing alright. There is certainly some paradigm shifts going on with me, but I'm praying for His grace to guide me through it. I am TOTALLY excited about the work we are, and will be doing with the church. I'll be starting some English classes this next week, and tutoring for some of the young people in the church in the following week.

Our internet service is spotty and limited, so I will update when I can. I love hearing from all of you, so please drop a comment or send a email!

Pray for us that God will continue to give us wisdom and inspiration as we begin to work in our calling. We need divine insight and ideas to accomplish His desires. Also pray about our financial situation - many of our pledgers have not fulfilled their commitment for this month, and we need God's provision. Thanks for your love and support!