Merida Still in our Prayers & Our Hearts!

Hola!
It's been almost two weeks since we returned from Merida, but our hearts are still there! We are so thankful for the connections we made and look forward to building upon them. Please join us as we continue to keep Merida and Shalom Church in our prayers.

Blessings,
Leslie :-)

Thank You God and thank you!

Well.. we made it back to the ATL. But I think we all might of left a bit of hearts in Merida. We all had a great time and I know I feel closer to God, and I think we accomplished our mission.. to connect spiritually and relationally with Shalom Church through prayer and Fellowship. We all will have Shalom in our prayers forever..

We all discussed how difficult it is to verbal express much we enjoyed this mission and how we all feel truly connected to Shalom, Merida and the Yucatan. I hope these stories and pictures in this blog can give you all a little flavor for how we all felt God this past week.. but know that in person it was 100 times more beautiful and alive.

And I just want to give thanks to Gabby for all of his hard work. Thanks for driving us and showing us your beautiful city. God work wonders in you! We cannot give you enough thanks.

Thanks to Genny for driving and showing us Merida.. and helping us with our spanish.. you make us all want to learn more spanish.

And thank you Christy! It was wonderful to meet you, and you are going to have a wonderful summer working with the groups at Shalom.. I can truly see God working in you. You are going to be a presence at Georgia this fall!

Thanks for you leadership Leslie. Your hard work and sense of humor made this trip wonderful. We could of not had a better leader!

Thanks for your protective eyes Alan.. I know it made me more relaxed knowing that you were there!

Thanks you for all your translating Laura. It was a lot of work for you.. but it was really great and to have some one so skilled in Spanish on our team.

Greyson.. Thank you for your interpretive dances and your humor. Every time I hear some songs on my Ipod I will go into the Mayan Shuffle, the Oxxo slip, and Painting jig amongst others.

Jennifer.. thank you for you knowledge of being on other missions. I loved see Gods love work thru you.

And thanks to me for keeping the blog up!

If you read this blog.. please remember to pray for Shalom Church and Merida and the Yucatan. We meet some wonderful people this week and I have their prayers in my heart at all times.. Merida is a truly beautiful city and Shalom church is filled with people passionate for God and his Word. I feel truly blessed for being on this team.. and having the pleasure of seeing and learning all I did about God and the people of the Yucatan.

Wondrous God Friday

Friday morning we were all a bit sad that it was our last day in the Yucatan, but we are all excited to go home.

We all enjoyed our last breakfast at the hotel.. the food was great.. but it was always a bit of a surprise what they might bring out. :) I lead us in our daily devotional that was based on Psalm 92.. praise got all day and night and truly being in fellowship with God and with your fellow believers. I have found it wonderful to have an entire week with to spend in fellowship with my brothers ans sisters in Christ.

Genny and Christy picked us up around 9:30 and we headed out to Cuzama tres cenotes . It was a trip to get to the Cenotes.... There are over 3000 cenotes in the Yucatan.. and they are unique to the Yucatan. Brief lesson.. there are no above ground rivers or lakes on the Yucatan peninsula.. but there are underground rivers and lakes... and the cenotes are places where caves have have formed around the lakes. To get to the Tres Cenotes you drive though these villages that make me realize how much God has blessed me with comfortable soundings and safety in where I live.

The Cenotes are beautiful. God did some extra fine work on the Cenotes. I did not bring my camera.. so I don't have any pictures.. but you can visit this web site which gives you some pretty good picture. http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Mexico/Yucat%E1n/Merida/blog-57560.htmlorth-America/Mexico/Yucat%E1n/Merida/blog-57560.html. We all had a fabulous time swimming the crystal blue water and jumping off of the platforms.. The 3rd Cenote was a bit scary... but we all went in. I would recommend a trip to Yucatan just to visit the cenotes.. they are truly beautiful.. and it is really hard to understand their true beauty in photos.. so you will just have to visit them your self. We stopped for lunch on the way out at this resturant that serves the world's best guacamole. I might just go back for for the the guacamole. It was a beautiful day to be a witness to God's wonderful creations.

After lunch we headed back to pack and to have our final dinner.

For our final dinner we went out to dinner at

Las Pariallas. It was great! We had dinner with Gabby and his family and Paloma. The food was delicious and I think we were all glad to be able to have time to say thank you and say our good byes. Leslie was especially glad to have more time to be with Paloma. Please say a special prayer for Paloma. She has battled cancer in the past and has another surgery upcoming... and prayers for health for her would be great.

God answers prayers Thursday

Thursday was another awesome day in Merida. At breakfast Laura gave us some reading out being being Church and and how it is important to be in fellowship with fellow Christians.. which we are all living this week!
We then headed to pastor Joel's house to do some painting.. (make sure you pronounce it the Mexican way, drop the J.. it sounds like the word Noel.. minus the N) Which was fabulous. Joel is a pastor that works primarily with a different church, but also helps out Shalom with the groups that come down to Merida. He has a fablous family, with 7 beautiful children. Laura, Jennifer,Alan and Christy painted the outside a great orange, while Leslie, Grayson and I stayed out of the sun and painted inside with Gabby and Joel, and Joel's daughter Pasty... It was really alot of fun.. Laura and Christy both were competing for the winner of getting the most paint on their person's.. and Christy won by some how getting paint in her socks..
While the first coat was drying we all sat down and had a snack of fresh fruit... and we all just loved the mango's..Leslie our fearless leader was brave enough to try one with chile pepper.. I think I will just take her word that it was good.We then headed out to paint our second coat of paint on our walls.. and when we were done we all all pretty proud of ourselves.I was glad that Gabby and Joel were inside to help with the edging and corners.
While we were waiting for lunch we washed out the brushed and explored their back yard..(thanks for all the brush washing Alan,Christy and Laura!) which was was great.. They had several fruit bearing trees.. and we got to try a green orange.. (That it's name, a green orange. :)) a lime and some pomegranantes. I think Jennifer was loving all the fresh fruit. Then Laura taught Leslie, Pasty, Rebecca (Joel's daughters) and I how to play spoons.. The game translated well, and every one had a great time. Lunch was great.. chicken, salsa.. the ever present tortillas and I learned a great way to eat chips.. try lays potato chips with picked purple onions.. sounds a little strange.. but it was muy delicious!
After lunch and some prayers we headed for the Beach.. and it did not look promising.. It looked like we were going to have a Yucatan rain storm. We were all praying for some relaxing beach time.. and God was absolutely amazing. It took about 40 mins to drive to the beach from Joel's house.. and it was pouring hard rain the entire drive to the beach and it was not looking to promising.We park at the beach and it was still raining.. but we all start to get out of the car.. by the time the last person was out ofthe van.. the rain stopped! The sun even started to show it self. We all got to spend about an hour and a half sharing the wonderfulbeach at Yucatalan with a group of school children.. then we all head back to the van... and as we started to pull away.. the rainstarted back up. So thank you God for letting us enjoy your wonderful work at the beach today! Gracias! mucho Gracias! On the way back from the beach we stopped at a coconut stand and tried some coconut water, coconut flan, coconut pie and coconut meat.. I thought I did not like coconut.. but as it turns out.. I really only like fresh coconut. And after a stop at the Oxxo in Progresso for Ice cream (we run on snacks!) we headed back for Merida for some down time to get ready for our last night of fellowship and prayer with the Shalom leadership teams.

Leslie and Grayson headed out to Ruben and Julia to meet and pray for their Mundo Este. Which is their KidStuff. Their prayers are for work life, church balance, for more volunteers and for the for more funding for their ministry. Alot of blessings for the people that they have connected via Mundo est, and for the talents that people have been able to develop.

Alan and Laura went to Gaddy's house to learn about shalom's basketball mministry. They had a

great time connecting with Gaddy's family and had a great time sharing stories and jokes. Some of the prayers for the basketball ministry included more christian coaches so the ministry can really be a place where kids can mature and that it can be a place of light for God.

Jennifer and I headed to Landy's house to meet the some of the small group leaders. We also had a wonderful time learning about their prayers and concerns for their small groups. They need more leaders and for the groups to mature and grow.

It is hard to really capture our evenings via this blog.. but know that we have all had a wonderful times having the opportunities to meet with the members of Shalom church has been great.

And we all have alot more prayers in our hearts.. and we can all share prayers and stories with you..

And we all want to say HI to our families!

Post Card Beautiful Wednsday

Wednesday was a muy beautiful day here in the Yucatan... the kind of day people make post cards of. I am sure that the pictures do not do it justice.. but I hope you can get a flavor for the city.
This morning we all debriefed on our dinners from Tuesday.. I think every one had a great time..and it is definitely a learning experience. Then Jennifer lead us on a devotional that was based on Ephesians 1:4. For he Chose us in Him before the creation to be holy and blameless in his sight. God has a plan for every one.. and all of us on this trip.. so we are all trying to remember that and go along with the ride God has planned for this trip.. And so far that has worked out well!
Today we went to the museum of history.. I could spend a life time studying the history of the Yucatan and its people.. and I would not even scratch the surface. Today's little tidbit is(to debunk what the new Indiana Jones Movie taught us) the ruling class of the Mayans changed the shapes of their heads (by putting babies heads in some type of contraption before the plates in the head become hard) so that the farmers and workers would believe that they were Gods. That is why you see pictures with elongated shaped Mayan heads.. there are a couple other muy interesting tidbits.. ask one of us, and we will tell you some stories!
After the museum we headed to Shalom to have some time of prayer with some of the Staff.If you would like to join in our prayers, please pray for more small group leaders, more people that can lead their worship bands, so that they truly connect with the children they serve, that Genny's mother who lives far away and is not doing well in health is healed and that Gina has can fit all she has to do in her day in a day. We then all prayed and I think it went well.. and that the pray time is translating.
Then we hung about Shalom and had lunch and we all laughed and told stories and connected... and Alan played basketball with the superstar kids.. Diego and Daniella.
We headed back for siestas... and some headed straight to the pool and Greyson, Leslie and I headed to the free art museum in the square and our favorite little shop with the best prices..and when we got back we all were at the pool for a bit to soak in God's glorious day here in Merida before dinner.

And to say that every one had an awesome time at dinner would be an understatement. We all split up again and went to different houses for dinner. Greyson and I (Molly) went to Nancy house to have dinner with the children's ministry leaders, Jennifer and Laura had dinner with the leaders of the singles, and collage, and high school and ministries and Alan and Leslie had dinner with the Married and Lady's leaders.. along with some children ministry people as well.

Greyson and I had an small group of 6 women in total (including us) and we really got to talk a lot about serving with children and the joy and what they teach us and how great it is to work with the group that will be leading the future.. Their pray request were for more leaders and more space and to the move to the 11 am service goes well.. Greyson and I both commented on how similar are pray request were for the children that we all serve.. and how much we all love working with the kids.

Jennifer and Laura also had a great night.. but a much bigger crowd and they had a fabulous time connecting the singles and collage aged ministry leaders.. their prayers included the need for more leaders as more space and for all of the leaders to have a heart of service, and to see their youth's relationships with Christ grow . Laura was also really amazed their passion in the leaders prayer life. That there was a sense of urgency in their prayers..

Alan and Leslie meet with the married and lady's group and they also had similar prayers for more leaders and more time and space. Alan was really struck by how much our Mexican friends

thanked them for coming and that they were having a night of fellowship and pray as they do not get together like this often... and how similar all of our prayer request are.. that we

are all more similar then different. Alan also had a great story about how Shalom church is

teaching other churches in the area about kid stuff and other ministries that we do at

Buckhead.. and how amazing it is that God is everywhere.. and that to see his love grow through relevant ministries is simply awesome.

To sum up the evening of Fellowship and prayer. God was every where in Merida tonight, and we all feel extremely blessed for getting to be a small part of God bigger plan here in Merida.

Tuesday!

Tuesday started off with Grayson and Laura heading out on a run again.. that is dedication
And at Breakfast Grayson lead our daily devotional.. and it was very appropriate .. it was missionaries... and what it means to be a missionary. What Grayson went over was found in Romans 1 18-20 and she talked about that the bible does not say that to be a missionary that yyou need to go and do 'works'.. (granted, to do that is great if you can) but to be a missionary is to go and share your heart and you faith with other and to truly connect with them. And we are definitely doing that! When we all leave here, the people of Shalom church, Merida, The Yucatan, and Mexico in our heart and in our daily prayers.

After breakfast we headed out to tour the City.. Merida is muy beautiful! The pictures do not do it justice.But I will try and give you all a small flavor.

My favorite story is how this area of Mexico got its name. The story goes.. When the Spanish arrived they saw some Mayan fisherman and the Spanish called out.."what is the name of this place?"The Mayans looked at each other and had no idea what the Spanish were saying and yelled back"What are you saying?" in Mayan. and in Mayan "what are you saying sound like "Yu Ca tan" so the Spanish though the Mayans where answering the question with the name of the place instead of saying "Que?" (what?!)

After the tour we went to Shalom and meet a local historian who told us the religious history of this area from colonial times to now.. which was very interesting.. (as I love history) Evangelistic churches arrived in the Yucatan in the 1880s and have grown since then.. Today they make up at 9 percent of the population.. about another 15 percent are non Christians and the rest Catholic.. It was fascinating to me as I have done some research on religious history my self.

After that we had lunch at Shalom church and connected with some of the Shalom staff members.. it is very fun! It is amazing to me how humor translates across languages.. people were laughing and all sharing stories. And the best part was Alan got to play some basketball.. he may not realize but Diego is on of Shaloms basketball stars!

For dinner we all split up and went to the different leaders houses. Greyson and I went to Gabby's. Alan and Leslie went to Chocho's and Laura and Jennifer went to Wilbar's. We all had great time.. I think we at times felt maby a little intimidated as we are all new friends.. But we all had good times where we all shared jokes, good food and prayers and when we go home we will all have the prayers for Merida, Shalom and our new friends in our hearts.

If you all want to share with the prayers.. please pray for secruity for Merida...it is a pretty safe city but it is expereniencing growth and an increase in crime. And to pray for Shalom adding a 3rd service in September.

historia del maya y del Yucatán

On Monday morning, Greyson, Laura and I ventured out bright and earlier again for some exercise, (they ran, I walked as my theory is , only run when chased). It was only 6:30, and to me it was amazing how many people where out on the street. A typical schedule is up early, and have a light breakfast, followed by the work or school or other stuff.. a late lunch... and then work is over around 3 in time for a Siesta. Siestas are becoming less common here says Gabby.. and the typical time for dinner is after 8. I think I would love an afternoon nap as a habit.. but I am not sure if I could eat dinner that late. It would take some getting used to.

At breakfast Alan lead our devotial.. and it was pretty amazing at it was on the same topic as the sermon at church the pervious day... amazing how God does that!

then we headed out to learn a great deal about Merida and the Mayan city that was here before the Spanish got to Mexico, and it was very interesting! If you want to hear some interesting tibits about the history of Merida.. ask one of us face to face..

Some of the more interesting factoids.. Merida was built on the site of a Mayan city.. and they actually used the stones from the 5 pyramids to build the churches and some governmental buildings.. this was around 1580's (i made have the date off by a couple decades.. sorry!) and it is the oldest church in all of the Americas. The inside of the church is pretty devoid of pictures because during the Mexican Revelotion the general distroyed part of the church and removed some of the artifacts.. And the church is the home of the the black christ.. which is a crucifix that was in a fire.. but it was not destroyed, the only change was the wood became black..

Ok.. done with my Merida history leason save to say that this city and the people have been here much longer then any of our families have been in the USA!

After we learned all about the square.. we started journey to

Chichén Itzá . It was about an two hour car ride and it

was fun to talk to Gabby. We had lunch in the town right out side of Chichén Itzá and then we headed in.. luckly for those that sunburn easily it was cloudy and it actually started to rain when we were half way thru the tour. We are experiencing the rain that the Yucatan normally gets in July. In June it typically rains for about a half an hour an stops.. But we have had two days of four hour rain storms. And it is supposed to rain today... I guess when we prayed for good weather, God is blessing us with cooler then normal afternoons due to rain and not getting burnt.. :)

After Chichén Itzá we headed back to Merida . On the trip back Gabby and I discovered that we both like ABBA and the Beatles as we Itripped it back to town. After a little rest we went out to dinner with Gabby to this great little resturant where we discover too much Coca Cola can make Laura and Greyson do some creative intrurptive dancing.. never a dull moment with this crowd!

I think we are all excited about praying today and splitting up and going to the different leaders' houses.

We have all been bless with knowledge about this area and the people that should really help us connect with the Shalom leaders!

and Just a plug.. I really feel bless for being on this trip with this group.. I love their senses of humor and seeing Gods love in all of them.